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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May 31, 2005 (761 days since war
ended)
Death Toll: 1,657 US - 89 UK - >6,164?
Iraqi - >17,300 civilians - 25 media
June 17, 2005 (779 days since war
ended)
Death Toll: 1,716 US - 89 UK -
>6,164? Iraqi - >17,300? civilians - 25 media
June 26, 2005 (788 days since war
ended)
Death Toll: 1,737 US - 89 UK -
>6,164? Iraqi - >17,300? civilians - 25 media
July 6, 2005 (798 days since war
ended)
Death Toll: 1,751 US - 90 UK -
>6,164? Iraqi - >17,300? civilians - 25 media
August 24, 2005 (847 days since
war ended)
Death Toll: 1,869 US - 93 UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
September
29, 2005 (883 days since war ended)
Death Toll: 1,928 US - 96 UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
October
11, 2005 (895 days since war ended)
Death Toll: 1,956 US - 96UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
October
20, 2005 (904 days since war ended)
Death Toll: 1,986 US - 97UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
October
25, 2005 (909 days since war ended)
Death Toll: 2,001 US - 97UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
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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November
17, 2005 (932 days since Iraq war ended)
Death Toll: 2,080 US - 97UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
CBI
chief's farewell barrage on pensions City Focus
by Alex Brummer - Daily Mail, November 25, 2005
There
has never been a CBI boss quite like Sir Digby Jones. After a
pair of decaffeinated McKinsey-trained technocrats in the shape
of Sir Howard Davies and Lord (Adair) Turner, who would weigh
each word carefully, Jones has proved an irrepressible and unpredictable
leader of the employers' organisation, who has become increasingly
alienated from New Labour.
Jones's
exuberance, blunt Midlands talk and willingness to venture where
Footsie-dominated leadership of the CBI rarely dares to tread,
has made him a popular figure among members. At times, Jones appears
to be in perpetual motion as he checks in with employers in every
far-flung corner of the country. He fits me into his schedule
between recent visits to Scotland and Newcastle and ahead of a
trip to Oxford.
The
more he has travelled and listened, the more frustrated and heated
Sir Digby has become about the way the country is run. Jones is
turning up the heat because 'the membership is more angry with
this government than it's ever been'.
'There
is an increasing feeling that this government is offside when
it comes to business'. He believes this to be 'sad', because when
they first came to office they were business-friendly.
Nothing
is more likely to send Jones into a paroxysm of anger than demolition
of the pensions system. 'They started on day one by taking £5.2billion
straight out of the scheme with removal of the dividend tax credit
at a time when share values and demographic change is really biting.'
Since
then, he asserts, they have started to regulate the pensions'
environment to the point they have almost nationalised it. Jones
is livid at the idea that the new pensions regulator has to give
consent to selling a business, thereby interfering with the market.
He also thinks the Pensions Protection fund, designed to bale
out failing schemes, was poorly thought-out. What was forgotten
is that much of Britain's manufacturing is now in overseas hands
and foreign owners see the PPF as 'a tax on employment'.
Nestle,
he says, a model employer in the UK, kept open its final salary
pension scheme. Now the company has been told that the UK subsidiary
cannot use a guarantee from the Swiss parent to secure its scheme.
"That's rubbish," he explodes. "Government debilitated,
changed and made more fragile the private pension environment."
Meanwhile,
to paraphrase Jones, you have Lord Turner telling the private
sector it has to work until the age of 67, and turns to its own
employees to say they can retire at 60 on a full pension paid
by the taxpayer. "I call that craven surrender," the
employers' leader says. Jones says it was easy for former Pensions
Minister Alan Johnson to negotiate with public sector unions when
you use the words 'I give in'.
The
CBI chief's alienation from the unions is palpable. As far as
the CBI is concerned, they are irrelevant since they only have
17% of the workers in member firms. He argues it is a scandal
that a Labour government, funded partly by the unions, recently
gave the very same unions a £10million grant from taxpayers'
money to reform themselves.
Also
high on his hit list is the mess in the energy market. "We
haven't woken up one cold November morning and found the North
Sea hasn't got any gas anymore and that the French and Germans
are cheating," he says. He blames the gas crisis on a planning
system which has prevented storage facilities from being built
and an inter-connector which isn't being used to full capacity
'because the French have diverted it to their own'.
Sir
Digby believes that we could face a dire winter. If the forecasters
are right then we are going to see the switch turned off for the
big energy-using manufacturing users'. Pensioners and consumers
will be fine but industry could find itself grinding to a halt,
which Jones asserts is ridiculous for 'the fourth biggest economy
on earth'.
The
only real credit the CBI chief gives to Labour is for creating
economic stability which has helped business to grow. But now
he thinks that management of the economy has started to go backwards.
Britain has fallen back to 16th out of 30 developed countries
on corporate taxes. We are now the same as Germany, and well behind
our real competitors in the Far East and United States. The CBI
is doing its bit to compete by opening up in Beijing but is getting
insufficient support.
Despite
the venom of his comments, Jones says he has enjoyed every day
in the limelight, even when wakes up in the morning to read the
headlines and thinks to himself 'Oh, s**t. Why on earth did I
open my big mouth?' The CBI chief may not be that popular at Westminster
these days. But he thinks that the strength of the organisation's
membership and the new focus on skills in the workplace are the
best testimony to its leadership.
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