Rescuing Democracy in the United Kingdom from our current Elected Dictatorship
|
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
|
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.
|
December
28, 2005 (959 days since Iraq war ended)
Death Toll: 2,172 US - 98UK - >>30,000?
Iraqi - 25 media
Janyary
16, 2006 (978 days since Iraq war ended)
Death Toll: 2,219 US - 98UK - >>30,000?
Iraqi - 25 media
February
6, 2006 (995 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2252 US - 101UK - >>6,164? Iraqi - >>17,300?
civilians - 25 media
| Tony
Blair should know that respect comes by example - from the
top. If a country's leader has no respect for the rule of
nternational 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 |
We
STILL don't know if MMR is safe
(And
even one of our top vaccine experts admits it)
by
Melanie Phillips - Daily Mail, February 7, 2006
Ever
since the MMR controversy burst upon a bemused world back in 1998,
battle lines have been very clearly drawn. In one camp is Andrew
Wakefield, the gastro-enterologist who started the whole furore
when he claimed to have discovered a new syndrome in children
combining autistic symptoms with a new type of bowel disease.
Parents
of the affected children believed that this was the result of
their triple measles,mumps and rubella jabs. Mr Wakefield took
their fears seriously and suggested that, for the sake of prudence,
children should be vaccinated with single jabs rather than MMR.
In
the uproar that has ensured ever since, virtually the entire medical
establishment, headed by the Department of Health, has lined up
in the opposite camp to denounce Mr Wakefield's claims in the
most vitriolic terms as 'junk science' with no substance to them
whatsoever. MMR, said all the experts with one voice, had been
proved to be safe.
Are
MMR fears unfounded?
NO
says Carolyn Steele, Co Armagh - Mail, Feb 9, 2006
Congratulations
to Melanie Phillips for continuing to highligh the issue
of the MMR injection and its possible side effects. I
believe my oldest son was damaged in some way by the vaccine
as he has suffered with developmental problems since having
his MMR. There were no problems prior to the jab.
My
youngest son has just completed a course of single vaccines.
Only one clinic in Northern Ireland provides this service,
and the fact that it has a long waiting list indicates
that any reports so far published have not alleviated
parents' fears. It would be wonderful if our so-called
'nanny-state' could trust paretns to do the best for their
children, and could provide the option of single jabs
for those parents who want it. I was fortunate enough
to find a sympathetic locum GP who understood my concerns
and who found me the wonderful clinic.
************************
YES
Says
Joff McGill, Sense, London N4 - Mail, Feb 9, 2006
Dr
Andrew Wakefield's 1998 paper called for further studies
to establish whether there was a link between MMR, bowel
disease and autism. When these studies failed to find
a link, his supporters claimed the MMR jab affected only
a tiny subset of children. Yet some still try to link
the MMR vaccine to a tenfold increase in autism. Whish
is it: a tiny subset or the tenfold increase? Over ten
years and millions of pounds of research later, Dr Wakefield
has still to establish a link. He still believes he will,
but a significant body of research suggests no such link
exists.
At
Sense, the natinal deaf, blind and rubella charity, we
haven't forgotten about rubella - some of the people using
our services are still coping with its effects. MMR remains
the best way to protect children against diseases which
can cause death, deaf-blindness, meningitis, developmental
delay and autism.
|
As
a result, Mr Wakefield's reputation has been systematically trashed
and his research is said to be discredited. Yet many parents remain
concerned. Only about 70% of children are being vaccinated with
MMR, raising fears of future epidemics of measles, mumps and rubella.
Indeed, as figures published yesterday revealed, in some areas
as few as one in ten children has the triple jab. Yet as the controversy
deepened, there was never a chink in the united front the health
department presented to the world.
It
painted the anti-MMR camp as a bunch of hysterical and grasping
parents desperate to blame someone for the inexplicable tragedy
that had befallen their children, exploited by a cranky and irresponsible
doctor who was putting the health of the nation's children at
risk by terrifying parents into avoiding giving them the MMR jab.
Shattered
At
the very core of the department's case was its assertion that
all the evidence was on its side. There has been no serious corroboration
of Mr Wakefield's claims and all reputable studies had shown MMR
to be safe. Now, however, that united front has been shattered.
A former senior government medical officer has broken ranks to
say that, on the contrary, the evidence suggests that for a small
proportion of children MMR is NOT
safe and that the Government is guilty of 'utterly inexplicable
complacency'.
The
person saying this cannot easily be dismissed. Dr Peter Fletcher,
former Chief Scientific Officer at the Department of Health in
the late 1970's, is a former medical assessor to the Committee
on the Safety of Medicines and had responsibility for deciding
whether new vaccines were safe. For years, therefore, he was at
the heart of the vaccine policy-making and regulatory establishment.
If anyone knows how to assess all the available evidence on such
matters, he surely does.
But
now just look at what he has said. Having agreed to be an expert
witness for lawyers of the affected children, he had studied thousands
of documents relevant to the MMR issue. And these, he found, revealed
'a steady accumulation of evidence'
from scientists around the world that the MMR jab was causing
brain damage in certain children.
The
clinical and scientific data that was now accumulating that MMR
could cause brain, gut and immune system damage in a small proportion
of vulnerable children was, he said, 'far too much to ignore'.
In other words, Mr Wakefield's evidence WAS in the process of
being corroborated. What price, then, the health department's
insistence that such corroboration didn't exist?
Other
assertions by the medical establishment were similarly shredded.
They had tried to explain away the ten-fold leap in autism and
related brain damage in children over the past 15 years as a statistical
illusion arising from improved diagnosis.
But
according to Dr Fletcher there was 'no way' this could add up
- and it failed to address the additional 'extremely worrying
increase' in inflammatory bowel disease and immune disorders among
children in this period. 'It is highly likely that at least part
of this increase is a vaccine-related problem,' he said, questioning
why the Government wasn't taking 'this massive public health problem
more seriously'.
Reputations
Why
indeed? Dr Fletcher himself has suggested the answer - that there
are very powerful people who have staked their entire reputations
and careers on proving Andrew Wakefield wrong - and they are willing
to do almost anything to protect themselves.
This
was a remarkable allegation from someone who was himself at the
very heart of that particular establishment. But it is clear to
anyone who has studied the evidence - as Dr Fletcher has done
- that the bland assurances of the Government are simply not supported
by the facts that they claim back them up. While Mr Wakefield
is being subjected to a witchhunt, and while the parents of the
affected children are scandalously denied legal aid to pursue
the court case which might well have finally brought to light
the truth abut MMR, those powerful people in the medical establishment
are continuing to misrepresent the evidence.
In
particular, they claim that epidemiological studies show the triple
vaccine is safe. But these studies are based on population-wide
surveys too large and insensitive to get at the truth. This is
because, for the vast majority of children, the vaccine poses
no problem at all. Only a very small proportion are said to have
been badly affected, possibly through a combination of environmental
or genetic factors. Population-wide studies are considered unlikely
to pick up small numbers like this.
Worse
still, the evidence has actually been distorted. Take, for example,
the recent study by the respected Cochrane Library, which was
said to have proved that Mr Wakefield was wrong. In fact, far
from saying MMR was safe, the study said explicitly that the evidence
of its safety was not good enough. Dr Fletcher himself has previously
protested at such misrepresentation.
In
2001, the Government's Chief Medical Officer, Professor Liam Donaldson,
said concerns over the safety of MMR were considered by the Committee
on the Safety of Medicine and other expert bodies to have been
refuted. But, in fact, the CSM had expressly said it was impossible
to refute them and that the question was still open.
In
a letter to a clinical periodical, Dr Fletcher noted 'the curious
turn of events which has now led to the Department of Health,
the Medicines Control Agency, The Committee on Safety of Medicines
and other eminent bodies citing negative
studies as absolute evidence of safety'.
NO
ONE LISTENED.
Inadequate
He
also said at the time that the MMR safety trials conducted before
its introduction in Britain were inadequate.
NO
ONE LISTENED
Instead,
the relentless drive to introduce more and more vaccines continues.
This week, the government is reported to be planning to announce
yet another jab for babies, this time against pneumococcal meningitis
Vaccination
plays a vital role. But are we yet sure that we understand the
full effects of so many vaccines on immature immune systems?
Now
the Chancellor has urged all parents to vaccinate their children
with MMR. Yet we still don't know the truth about this vaccine.
The pieces of this most complex of scientific jigsaws have not
yet fallen into place. What is clear is that the assertions made
by the Government about its proven safety and about the absence
of any evidence that might cause concern are simply not true.
Dr
Fletcher's intervention is devastating. As he says, if it is proved
that MMR can cause autism after all, this will become one of the
greatest scandals in medical history.
ARE
THEY LISTENING NOW?
If you have
suggestions for additional subjects, or material to include in the
pages linked to the subjects listed, please contact the webmaster.
