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
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 |
How
dare the Scots tell us what to do
Stephen
Glover - Daily Mail, January 19, 2006
Gordon
Brown has a problem. He is Scottish - more obviously so than aspiring
Lib Dem leader, Sir Menzies Campbell. That is not to say that
Sir Menzies does not also have a problem, only that it is of a
lesser order than the Chancellor's. Sir Menzies has the faintest
of Scottish accents, and one might almost mistake him for a debonair,
slightly affected Englishman. Mr Brown's tones are not merely
more evidently Scottish. He exudes Presbyterian rectitude and
a kind of northern bleakness.
His
particular difficulty as a would-be Prime Minister arises because
Scots are less loved in England than at any time since the mid-18th
century. A surprising number of English people resent the power
of Scots MPs to vote on purely English matters at Westminster,
whereas English MPs have no say over many Scottish matters as
a result of Scots having their own Parliament. This is the famous
West Lothian question, which this Government has wilfully ignored.
Mr
Brown hopes to persuade potentially (if not already) grumpy English
voters, whose support he must have to
win the next election as Labour leader, that we share
a common Britishness which transcends any tribal differences.
Hence his recent call in a speech to the Fabian Society for a
British national day, and his wrapping of himself in the Union
Flag.
The
Chancellor even hinted 'ecclesiastical appointments' might in
future not be made by Prime Ministers. He may have been accommodating
himself to the possible objection of some English people if he
- a Scottish Presbyterian son of the manse - were to be involved
in appointment of an Archbishop of Canterbury. As an historian,
he will remember how a former Presbyterian Scottish Labour Prime
Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, created a hullabaloo by appointing
the low-church (we would now say evangelical) Bishop Barnes to
the see of Birmingham.
Some
people will think Mr Brown's speech calculating and self-serving,
and no doubt it was. There is no reason to suppose that he does
not genuinely celebrate Britishness, and honestly see himself
as defender of the Union. Politicians, after all, often have their
hidden agendas. If Mr Brown arrived at the right conclusion -
I speak as an ardent Unionist, rather than as a little Englander
- we should perhaps not examine his motives too closely.
The
trouble is that what he says unfortunately makes no sense. He
presents himself as a loyal and convinced Briton, proud of our
island history and our shared values of liberty and tolerance,
as well as of the enterprise and ingenuity which enabled out forefathers
to colonise a quarter of the globe. And yet he - or New Labour
- has substantially undermined the very notion of Britishness
about which he waxes so eloquently.
Since
1997, Government has regularly relied on Scots Labour MPs to carry
contentious legislation which involves only England. For example,
Scottish (and Welsh) Labour MPs voted for introduction of student
top-up fees affecting only English universities. With a much reduced
majority since last May, the Government is likely to rely increasingly
on its Scottish MPs to pass legislation concerning only England.
If the new education bill affecting England does not receive the
support of the Tories, the Government, facing a backbench rebellion
among its own MPs, will be dependent on its Scottish contingent
to pass it into law.
This
is a glaring injustice that is bound to infuriate many English
people and chip away at their feelings of Britishness. A Scottish
MP may have a say in purely English matters regarding health or
education or law and order, but an English MP has no corresponding
rights in respect of Scottish affairs. This contradiction was
foreseen nearly 30 years ago by the former Scottish Labour MP
Tam Dalyell in opposing devolution, and it was he who described
it as 'the West Lothian Question'.
There
is, in fact, a perfectly straightforward solution to the West
Lothian question, put forward by former Tory minister Kenneth
Baker earlier this week in the House of Lords. Lord Baker suggested
that only English MPs at Westminster should be able to vote on
bills exclusively affecting England. In the case of legislation
concerning Britain, on defence, finance or social security, all
Westminster MPs would naturally be allowed to vote.
Here
is a solution that would be just and fair, and deflate burgeoning
anti-Scottish feelings. Why does the Government not adopt it?
Because if it were to do so it would be unable to pass much of
its legislation that has only to do with England. Deprived of
the electoral power of its Scottish MPs, it would barely be able
to muster a majority in respect of English affairs, and that majority
might melt away in the case of contentious issues. To govern England,
Labour must have Scotland.
That
would be a defensible state of affairs if there were no devolution,
and if the United Kingdom remained a unitary state. But devolution
has changed all that. Labour has introduced grotesque inequalities
into the British constitution which it has done nothing to correct.
The
system by which billions of pounds of tax receipts are transferred
from England to Scotland (the so-called Barnett formula) will
inevitably provoke more and more English outrage as long as these
constitutional inequalities persist. To put it bluntly, the English
did not mind subsidising the Scots too much when there was one
State and one Parliament. It becomes a different
matter when Scottish MPs at Westminster have far greater powers
over England than their English counterparts enjoy over Scotland.
It
must have taken a lot of chutzpah for Mr Brown to celebrate Britishness
when the Government in which he is such a leading light has done
so much to undermine it. He is too astute a politician not to
have realised the contradiction in what he said. Stirring though
his evocation of Britain may have seemed on a superficial level,
it was an appeal to a dying ideal, or at any rate an ideal which
New Labour is slowly killing off.
And,
more than the very English Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, as an unmistakable
Scot, threatens to become in English eyes the embodiment of the
gross unfairness of the West Lothian question. As he seeks to
reassure us that he is British first and Scottish second, and
shares a common heritage with English voters, so paradoxically
he may serve to highlight the inequalities Labour has created.
I'd say it was one of the two or three most pressing issues in
British politics. There is a solution, though, I very much doubt
whether Labour, or Gordon Brown, has the courage to embrace it.
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