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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June
16 , 2006 (1133 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2500 US - 113 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
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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The
McMafia threatening the UK
As
a report concludes that Gordon Brown's Scottishness will cost
Labour votes, we examine the causes behind the rising tension
between two Great British peoples ..............
Commentary
by Tim Luckhurst - Former Editor of the Scotsman and former adviser
to the late Donald Dewar. Born in England, he has lived in Scotland
for 21 years
Daily
Mail, June 21, 2006
There
was nothing hypocritical or inconsistent about Gordon Brown travelling
to Germany last night to support England in the World Cup. The
Chancellor is a British patriot who has never perceived any problem
being both a proud Scot and loving England. But such an attitude
is utterly contrary to the puerile anti-English prejudice expressed
by Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell - who began the World
Cup by declaring his support for England's group rivals Trinidad
and Tobago
Jane
Merrick, Political Correspondent of the Daily Mail, writes
.... January 21, 2006
A
growing number of English MPs are calling for an end to
the power wielded by Scottish politicians at Westminster.
Nearly 30 Labour MPs and 188 Tories want Scots excluded
from voting in the Commons on issues that do not affect
their constituents.
And
such a move would be supported by 43% of the public, says
a YouGov poll to be published tomorrow.
Allies
of Gordon Brown see discontent about a 'tartan mafia'
dominating English life as a further blow to the Chancellor's
leadership ambitions. Mr Brown, who travelled to Germany
to support England in their final first-round game against
Sweden last night has gone out of his way to promote Britishness
and support for England in the World Cup. But
a majority of voters do not want a Scot at Number 10.
The
Tories demanded wholesale changes to voting rules in the
Commons to allow the Speaker to bar Scottish MPs from
voting on certain laws. But their demands were likely
to fall on stony ground as the Speaker is a Scottish Labour
MP, Michael Martin.
The
anomaly where Scottish MPs have a say over English laws
but their counterparts south of the border cannot vote
on polices devolved to Scotland is known as the West Lothian
Question, after the MP for that constituency, Tam Dalyell,
first raised the issue.
The
latest row was sparked by a report by the Scottish Affairs
Committee which admitted there was mounting anger in England
against the power of the Scots. The MPs who want Scots
excluded from voting on English laws include senior backbenchers
such as former minister the Liverpool Walton MP Peter
Kilfoyle, Cannock Chase MP Tony Wright, chairman of the
powerful Public Administration Committee, and Ian Gibson,
Left-wing former select committee chairman.
Mr
Gibson, born in Dumfries, but elected to the seat of Norwich
North, demanded an end to the power of Scottish MPs at
Westminster. He said: "You cannot keep hiding behind
the fact that it is a British Parliament when in fact
there is a Scottish Parliament in control of their affairs.
They get two bites of the cherry. Some things have gone
through Parliament with the help of Scottish votes. It
is not democratic."
Brownite
former Home Office Minister Michael Wills in a paper for
the centre-Left IPPR think tank yesterday called for constitutional
changes to restore public confidence.
Former
Home Secretary Charles Clarke has also raised concerns
about the Barnett formula, which gives Scotland a privileged
share of spending per capita over England. Official figures
this year put public spending per head in England at £6,762.
But in Scotland it was £8,265, a difference of £1,053.
The
YouGov survey of 1,986 UK voters for English Democrats
also reveals that a further 23% of voters want a separate
English Parliament.
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Brown
under threat from the English Lion
Comment
- Daily Mail, January 21, 2006
Lousy
luck, Gordon Brown. He used to be a champion of Scottish
devolution. Now, at the very moment he is planning for
his long-awaited accession, it becomes his greatest nightmare.
A nightmare, too, for Britons who care about democracy
and the constitution of the UK.
An
all-party Commons committee has let slip an unsayable
truth that the 1998 devolutionary settlement is riddled
with flaws, now threatening a breakdown in relations between
England and Scotland.
Worse
still for the Chancellor, the committee concludes that,
as leader, Mr Brown's Scottishness would damage Labour's
standing in the polls. At the
heart of this ill-feeling is the rule that Scottish MPs
may vote on all English concerns. But English MPs have
no similar say in Scotland.
It
is exacerbated by reports that chippy anti-English animosity
north of the border is getting worse, not better. This
is despite the fact that the Scots receive £1,050
a head more public money than the English. And that Scots
enjoy free university tuition and free nursing care for
the elderly - privileges denied in the South.
The
Chancellor used to believe devolution would ease tensions
between Scots and English. How hollow that now rings.
Today, English
voters look with growing irritation at a Government stuffed
with Scots - albeit many of them brilliant
men. So it is that, after years of dormancy, English nationalism
is being reborn, on an ocean of St. George's flags. And
that is very bad news for our very able Chancellor.
Mr
Brown's Scottish chickens are coming home to roost. And
as the English lion circles them, he is in a dreadful
quandary. Does he resuscitate his campaign for a new Britishness,
knowing it must ultimately underline how very Scottish
he is? Does he cheer loudly for our boys in the World
Cup, knowing that it will bitterly alienate his fellow
Scots - many of whom were rooting for Sweden last night?
And whose First Minister, Jack McConnell, pathetically
backed Trinidad and Tobago in England's second game.
The
Commons committee suggested 4 possible answers to the
crisis: dissolving the UK; English devolution; fewer Scottish
MPs; only English votes on English laws. All four are
constitutional minefields.
The
Union brought vast benefits to both nations, with Scotland
contributing hugely disproportionately to the Empire.
British literature, science and the economy. Both peoples
actually like each other enormously. Now all this is threatened.
And all because of Labour's shoddy plan to secure its
grip on Scottish seats by buying off Scottish Nationalist
voters with the ill-thought-out promise of an Edinburgh
parliament.
We
suspect that most Scots aren't particularly bothered about
self-rule. But the problem with devolution is that it
created a new class of politician. Politicians love power
- and when they have it, the want more. So separation
between Scots and English becomes self-fulfilling.
If
devolution proves the undoing of Mr Brown and his ambitions,
being a supremely intelligent and self-aware man, he will
know who to blame.
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Tragically,
the forces unleashed by Scottish devolution are now making Mr
Brown's approach more rare. Last week, two English football supporters
were savagely beaten up in a Renfrewshire pub. Days earlier, the
Commission for Racial Equality fell compelled to warn Scots not
to display anti-English bigotry.
The
truth is that there has never been a worse time to be English
in Scotland and the reason is clear. The reckless constitutional
vandalism by which Tony Blair created a Scottish Parliament is
wrecking the Union. Devolution let Scotland have its cake and
eat it, but at the expense of anti-English sentiment in Scotland
- and a growing backlash in England. The latter is inexcusable,
but it is easily explained.
In
Scottish schools, children are taught a deeply symbolic lesson
about imperialism. There was only one Scottish colonial adventure
- the Darien scheme of 1698, which was a calamity. One thousand
two hundred settlers of the Scottish East India Company were sent
to establish a trading post in Panama, but within a year, desertion
and death destroyed any prospect of success and 900 survivors
fled.
As
a result, it's not surprising that Scotland abandoned imperialism.
But has it? Since Ediburgh-born Mr Blair
took power, talented Scots have been encouraged to build a new
empire. It is called ENGLAND. The
major institutions of the British state are now dominated by Scots.
Apart
from huge representation in the Cabinet and in Blair's circle
of McCronies, the wider arms of government and the quangos that
it appoints, together with powerful parts of the media supposed
to scrutinise them, are Scottish enclaves. So are key areas of
industry, showbiz, business and sport.
Of
course, none of this influence in the upper echelons of the British
Establishment would be controversial if Britain was still a thriving
unitary state. In 1992, when the obnoxious polemicist T.W.H Crosland
complained that 'England is virtually run by the Scotch', he was
condemned as a bigot. But now, with Scots-born politicians leading
both Labour and Liberal Democrat parties and Mr Brown poised to
replace Mr Blair, the legitimacy of Scottish influence is in question.
As
the Scottish Affairs Committee of the House of Commons recognised
earlier this week, the Scottish presence at the heart of the British
state is no longer based on equal citizenship. Such inequity,
it warned, could lead to English voters deserting Labour if Mr
Brown becomes Prime Minister.
The
Scottish Parliament was created to put Scottish affairs in Scottish
hands. But, in fact, it has subjected English affairs to an unprecedented
degree of Scottish control while denying English people access
to power in Scotland.
Only
a handful of people born outside Scotland sit in Holyrood. It
is inconceivable that an English politician could be elected Prime
Minister. Down in London, the Glaswegian Michael Martin is Speaker
of the Commons, but no English politician can hop to fill the
equivalent post of Presiding Officer at Holyrood.
Of
the Scots who made New Labour - Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, John
Smith, Robin Cook and Donald Dewar - only Dewar returned to the
Edinburgh Parliament. Since its creation, traffic has stampeded
in the opposite direction.
If
membership was accorded in proportion to population, Scotland
would have two ministers in the British Cabinet. But there are
seven. Also, more than 106 Scottish MPs are sitting in Westminster.
It is not just the number of Scots in government hat highlights
the rank inequality devolution has created. They have disproportionate
influence, too. And the Scots do better out of the public purse
than their southern cousins. Public spending is £1,050 per
head higher in Scotland than in England.
Such
largesse has created 52,000 new government jobs, abolished student
tuition fees and provided free nursing care for the elderly. But
the Scots who lavish this generosity on their own constituents
deny the same policies to England.
Astonishingly,
given the fiercely independent status of the Scottish legal system,
English law is entrusted to care of Secretary of State for Constitutional
Affair, Lord Falconer (Mr Blair's oldest Scottish crony and Trinity
College, Glenalmond-educated former flatmate). Blair's Scottish
elite includes several people with similar personal connections.
His
first office manager Q=was Anji Hunter, a former pupil of St.
Andrews, whom he first met at a school party. She is as much friend
as colleague. So is Inverness-born Lord Irvine, the last man to
hold the 1,4000-year-old English post of Lord Chancellor.
Unsurprisingly,
English politicians are beginning to demand that the ruinous consequences
of devolution must be corrected. They know that Mr Blair has poured
investment into Scotland at the expense of parts of England where
government expenditure is urgently needed. While Scottish political
leaders would be fools to refuse free gifts, a sensitive prime
minister, keen to preserve the union that has served England and
Scotland well for nearly 300 years, would recognise this as a
bad moment to rub English noses in Scottish influence. Yet Mr
Blair does the opposite.
With
contempt for the tolerant togetherness that built an empire and
defeated Hitler, he has continued to promote Scots in English
public life. The injustice has become so glaring that former Tory
minister Michael Portillo suggested this week that the time has
come for Scotland to 'sever the apron strings that bind it to
England'.
That
would be a catastrophe. The Union is worth far more than a tin-pot
parliament in Edinburgh that many Scots now despise as sleazy
and incompetent.
But
why has Blair sat back and watched his botched attempt at devolution
create such disharmony? Supporters of Gordon Brown suspect they
know. They believe Mr Blair's determination to block the Chancellor's
route to 10 Downing Street is so profound that he is willing to
damage the union to achieve his goal.
They
accuse him of deliberately stimulating anti-Scottish sentiment
so that England will not tolerate a Scot as Prime Minister of
the United Kingdom. If true, such a tactic would be unforgivable.
From
the moment that King James VI of Scotland became King James I
of England, the Scottish contribution to British life has been
immense. Scottish military men, entrepreneurs and lawyers made
a disproportionate contribution to building and running the British
Empire.
Scots
served in disproportionate numbers in both world wars and won
a reputation for remarkable bravery. Scottish soldiers confirmed
their reputation in the Falklands War and are doing so today in
Iraq and Afghanistan. Scotland was the cradle of the Enlightenment
ideas that underpin British democracy and the workshop of the
empire.
A
country containing just 10% of the British people pioneered a
disproportionate number of break-throughs in medicine and engineering.
As a British patriot raised in Scotland, married to a Scot and
living in Glasgow, I love Scotland. I desperately want Scottish
influence in the UK to continue. Until the creation of the Scottish
Parliament, it did Britain nothing but good. But I fear the consequences
if Mr Blair continues to abuse it for his own selfish ends.
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