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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December
28, 2005 (959 days since Iraq war ended)
Death Toll: 2,172 US - 98UK - >>30,000?
Iraqi - 25 media
Why
Russia has done us a big favour
Will
we in Britain ever dare go for the nuclear option?
by
Michael Hanlon, Science Editor, Daily Mail, January 3, 2006
The
first shots in the great 21st-century energy wars have been fired.
And it almost invokes a frisson of cold War nostalgia to learn
that the man with his finger on the trigger is none other than
Vladimir Putin. Russia's unsmiling leader stands accused of straying
into realms of dictatorship as he turns off the gas in a shivering
Ukraine - causing the rest of us in Europe to shiver too.
Ukraine,
a vast country, happens to be the conduit across which 25% of
Europe's gas is piped from Russia. France, Germany and the rest
face disrupted supplies and price hikes. We also face higher bills;
we don't yet get gas directly from Russia, but we will be forced
to compete for supplies in the same market as our neighbours.
This
is serious stuff. The Ukraine gas crisis is likely to be just
the first of a series of shocks which could make oil crises and
coal strikes of the Seventies seem like minor disturbances. And
if we don't act - and act faster than anyone is suggesting - there
are grim times ahead. By the early 2020's - less than 15 years
away - we could see regular power cuts, electricity hills double
or triple what we see today, and the economy crippled.
Britain's
energy crisis is real, and it is happening now.
We
get a third of our electricity from gas-fired stations, and as
our own North Sea supplies start to dwindle, we will need to look
elsewhere for supplies - to Russia, and perhaps also to places
such as Turkmenistan, a vile Central Asian dictatorship that makes
Putin's country look like Nirvana
Booming
Then
there are our dying nuclear power stations. We have just twelve
left, and these provide us with a quarter of our electricity.
We haven't built a nuclear power station since Sizewell B in the
1980's and in less than two decades time this will be the only
one still functioning.
So,
if nothing is done, Britain in 2023 will have ominous similarities
to Britain in 1973. Closure of the remaining power stations between
now and then will open up a 25% 'energy gap' which we will struggle
to fill. The gas plants will still be open, but with prices at
record highs - fuelled by growing demand from the booming industries
of China and India, - we will baulk at the prices.
King
Coal is dying, and spiralling demand for energy (by 2020 there
will be even more computers in the UK, even more air conditioning
plants and more of everything) means that, with increasing regularity,
the lights will start going out. Britain's privatised energy industry
has not made the sort of investments in capacity needed to protect
a large, energy-hungry economy from fluctuations in demand. It
will probably take one hard winter ten years from now to bring
all this home.
It
is a miserable thought. We'll be forced to import more electricity
from France which took the decision to invest in nuclear energy
back in the Sixties and Seventies - but even they may struggle
to meet their own demand as well as ours. The result is that we
will have less electricity at our disposal than in the Eighties
- with probably twice the demand.
So,
how on earth did we get into this state? Margaret Thatcher, determined
not to be broken by the miners like Ted Heath, turned the UK away
from coal. The 'dash for gas' made sense while we still had our
own gas courtesy of the North Sea; sadly this will soon no longer
be the case as the supplies dwindle. At the same time, Britain's
newest coal station is now 21 years old - a worrying thought.
Soon, these coal stations will go the way of the nuclear power
plants.
Then
there was Chernobyl in the 80's, and with it resurgence of an
insane hysteria still surrounding nuclear power. When we should
have been building more nuclear plants - modern ones producing
less waste and pollution than their essentially experimental predecessors
- we prevaricated. And it wasn't just Britain; Americans, Germans,
most of Western Europe, faced anti-nuclear opposition.
It
is true that nuclear power was oversold in the early days: 'too
cheap to meter' was the mantra. But times have moved on - our
need is greater and the technology is now vastly better than in
the days of Windscale and Chernobyl. Radioactive waste is a problem,
but not an insoluble one. Fortunately, government appears to have
woken and taken notice. Last year, an energy review was announced
which is due to report in the summer.
It
is widely believed that its conclusions will include proposing
a massive return to nuclear energy - the only possible solution
to Britain's energy crisis in the short-medium term. If so, Tony
Blair will have to act very fast. It took years of tedious and
expensive planning inquiries for Sizewell B to be built. Even
if a dozen nuclear power stations are commissioned this year,
they will not come on stream until well into the next decade or
even probably the decade after that - which will be cutting it
very fine indeed. This will cause, of course, a terrible rumpus.
Most
greens have an almost religious objection to nuclear power. When
Tony Blair announced the energy review, his speech was ambushed
by Greenpeace protesters. One can only imagine the rows and protests
that will accompany any revival of the nuclear programme.
No,
what the greens want are not nukes, but wind farms. Sadly, these
will not be able to fill the energy gap on their own. Wind power
could play a role, but will provide only a few percent of our
energy needs in the foreseeable future. And wind farms have their
enemies too.
Is
there is anything else out there? Well, there is always nuclear
fusion, power released when atoms are fused together rather than
split (as happens in power stations today). Fusion powers the
Sun - and the H-bomb - but commercial nuclear fusion power has
been '40 years away' - since it was first mooted in the Forties.
A colossal new test plant is being built in France, but don't
expect to see any fusion stations being commissioned this side
of 2030. It'll take that long just to get the technology up and
running.
Solar
power has tremendous potential too, but again the technology is
not yet quite there. The greens trumpet energy saving but the
prodigious expansion in electricity demand that we are seeing
in the 21st century means that even if we do everything we can
in the name of efficiency - lagging lofts, installing more efficient
boilers and so on - we will be lucky to stand still.
Finally,
there is coal. Unlike oil and gas, there is plenty of the stuff
still under the ground - probably four or five centuries' worth
in Britain alone.
Precarious
Burning
coal was traditionally dirty and produced lots of Carbon Dioxide.
Today, however, new technologies mean that not only can coal be
burned without producing noxious, acid-rain causing pollutants,
but also that it should be possible to minimise its effect on
climate as well.
But
expanding coal use and building new plants are decades away. We
need something to keep the lights on now - not in the 2050's.
Those of us who chose to give President Putin the benefit of the
doubt when he took over leadership of Russia have had a hard time
lately.
More
and more the ex-KGB man has looked like an autocrat playing at
democracy, rather than a democrat pandering to the authoritarian
streak in Russia's soul. But with the gas war, at least, Putin
has done us all a favour. No doubt some last-minute deal will
be stitched up, we will find new supplies and the lights will
stay on - even in Kiev.
But
by reminding us that our energy supply is so precarious, the Kremlin
has given Britain and the rest of Europe a much-needed wake-up
call.
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