Silent Majority Speaks
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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May
28, 2006 (1114 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2464 US - 111 UK - >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
Nine
years ago the British people were sold a fantasy of clean
and competent government of principle and honesty. Its shiny
wrappings stripped away, the product now reveals its true
nature: Personal greed, arrogance, incompetence, shamelessness,
rash warmongering and an inability to accept - as is clear
to almost everyone else - that it is time to go. Editorial
- The Mail on Sunday, May 28, 2006
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Let
them charge me
Doctor
who suggested a link between MMR jab and autism to face a misconduct
hearing
By
Michael Seamark - Daily Mail, June 13, 2006
The
controversial doctor who highlighted concerns over the MMR jab
faces being charged with serious professional misconduct. The
General Medical Council has drawn up draft charges against Dr
Andrew Wakefield who first suggested a link between the measles,
mumps and rubella vaccine and autism and bowel problems. Despite
not receiving a specific complaint, the GMC has brought the case
itself.
MMR
and a doctor only doing his duty
Comment
-Daily Mail, June 13, 2006
Nobody
has complained to the General Medical Council about Dr
Andrew Wakefield. Nobody has suggested that he said or
wrote anything dishonest when he believed he had discovered
a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Yet the GMC
has taken upon itself to charge him with serious professional
misconduct, threatening to strike him off, and, in doing
so, destroy his livelihood.
His
research was 'inadequately founded', says the charges.
He failed to obtain ethical committee approval before
publishing, acquired funding improperly and subjected
children to 'unnecessary and invasive investigations'.
In short, the council is throwing the book at him. WHY??
The
case has the whiff about it of a medieval inquisition,
called to defend the orthodoxy of the establishment against
the heresy of an independent mind. Dr Wakefield's 'crime'
was to open an important debate that remains unresolved.
Eight years on, he is by no means alone among doctors
in believing that he may have been on to something. The
trouble is we just don't know.
Even
Tony Blair, though publicly committed to the triple vaccine,
seems to have private doubts. What else would explain
why he has refused to tell MPs if his son Leo has been
given it? After all, he has never been above dragging
his family into the spotlight, when it suits his political
purposes.
The
GMC's real beef against Dr Wakefield is that immunisation
rates fell - and cases of measles, mumps and rubella rose
- after his article appeared. But that is hardly his fault.
It is the fault of a Government that refused to heed parents'
fears, and failed to offer separate vaccines on the NHS,
even though the cost implications were marginal.
Think
what an uproar there would be today if it was discovered
that Dr Wakefield had kept his suspicions to himself and
a link had subsequently been proven. He had a duty to
speak out - and now he is being made to suffer for it.
His
treatment by the GMC is utterly unjust. If this preposterous
body had existed 200 years ago, defending the prevailing
wisdom against new ideas, doctors would still be treating
illnesses by slitting open their patients' veins.
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Preliminary
charges included publishing 'inadequately founded' research, failing
to obtain GMC ethical committee approval before his work appeared
in print, obtaining funding 'improperly', and subjecting children
to 'unnecessary and invasive investigations'.
If
found guilty, Dr Wakefield, 50, faces being struck off at a hearing
expected next year. Yesterday he remained defiant. "I would
welcome a hearing and I am keen to have the issue heard,"
he said. "It needs to be aired, it's a matter of public interest
and the truth needs to be told."
Dr
Wakefield's research paper findings were later discredited, but
by then confidence in the jab's safety had plummeted. His supporters
claim he is being scapegoated for raising questions about the
safety of the MMR jab.
Jackie
Fletcher of the support group Jabs, representing parents concerned
about vaccination, said: "He just raised the flag against
MMR with the Department of Health. What they have done is try
to kill the messenger instead of dealing with the message. All
Andrew Wakefield said was 'Look, this needs to be researched further'."
Richard
Halvorsen, a London GP and childhood vaccination expert, said:
"It seems extraordinary that this case is coming up at all.
He has done nothing wrong except share the results of medical
research which challenge the Government stance on vaccinations.
That's why he's unpopular."
Research
carried out at the Royal Free Hospital in North London by Dr Wakefield
and 12 other doctors and published in The Lancet in 1998 caused
an international scare over the safety of MMR vaccines. Thousands
of parents boycotted the triple jab and, with immunisation rates
slumping, cases of measles, mumps and rubella soared. Tony Blair
was also accused of adding to the confusion by refusing to say
whether his youngest son Leo had received the jab.
Dr
Wakefield's small-scale study was called into question when various
larger studies failed to find any evidence of a link between autism
and the vaccine. Last year an analysis of 31 MMR studies by the
respected Cochrane Library found no association between MMR and
autism. But as recently as 10 days ago
a scientific study by doctors in North Carolina reported finding
measles in intestines of children with a form of autism.
The
GMC decided to investigate the doctor in 2004, when The Lancet
publicly rejected his findings because Dr Wakefield failed to
reveal he received £55,000 in legal aid to carry out separate
research for parents whose children had allegedly been harmed.
Lancet editor Richard Horton declared the paper 'fatally flawed'
as Dr Wakefield had not declared his conflict of interest.
The
journal partially withdrew the paper in February 2004 and the
following month ten of the 12 authors withdrew the claim of the
link with autism. John Reid, the Health Secretary, demanded an
investigation by the GMC as 'a matter of urgency' and the Government's
chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, accused Mr Wakefield
of mixing 'spin and science'.
Dr
Wakefield, a consultant gastroenterologist, left the Royal Free
in 2001 'by mutual agreement' and has since worked mainly in the
US. A spokesman for the GMC said: "The investigation into
Dr Wakefield in continuing. No hearing date has been set. During
the course of a hearing, charges are formulated against a doctor.
These charges change and evolve as the investigation goes on."
The
investigation is being overseen by Paul Philip, The GMC's Director
of Fitness to Practise and the medical governing body says bringing
a case without a complainant is 'not unheard of by any stretch
of the imagination. However, it comes to our attention that there
are concerns about a doctor's fitness to practise, we can, and
do, investigate them," said the spokesman. "On the basis
of The Lancet statement, we launched an investigation."
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