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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April
2, 2007 (1403 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 3252 US - 135 UK - >650,000? civilians - 25 media
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site has had 
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A
great pensions cover-up, writes City Editor, Alex Brummer,
in the Daily Mail, April 3, 2007
When
details of the pension tax plan were leaked to me before
the 1997 election there were denials from all concerned.
These included Brown and Ed Balls and the Andersen official
Chris Wales - speaking by mobile from a pizza parlour
in Sweden - who went on to become a Treasury tax adviser.
The
simple fact was the abolition of the dividend relief offered
to pension funds was a surreptitious way of raising up
to £5billion of revenue a year without breaching
promises not to raise income taxes.
The
consequences were badly miscalculated despite the forthright
advice provided by the Treasury, which preferred a gradual
approach to such a risky strategy. The whole affair shows
a strain of arrogance in Brown's decision-making and a
grim determination by him and his team to spin their way
out of trouble.
More
humility and listening may be necessary if Brown is to
make a good transition to No. 10.
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Brown
'railroaded' £5bn pension raid claims Blair guru, Derek
Scott
by
James Chapman, Deputy Political Editor - Daily Mail, April 3,
2007
Gordon
Brown railroaded through a damaging £5billion-a-year raid
on pension funds against all advice, Tony Blair's former chief
economic adviser claimed yesterday.
Derek
Scott's incendiary intervention came as business chiefs lined
up to accuse the Treasury of spin over claims they lobbied for
a new pensions tax.
Pensions
vandalism haunts Chancellor
Comment
- Daily Mail, April 3, 2007
The
first lesson of politics is that your mistakes almost
always come back to haunt you. Gordon Brown knows this
to his cost. A dreadful error made almost ten years ago
has returned to damage him at this critical time.
In
his first Budget, Mr Brown ended tax relief on shares
held by pension funds - an act that played a significant
role in nearly wrecking Britain's once-thriving pension
industry.
Although
there have been repeated attacks on him over the years
for this act of vandalism, the Chancellor must have thought
he had got away with it.
But
the latest revelation, painfully extracted under the Freedom
of Information Act, that his civil servants strongly advised
against the move, has brought this issue back with a vengeance.
The
abolition of tax relief on share dividends is not the
only thing to have created serious problems for pension
funds. Great strains are being put on them by people living
longer. The collapse in the stock market when the dot-com
bubble burst took billions out of them.
But
Mr Brown should have allowed for these instead of depriving
pension schemes of a sum now reckoned to have reached
£100billion. This normally far-sighted Chancellor
was blinded by the mountains of cash in which pensions
funds were wallowing. They made an easy target and seemingly
a painless one and, his critics say, he was particularly
insouciant because it was the middle classes who would
suffer.
The
Chancellor's position, of course, sits uncomfortably against
the never-ending growth of gilt-edged state pensions with
retirement at 60, comparing scandalously with 65 or later
in the private sector.
But
the real sadness about this sorry affair has been that
this otherwise successful Chancellor has been in denial
over the pensions debacle. Instead of listening to and
responding to the anguish of countless individuals whose
pensions were decimated and showing concern at the mass
closure of pension schemes, Mr Brown has turned deaf ears
to calls to provide help.
Mr
Brown was repeatedly warned about the pensions crisis
but chose not to listen. Now, as he prepares to move from
No.11 to 10 Downing Street, this very loudly squawking
chicken is coming home to roost.
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In
an interview with the Daily Mail, Mr Scott said the Chancellor's
key lieutenant, City minister Ed Balls, had been 'very foolish'
to claim that the Confederation of British Industry had pressed
for the change. He also suggested the row would fuel 'an issue
of character' about Mr Brown as he prepares to take over from
the Prime Minister.
Mr
Scott was one of Mr Blair's closest advisers between 1997 and
2003. His remarks will stoke continuing controversy over Mr Brown's
decision to abolish tax relief on share dividends in 1997. A damaging
row has been raging since last week when documents were released
showing officials warned the move could wipe £75billion
from pension fund values.
Mr
Scott's comments will also heighten concern in the Brown camp
that Mr Blair's supporters are launching a last gasp attempt to
derail his succession as Prime Minister. Last night, the Treasury
hit back at Mr Scott, claiming he 'never made a serious contribution
to any discussion about economic policy'.
But
the growing furore is threatening to overshadow today's crucial
joint launch of Labour's local election campaign by the Chancellor
and the Prime Minister.
Pressure
grew after Mr Balls, tipped for a key job in a Brown government,
said at the weekend that the CBI had lobbied for the change while
Labour was in opposition. Its
then director-general Adair Turner insisted yesterday the claim
was 'completely untrue'. He told BBC Radio 4's World at One: "Let's
be absolutely clear - the CBI never lobbied for an end to tax
relief at any time whatsoever in 1996 or 1997. When the policy
came out I wrote a letter (to the Treasury) say I disagreed."
Lord
Turner said it was possible an 'individual member' of the CBI
board expressed a different opinion, but it was never CBI policy.
He also revealed the Treasury gave the CBI a private assurance
two years ago that it would not suggest it had been in favour.
Current
CBI director-general Richard Lambert said the organisation had
privately warned the Chancellor it was 'not a good idea. "There
was misjudgment by the Chancellor," he said.
Mr
Scott, meanwhile, said he had been against a tax raid on pension
funds from the start. "I didn't think it was a very sensible
thing to take money out of pension funds. The idea that you help
by taking £5billion a year out struck me as bizarre. I think
the Prime Minister saw the merits of my argument, but he didn't
feel sufficiently strong at that time to overrule his Chancellor.
With hindsight, as everyone has seen, it wasn't a good thing."
Mr
Scott said the timing of the row was particularly damaging for
Mr Brown, coming soon after his Budget was attacked as a 'con
trick'. "Clearly, this comes at a difficult moment,"
he said. "I think the perception of the Budget was that it
wasn't quite as he presented it just adds to that. All the emphasis
was on the 2p off tax at a later date. But what people are now
realising is that the abolition of the 10p starting rate and other
changes mean that a lot of people are potentially quite a bit
worse off. It feeds into an issue of character. The feeling is
things have been done in a way so that people didn't notice it
at the time. That is potentially quite damaging."
Of
Mr Balls claim that the CBI had lobbied for reform, Mr Scott said:
"It was quite clearly a very foolish thing to say. When you're
in a hole, stop digging. Accusing people of saying something they
didn't is fairly obviously inadvisable."
Mr
Balls insisted he had indeed been 'pressed' by senior CBI members
to abolish the pension credit in 1996. But he said the key decisions
taken in the following year's budget had been based on the Government's
own views on how to promote long-term business investment, which
had increased by 50% over the subsequent ten years..
Shadow
Chancellor George Osborne said: "No support for Brown's error
of judgment has ever existed - this is desperate bully-boy tactics.
After a decade of elaborate spin and misinformation, now Brown
and Balls are on their own."
The
Treasury dismissed Mr Scott's attack and also rejected claims
the Chancellor first planned to take £8billion a year from
pension funds. "No one has the slightest idea where that
figure has come from," said one source close to Mr Brown.
"As for Derek Scott, if he had his way we would now be in
the euro. He was not in the room when Tony Blair and Gordon Brown
had any discussions about the pensions issue."
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