Rescuing Democracy in the United Kingdom from our current Elected Dictatorship
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Spin,
not face-to-face confrontations with the voters, is the Government's
chosen method of communication. Ordinary people are dangerous. Ordinary
people might ask a question which throws a politician 'off message';
the Cabinet member might reveal himself or herself to be a human being
like us, and not a programmed android. Worse still, he or she might
tell the truth.
Ann Leslie - Daily Mail, September 16, 2004
Blair wants to leave his
mark on history - looks more like a stain to me.
Peter Thorndyke, Diss,
Norfolk - Daily Mail, May 23, 2005
I know I'm me - why do I
need an ID card?
"Sorry, officers, I
don't have an ID card. I never applied for one. It seemed a bit steep
at 300 quid. I do have my free passport, my driving licence and my
London freedom travel pass, each with my photograph. I have my NHS
medical card, with its lengthy number, given me at birth, my RAF
service book with my Armed Forces number, and a chit authorising me to
wear a few gongs -including a General Service Medal with Malaya bar,
for fighting communist terrorists on behalf of my country, or so they
told me.
"I've also got various credit
cards and store cards, all with my signature on the back, generally
good for buying the everyday requrements for life as well as the odd
luxury. If you decide to arrest me, I suppose I'll have to be
photographed and given another number, besides my PINs.
"I'm afraid I haven't got a
pension book; it was taken away."
"By thieves, sir?"
"No ... well, not exactly. By the
Government. By the way, may I see your warrant cards please, gentlemen?"
Oh dear, they've disappeared. E.
Harry Gumer, Romford, ESSEX - Daily Mail, June 1, 2005
NO means NO
When does NO mean MAYBE?
When it's not the answer the EU wants. With the courageous French
NON resounding in their ears, shabby, undemocratic self-interested
leaders of Europe propose ignoring the part of their precious
constitution that requires ratification by all members and
continuing without one of the biggest founder members to
prevent derailing the gravy train.
As in Ireland,
they refuse to accept any NO votes, ignoring the will of the people,
and re-stage votes until they can engineer the 'correct' answer. Sadly,
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw dances to their tune like a puppet on a
string. With tactics such as these, how can anyone really believe the
EU has our interests at heart. Letter from Steve Penny, Kingsnorth, Kent - Daily
Mail, June1, 2005
Surely
the French result makes the £1million the EU recently spent on a
treaty signing ceremony seem a trifle premature and extravagant. Letter from Keith Wiseman, Bury, Lancs. - Daily Mail,
June1, 2005
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Britain has
traditionally been one of the biggest net contributors to the EU
because we do not get as much money back from Brussels in farm and
regional subsidies as our rivals.
According to
Treasury figures, between 1995-2002, Britain's average contribution
taking the rebate into account, was £2.6billion, or £43.55
per head of population.
The French -
the biggest recipient of farm subsidies - contributed £1billion a
year or £16.08 per head of their population.
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April 17, 2006 (1073 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2376US - 104UK - >60,000? civilians - 25 media
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Tony
Blair should know that respect comes by example - from the
top. If a country's leader has no respect for the rule of
international law and no respect for the truth, how can
he expect anyone to have respect. Letter
from P.J.Atkinson, Ashford, Kent - Daily Mail, January 12,
2006
The
Chancellor's single greatest act of vandalism in almost
nine years in office has been his wanton destruction of
Britain's private retirement industry. By slapping a massive
tax on pension funds, now worth
£7.3billion a year, he has helped to turn
the best private retirement industry in Europe into a basket-case
in perpetual crisis. Together with the adoption of European
accounting rules - which make it much riskier to operate
a company pension scheme - hundreds of firms have shut their
final salary plans to new employees and slashed benefits
to existing staff.
From
Allister Heath: "I've seen the future and its grey"
in THE SPECTATOR - April 15, 2006
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We'll
continue to pay in blood and the peace of mind of ordinary people
until we come to our senses over the loss of control of our borders
By
Max Hastings - Daily Mail, May 4, 2006
When
a British citizen commits a crime, we are stuck with them. We
must pay the cost of their imprisonment and probably of benefits
after their release. We have a duty to our own people in sickness,
in health and even in crime.
Yet
foreigners are different. In a sane world, no one from another
society should be free to come here on their own terms. Entry
to another country is a privilege and not a right, as each of
us recognises when we travel abroad. If someone from a war-torn
region of the world finds safe haven in Britain, we are entitled
to expect that they recognise their good fortune and behave accordingly.
A
substantial and rising number of foreigners, however, do not do
so. Coming from societies in which men live by what they are strong
enough to take, they seek to live by the same principle in Britain.
A life of crime is infinitely more profitable here than in say,
the Horn of Africa. There is so much more to steal. No thief in
Birmingham or Sheffield risks a bullet, or even the likelihood
of capture. We are, by international standards, the softest of
soft touches.
Yet
even the most liberal society has a right, indeed a duty, to protect
its citizens from alien predators. When they are caught, convicted
and have served their terms of imprisonment, they should be forced
to leave. Even Tony Blair and Charles Clarke belatedly conceded
this yesterday, as they twisted and writhed to keep their jobs.
Robbery
A
foreign criminal, having broken the rules by which all hospitality
must be governed, by kicking us all in the teeth, forfeits any
claim to continue to live among us. The case of 25-year-old Mustaf
Jama is more serious than all the others so far laid at the Home
Secretary's door.
Last
week Clarke's career tottered, because it was revealed that more
than 1,000 foreign criminals have been released from prisons without
being considered for deportation. Jama, however, WAS considered.
The file on his history, of his imprisonment for drug dealing
and robbery, was placed before all the 'right people'. They studied
the papers, deliberated gravely - and agreed that he should be
allowed to remain in Britain.
WHY?
Because the country from which he hails is not nearly as nice
a place to live as Bradford. Somalia is not merely a failed state.
It is one of the most anarchic societies on earth, where the innocent
tremble in their beds and the warlords hold sway.
Hunted
Yet
what is that to us, after the way Jama behaved here? Even if he
had become a play-group supervisor or joined the Roman Catholic
Church, it would have been monstrous to let him stay after his
release twice from prison. If he feared
for his life in Somalia, he should have walked on eggshells in
Britain. By choosing instead a career of violent crime, he put
himself beyond the pale.
Far
from going straight after release, of course, Jama is today a
hunted man, principal suspect for last November's murder of Bradford
police-woman Sharon Beshenivsky in the course of a robbery.
And,
irony of ironies, police believe that he has fled the country
seeking refuge in the very Somalia that Human Rights legislation
prevented us from deporting him to. Even his capture will be poor
consolation for WPC Beshenivsky's family, her colleagues and British
society.
This
dreadful man - and the adjective is justified by what is already
proved against him - is alleged to have stolen the life of a young
woman doing her duty to us all, having been granted licence to
do so by British officialdom.
The
curse of Human Rights law appears to have struck again. The immigration
authorities felt unable to deport Jamal, because he could not
expect a safe existence in his native Somalia. If this indeed
proves so, the abuse of Human Rights appears more disgraceful
than ever. Tony Blair repeatedly declares that he cannot or will
not seek to have this grotesque law amended.
Yet almost daily, we are confronted by cases in which foreign
citizens who have abused the hospitality of this country, sometimes
in the most violent and destructive fashion, prove able to defy
removal by waving the black wand of Human Rights.
Charles
Clarke told the House of Commons yesterday that, if his new plans
for foreign prisoners are accepted, 'the clear presumption should
be that deportation will follow unless there are SPECIAL
CIRCUMSTANCES why it cannot'. Those are my italics.
It is worth a substantial bet that, by 'special circumstances',
Clarke meant Human Rights cases. And if that proves so, his new
assurances will be worthless.
Every
foreign rapist and murderer who leaves a British prison will prove
to come from a disturbed home in a country where the gas, sewage
and benefits systems are imperfect. Thus the Human Rights industry,
vastly profitable to a legion of shameless British lawyers, will
continue to frustrate deportations of many foreign criminals.
Failure
The
scandal is only the latest manifestation of a wider issue: Britain's
loss of control of its own frontiers. This has implications for
every aspect of our lives: safety from terrorism: defence against
crime: abuse of immigration.
We
must regain the power, which should belong to every properly administered
sovereign state, to identify everyone who enters and who leaves
this country. The British authorities must then use this to debar
from entry those who have no right to come, and ensure that departure
of people who ought to go.
Some
people justify the Home Office's failure to deport Jama - and
the thousand others who were never even considered for removal
- as a matter of natural justice. These convicts have paid their
dues to society, and deserve a right to a fresh start.
This
ignores the principle I began by asserting, and which I am sure
most British people support, that foreigners are different. Unless
we simply abandon any distinction between British citizens who
have a right to belong here, and foreigners who have not - and
in the process declare this country an open house - then our generosity
is mere feebleness.
I
am much less bothered about whether Charles Clarke stays or goes
as Home Secretary than about what the British Government does
to regain our frontiers. My fear is that, even if Clarke goes,
his successor will prove just as much a prisoner of the tyranny
of Human Rights which New Labour continues doggedly to embrace.
None
of this represents xenophobia. Britain welcomes tourists, foreign
businessmen and sensible numbers of immigrants with open arms.
But we, the British
people, have a right to keep out or throw out those who show themselves
unworthy or dangerous visitors.
The
failure of government to exercise this responsibility on behalf
of us all appears to have cost the life of Sharon Beshenvisky.
We shall continue to pay in blood, treasure and the peace of mind
of ordinary people until we come to our senses.
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