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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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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March
28, 2007 (1398 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 3243 US - 134 UK - >650,000? civilians - 25 media
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site has had 
visitors
From
new dawn to debacle
Analysis
by Edward Heathcoat Amory - Daily Mail, March 29, 2007
Yesterday
was the first anniversary of the Government's long-planned reforms
to NHS dentistry. We were promised a bright new dawn in which
dentists would escape from the treadmill of 'drill and fill' and
be able to devote themselves to preventative care.
Instead,
the new system is a debacle, with millions of Britons unable to
get access to basic dentistry, while the Government encourages
dentists to take a holiday rather than treat more patients before
the end of the financial year.
Change
for the worse
Comment
- Daily Mail,March 29, 2007
One
of the basic principles of the National Health Service
was to provide affordable dental care for all. Yet today
millions cannot find an NHS dentist.
Last
year, after a long period of deterioration, the Government
introduced the biggest reforms in dentistry since the
founding of the Health Service. They were supposed to
reverse the decline. Instead, they have done the opposite,
as two reports yesterday made brutally clear.
The
reforms introduced new contracts which pay for a set number
of 'units of dental activity' - yes, honestly, that's
what they are called. Once those are used up, no more
money is available. And no money means no treatment, as
any fool could have told the Department of Health.
The
inevitable consequence is that dentists are seeing fewer
patients, not more. They must stand idly by once they
have finished their quota. No wonder a poll of dentists
shows that they view the changes with contempt.
And
no wonder, either, that a separate poll of patients reveals
that three quarters of them cannot find a local dentist
who will take on new NHS clients.
Does
anyone think the reforms are working? Well, yes - Rosie
Winterton, the minister responsible, does. She insists
they are a great success. So who is to blame for thousands
of dentists choosing to take holidays instead of treating
patients? They are, she says, for not organising their
time effectively.
The
shambles over dentistry is the latest in a line of health
reforms which have gone disastrously wrong. GP's pay,
out-of-hours cover, training for junior doctors - all
made worse rather than better.
If
ever proof were needed that a statist command economy
NHS run by Whitehall and the Treasury is ultimately never
going to work, it is provided by these fiascos.
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So
what changed last year? New targets, no longer relating to patients,
but measuring instead 'units of dental activity' - or inactivity,
as it turns out - have increased bureaucracy and distorted priorities.
A cash crisis in primary care trusts, entirely the Government's
fault, has exacerbated the problem.
And
the new contract - like those recently negotiated with GPs and
consultants - turns out to be fundamentally flawed. As a result,
in one year, 200 dentists have left the NHS for the private sector,
accelerating a process that was underway anyway.
Three
quarters of Britons, according to a survey by Citizens Advice,
live in areas where no NHS dentists take new patients - so-called
'dentistry deserts '. In one year, according to figures collected
by the Tories, the number using NHS dentists has fallen by 1.4
million. That's out of a total of 28 million of us who've seen
one of NHS's 20,000 or so dentists in the past two years.
So
how exactly does the new contract work? Dentists are paid a fixed
annual fee by the Health Service, typically £80,000, for
doing a set amount of fillings, check-ups and other 'units of
dental activity'. This means their income is no longer related
to how much work they do.
Their
practices receive funds determined by local primary care trusts.
This fixing of practice income has the effect of capping the work
they can do. Quite simply, when the money is spent, the dental
work has to stop.
Meanwhile,
NHS charges have risen sharply, bringing them closer to the private
sector - £42 for a filling on the NHS, compared with an
average of £75 if you go private. The result has been that
some dentists simply left the Health Service, because there was
no reward for extra effort, just a lot more boxes to be ticked
and targets met.
At
the same time, the amount of money that trusts receive from dentists'
fees is a lot lower - by £120 million - than the Government
had expected. This was because some patients followed their dentist
into the private sector: Others became fed up with trying to find
a NHS dentist and went private - an easier choice because NHS
fees had gone up. Some simply lived with their toothache. Even
Gordon Brown was discovered to have paid £100 an hour to
visit a private dentist in London.
But
the result of this shortfall is that trusts have now run out of
money, and those dentists who have treated their annual quota
of NHS patients - that's more then 5,000 practices, or one quarter
of the total - have been told they can't treat any more until
the new financial year. So seven million Britons are likely to
find that their local dentist has effectively shut up shop.
Of
course, the new system has only exacerbated a long standing problem
with state dental care. Back in the 1970's, when fluoride was
first added to toothpaste, @experts' became convinced that we
would need half as much dental treatment as before.
So
they abolished many dental training places. Instead, because we
live longer, and people keep their teeth for longer, it turns
out we need more dentist, not fewer. Now there's a chronic shortage.
In 2004, we had only 3.7 NHS dentists per 10,000 people, half
the number in America.
Now
not only do we have great swathes of Britain where you can't get
treatment for your toothache on the NHS at all, but even in those
areas where there are state dentists, they may well be on holiday
rather than treating patients.
Will
Labour at last learn the lesson, that trying to fix the nation's
teeth with a five-year plan drawn up in Whitehall is doomed to
failure? Only local autonomy and the market can save us all from
toothache and dentures.
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