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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February
25, 2007 (1367ays since war ended)
Death
Toll: 3155 US - 132 UK - >650,000? civilians - 25 media
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site has had 
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The
Sure Start plan to help needy children is 'a £1bn disaster'
By
Steve Doughty - Social Affairs Correspondent, Daily Mail, February
24, 2007
Labour's
flagship scheme to help underprivileged children became a financial
failure, watchdogs have told Whitehall. They accuse Sure Start
scheme of wasting huge amounts of its £1billion budget on
bureaucracy, staff, buildings and wrongheaded spending.
A
project meant to bring vital healthcare and education to the most
vulnerable children ended up paying for taxis to take the offspring
of middle-class mothers to private nurseries, they found.
The
'interim' verdict was delivered to Whitehall last year by a team
of academics employed by the Education Department. The document
was effectively buried by civil servants. A final assessment -
supposed to have been completed before last month - has still
not emerged. The report, prepared by the team led by Pamela Meadows
of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, painted
a devastating picture of waste.
Sure
Start was launched by Gordon Brown in 1998 to cut poverty, crime,
drug abuse and despair. It spent well over £1billion in
its first five years. But the team found that for the first two
years in operation, Sure Start projects spent most of their money
on overheads, and helped almost no children until the third year.
The
budget for that period (its first two years) was £450million.
Even
in its fourth year, Sure Start was still using more than a quarter
of all its funding - around £125million a year - on bureaucracy,
offices and staff. And the report found that some of the 'phenomenal'
sum of money available has been spent in a highly questionable
way.
One
private nursery owner was quoted: "Parents are getting cute.
They say they can't come because they don't have transport. The
programme then tells them, OK, we'll send a taxi for you'.
A
Sure Start manager told the watchdogs: "There are families
who do not need the level of support Sure Start are offering,
but they come because it is cheap. They live in private housing,
drive here and use the creche and this is preventing other needy
families from coming here."
Some
of the buildings put up for projects were inadequate and would
not pass Ofsted inspections, other managers said. The projects
are being replaced by Sure Start Children's Centres, run solely
by councils, which concentrate of providing childcare places in
school buildings.
Jill
Kirby, of the centre-Right Centre of Policy Studies think tank,
said: "Sure Start has created a new layer of bureaucracy,
taken money and time from health visitors and other key workers,
and failed to provide families with support and guidance."
Tory
education spokesman David Willets said: "Gordon Brown has
shown yet again that he can't deliver. Money was sucked away from
where it was really needed."
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