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.
|
December
28, 2005 (959 days since Iraq war ended)
Death Toll: 2,172 US - 98UK - >>30,000?
Iraqi - 25 media
Janyary
16, 2006 (978 days since Iraq war ended)
Death Toll: 2,219 US - 98UK - >>30,000?
Iraqi - 25 media
| Tony
Blair should know that respect comes by example - from the
top. If a country's leader has no respect for the rule of
nternational 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 |
Selection
is the ONLY way to save our schools
The
Melanie Phillips column - Daily Mail, January 25, 2006
Government's
predicament over education is gently escalating from crisis to
emergency. About 100 Labour MPs, many representing the mainstream
of their party, now oppose the Education White Paper. Education
Secretary Ruth Kelly stumbled yet closer to the political guillotine,
claiming that the rebels didn't understand the proposals.
In
this super-hyped atmosphere, she is being accused of suppressing
an academic report critical of academic selection. The rumble
of tumbrels is also being heard for the Prime Minister's reformist
education guru, Lord Adonis. Meanwhile, Alastair Campbell, reported
to be back, advising the beleaguered Prime Minister over his loss
of political authority, apparently took enthusiastic part in last
week/s Westminster hate-fest against this very education reform.
Let's
put to one side, for the moment, the hallucinatory nature of this
epic battle over a measure whose practical effect simply does
not bear out either the Government's claims for it or the rebels'
case against it.
Freedom
We
can only understand this surreal dance of rhetorical death if
we grasp the totemic nature of the rhetoric. The freedom being
claimed - whether for schools or for parents - is simply anathema
to the Labour ranks. The selection-defying comprehensive school
is held to embody the principle of equality. This principle is
what gives Labour politicians their identity. Take it away, and
they are left with no distinctive political position at all.
That
is why Lord Kinnock broke ranks to claim that the reforms would
increase the 'fragmentation' of the school system. It is why Fiona
Millar, the partner of Alastair Campbell, claimed yesterday that
the comprehensives had nothing to do with school failure - a bit
like saying that a restaurant with a filthy kitchen has nothing
to do with the food poisoning it gives to its patrons. The rebels
claim that refusing to select children by academic ability is
how to get the best out of every child, the fairest way to organise
society. This is all the more remarkable because it is so demonstrably
not the case.
In
truth, the comprehensive school has held back
the most disadvantaged. It was the grammar
schools that were the ladder out of disadvantage for so many.
Even today, there is a higher standard of education for pupils
in all schools in
areas where grammar schools remain, as in Northern Ireland - where
tragically they are currently threatened with extinction.
As
a result of our comprehensive system, a smaller
proportion of disadvantaged students now goes to good universities,
which are taking more from independent schools - simply because
more and more parents are beggaring themselves to send their children
there because of the demise of the grammar schools. Social mobility,
the great progressive achievement of the meritocratic school system
for which the Labour Party once stood, has gone into reverse.
As
for fairness, what is fair about selecting schools by house price,with
those with money buying houses in the catchment areas of the best
schools? What's fair about the widespread practice among Cabinet
ministers and Labour MPs of sending their children to a comprehensive
and then engaging private tutors on the quiet to make good the
deficiencies of the schools?
This
is not fairness but grotesque hypocrisy. The cause is egregious
misuse of the word 'equality'. Labour has interpreted it to mean
that we all have to be treated in an identical way. But we are
not identical. Our needs and capabilities are very different.
Mediocrity
The
comprehensive system has imposed a uniform standard of mediocrity
and dragged everyone downwards - with the exception of a luck
few who were clever enough to cope anywhere, not least because
they came from homes which could fill in the gaps.
It
was the idea that anyone should achieve less than anyone else
that became viewed - monstrously - as the great injustice. This
is why the Labour thinker Michael Young wrote the book in 1958
that had such an influence on Labour education policy by calling
for an end to meritocracy - because meritocracy means some people
will achieve more than others.
But
meritocracy is, in fact, the
only fair way to organise
a society. Tailoring education to academic ability is essential
to meritocracy. That is why school systems in European countries
all have an element of selection. None of them suffers from this
peculiarly British hang-up - which is at root all about the class
war and the atavistic belief, so venomously expressed by John
Prescott, that the middle class is the enemy and has to be put
in its place.
Selection
does not have to mean the 11-plus.
The great drawback of that system was the rigidity with which
it separated children at 10 years old, whereas so many develop
their potential much later. But it is perfectly possible to devise
a flexible system with an element of selection, allowing children
to go in and out of academic and vocational education at various
stages in their educational career.
Labour
won't hear any of this because the doctrine of sameness embodied
by the comprehensive school is its real Clause Four.
The old social aim of capturing for the workers the mechanisms
of production and exchange was dead in the water many years before
it was symbolically buried by Tony Blair. Instead, Labour had
understood that the way to reshape a society was to capture the
levers of the culture.
Values
In
his intervention last week, Lord Kinnock quoted the philosopher
Antonio Grimsci's famous slogan: "Pessimism of the intellect,
optimism of the will." He meant that a concerted effort could
achieve victory against overwhelming odds.
His
choice of philosopher, however, was perhaps more revealing than
he intended. For Gramsci promoted the idea
that the revolution would come about through the seizure of all
the institutions of a society to destroy its values and replace
them by those that negated them.
Gramsci's
agenda has been carried out to the letter. The attack on the family,
the promotion of multiculturalism and victim culture have all
imposed the idea of sameness that destroys moral judgments. And
at the very heart of this process sits the comprehensive school
- the core enforcer of sameness, the destroyer of independence
and the purported architect of utopia.
If
the denial of selection is totemic for Labor, its restoration
should be no less totemic for the Conservatives. That is why key
Tory supporters - and others - were so alarmed that David Cameron
ruled out academic selection. Now the Tory leadership is backing
off and saying that selection has not been categorically ruled
out (even if the 11-plus exam has been).
But
such ducking and weaving are themselves dismaying. Academic selection
and achievement by merit are intrinsic to social justice. The
Tories should not need to be reminded of this. Equality
of opportunity lies at the heart of a just and successful society.
Labour replaced this by equality of outcomes, the rotten core
of a totalitarian society.
Mr
Blair's educational Calvary will not redress this. Why is he going
though all this agony for so little? He should go for broke and
uphold selection by merit. What's to lose? He's in trouble anyway
- and this way he might even save the country.
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