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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May
6, 2006 (1092 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2417 US - 108 UK - >60,000? civilians - 25 media
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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
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Sack
this skirt-lifting creep
In
any commercial company John Prescott would be out of a job without
pension or severance pay
Opinion
- Libby Purves - The Times May 09, 2006
I’M
REALLY SORRY to drag you back into Prescott Hell; never meant
to mention it. Blame the mountain air. Last week, in the soupy,
grey atmosphere of England and Westminster I avoided the topic,
to concentrate on the problems of the Home Office. John Prescott
seemed like a sideshow, a Hogarthian caricature in the margin.
My limited attention was divided between horrified amusement at
Ms Temple’s teenage diary style (“Bizi today!”
) and genuine sorrow for Mrs Prescott. The latter feeling led
to a vague initial willingness to go along with Tony Blair’s
prim statement that it was “a private matter”.
Too
much, Two Jags
Letter
from Mike Budding- Sutton-on-Hull
Daily
Mail - May 10, 2006
As
one of John Prescott's constituents, I'm aware that before
his affairs became known, he was regarded affectionately
locally as an amiable, uneducated buffoon who could be
relied on to make a mess of whatever task he undertook.
He
was well-known for committing cringe-making verbal gaffes
and would always let himself down, but was looked on as
a local lad made good, who had a strong marriage and -
most importantly - was true to his Labour roots.
Now
he is regarded simply as 'two jags', 'two s**gs', 'two
pads', 'two wages', 'two pensions', 'too sexist', 'too
predatory', and 'too little in his vital equipment' -
and all for doing no work at all.
And
he's regarded as having neither principles nor honour
- having sold out his convictions in return for a seat
on the gravy train.
His
behaviour sits very uncomfortably with all of his constituents
with whom I've spoken.
Letter
from Mike Budding- Sutton-on-Hull
Daily
Mail - May 10, 2006
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I
have always held this view, more or less: I wrote of the late
Robin Cook that being a louse to your wife was no bar to public
usefulness. I thought David Mellor’s departure from his beloved
National Heritage role was a tragedy, and keep on forgiving Boris
Johnson on the grounds that he is clever and public-spirited and
actually rather compassionate, and that he conducts private misdemeanours
in his own time, using his own bicycle. Michael Howard was a prig
to sack him, and David Cameron is right to keep him. The rest
is a family matter.
Thus,
down in the thick damp air, I was prepared to leave l’affaire
Prescott private. Anyway, it seemed probable that Mr Blair would
shortly utter some laddish version of “I know thee not, old
man” to his Falstaff.
Wrong
on both counts. No sooner had I set foot on this Slovenian Alp
than the reshuffle brought news that Mr Prescott keeps his title,
salary, two free homes and £1.5 million pension pot. All
he loses is the power to concrete over grassland and knock down
decent Victorian houses. He remains Deputy PM. Mr Blair insists
on how terribly important Mr Prescott will be, chairing committees
and going to China. Political correspondents explain that Mr Prescott
is a vital “broker” between the Blair and Brown factions,
and “catalyst” for a peaceful takeover of power within
the Labour Party.
When
the mountain air started to work I blinked and gulped. The previous
week’s hurried impressions cleared, and I wondered how on
earth I ever thought the matter unimportant. It is, in fact, huge.
It is significant. Even if you never thought much of Mr Prescott,
this affair is a litmus test of the Prime Minister’s own
honour. And he has come up completely the wrong colour.
Consider
the offence itself. It is not a “private matter” as
Mr Blair says. A “private matter” may entail adultery,
but it is a phrase better applied to the sort of heartfelt infidelity
that comes with long unhappiness and a new love-match, or at the
very least a headlong middle-aged infatuation. And to remain a
private matter, adultery must be conducted in your own time and
without abuse of power. Leering, groping and sexually subordinating
a secretary in your office — your publicly accountable office
full of civil servants — is different. Mr Prescott may contest
some details of the Tracy Temple diary (though he has not said
which) but it remains utterly damning. He did not love her or
even pretend to; he used her, in the office, as light relief from
his Environment boxes. He never even let her stay the night. I
doubt that she would falsify such matters; they are too humiliating
for a woman to invent.
What
makes this worse, this grubby abuse of public power and dignity,
is that this Government has primly presided over numerous politically
correct restrictions in every other British workplace. Before
2001 an employee claiming sexual harassment had to prove the case.
Since then, the onus is on the accused. Subsequent regulation
has made it ever more dangerous for anybody, at any level in a
hierarchy, to speak a wrong word, glance at a pair of legs or
make a playful pass. The weasel word “inappropriate”
has become the equivalent of McCarthy’s “un-American”.
It
has done some good, protecting low-status women from predators.
It has also done harm: good men have lost jobs, vindictive women
have brought harassment cases merely to punish employers who disappoint
their ambitions. But either way, this compulsory morality has
been integral to Blairist government. But what is this? Now we
are shown that the only people immune from disgrace and demotion,
the only oafs who can freely lift up secretaries’ skirts
and demand creepy sexual favours in office hours, are Mr Blair’s
senior colleagues. No, it was not a private matter. In any commercial
company, gross impropriety would be a sacking offence without
pension or severance pay. Ask any lawyer.
The
other thing that becomes suddenly more shocking in the thin clear
Alpine air is the constant repetition of the mantra that this
Prescott survival is explicable because he is a “link to
old Labour” and a broker between Mr Blair and Mr Brown. What’s
that, boys? Are you telling me that the UK taxpayer should fund
a large salary, two free homes and a gold-plated pension simply
in order to stop the Labour Party falling apart? Surely it is
the responsibility of a political party to keep itself in order
and offer itself to the electorate in a tidy condition? Why the
hell should our taxes pay for tugs to drag new Labour off the
rocks? It is outrageous. The only good reason to keep Mr Prescott
would be if his idiosyncratic brilliance served the public benefit.
Of this we have no evidence. If he is Labour’s lucky mascot,
let them pay for him. The Prime Minister’s decision may be
explicable, but explicable is not a synonym for excusable.
The
worst thing is that in the rosy moral fog in which our PM operates,
it probably looks different. Tony Blair thinks he’s being
loyal. He thinks he’s being compassionate, and modern, and
securing a fine legacy for Britain.
He’s
not. He is spending his last days in office flinging aside his
last rags of honour. Whatever happens now, he asked for it.
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