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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September
11, 2006 (1234 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2669 US - 118 UK - >300,000? civilians - 25 media
September
22, 2006 (1245 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2695 US - 118 UK - >300,000? civilians - 25 media
Pension
reforms are dangerous, says ex-Labour minister Frank Field
By
Benedict Brogan - Political Editor - Daily Mail, September 22,
2006
A
former Labour minister yesterday condemned the Government's pension
reforms as 'positively dangerous'. Frank Field, who was responsible
for welfare reform, launched a devastating attack on the flagship
plans announced earlier this summer, compared them to the discredited
Dangerous Dogs Act, introduced by the Tories.
Mr
Field, a leading critic of Tony Blair's approach to welfare, castigated
the main parties for failing to oppose the pensions White Paper.
And he challenged the heads of major pension firms to speak out
against what he described as the 'emperor's new clothes' of the
scheme.
Speaking
to the Merseyside Life and Pensions Society, Mr Field said:
"The Government's pensions proposals are not only dangerous
in themselves, they also, ominously, enjoy all-party consensus
in the House. Rarely has legislation attracting such support given
to the Dangerous Dogs Bill, one of the worst thought through pieces
of legislation ever to become saw."
He
added: "The
Government's proposed pensions reforms are not so much preposterous,
as positively dangerous. Everyone in the pensions industry agrees
that the basic state pension must be reformed before any other
changes can take place. This first reform must be to ensure everyone
receives a minimum pension lifting them off means testing. But
under the Government's proposals this aim will never be met."
In
May, the Government announced a deal on pensions between Gordon
Brown and Mr Blair which would see workers forced to wait until
they reach 68 before they could claim a more generous state pension.
The retirement age will rise initially to 66 in the 2020's, climbing
to 68 by 2050.
The
Government said it wanted to increase personal saving and reduce
the growing dependence of pensioners on means-testing. Key planks
were to raise the state pension age and to uprate the basic state
pension in line with average earnings, not inflation. The Government
also also announced plans for a national pensions savings scheme.
But
the package was criticised by those who claimed public workers
would get a better deal, after ministers caved in under pressure
from the unions last year and dropped plans to raise retirement
age for millions of existing public sector workers from 60 to
65.
Mr Field, who is also chairman of the Pensions Reform Group in
the Commons, said last night that the value of the basic state
pension was unlikely to rise by enough to get people off means-tested
benefits, which have been massively extended under Labour.
"The
Government will never be able to claim that it 'pays to save'.
This should be the first and major goal of any serious pension
reform," he said.
The
various funds set up by the government to invest pension money
could produce different returns, effectively shortchanging some
pensioners, he claimed. "Why won't the pensions industry
speak out against the Government's reforms? I've spoken to numerous
companies whose business is selling pensions, and without exception
they all agree that the Government's proposals are ludicrous Which
company chairman is going to be brave enough to tell the king
he has no clothes - or, at least, no clothes worth wearing."
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