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
28, 2006 (1114 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2464 US - 111 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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Merry-go-round
where we're all losers
80
tax rises under Labour
If
you feel poorer under Labour, here's why. Since 1997, Gordon Brown
has presided over 80 different tax rises listed below. As a result
of those increases, Tax Freedom Day, when you stop working for
the Inland Revenue and start earning for yourself - fell on Saturday,
June 3 this year. In 1997 it was May 25. Yet Mr Brown still insists
he's a tax-cutting Chancellor (Daily Mail, June 6, 2006)
1997
1.
Council tax up 6.5% to Band D average of £688
2.
Mortgage tax relief cut from 15% to
10%, saving Chancellor £800billion-a-year.
3.
£5billion-a-year
tax grab on retirement savings by scrapping dividend tax credits
for pension funds.
4.
Private medical insurance tax relief for pensioners abolished.
5.
Health insurance taxed again.
6.
Fuel tax escalator up, leading to inflation-busting rises on petrol
prices.
7.
Vehicle excise duty up.
8.
Tobacco duty escalator up (as fuel)
9.
Stamp duty increased on properties over £250,000.
10.
Corporation tax changes.
11.
Windfall tax on privatised utilities, designed to raise £5.2billion.
1998
12.
Married couples' allowance cut from 15% to 10% from April 1999.
13.
Tax on travel insurance up.
14.
Tax on casinos and gaming machines up.
15.
Fuel tax escalator brought forward.
16.
Tax on company cars increased.
17.
Tax relief for foreign earnings abolished.
18.
Tax concession for certain professions abolished.
19.
Capital Gains tax imposed on certain non-residents.
20.
Reinvestment relief restricted.
21.
Corporation tax payments brought forward.
22.
Stamp duty on properties increased again.
23.
Some petrol and oil duties raised.
24.
Additional diesel duties.
25.
Landfill fax up, from £7 to £10 per ton.
26.
Council tax up by 8.6% for average bill on Band D property to
£747.
1999
27.
Upper earnings limit for National Insurance contributions raised
above inflation.
28.
National Insurance for self-employed people raised.
29.
Married couple's allowance abolished from 2000 for under-65's.
30.
Mortgage
interest relief abolished from April 2000, increasing typical
the bill for average homeowner by £240-a-year.
31.
New
rules to stop contractors in IT industry setting up firms to reduce
their tax bills.
32.
High mileage discount for company cars cut.
33.
Tobacco duty escalator brought forward.
34.
Insurance premium tax up from 1% to 5%.
35.
Vocational training relief abolished.
36.
Employer's National Insurance contributions extended to all benefits-in-kind.
37.
VAT on some banking services increased.
38.
Premiums paid to tenants by landlords taxed.
39.
Duty on minor oils, such as fuel oil, up.
40.
Vehicle excise duties for lorries up.
41.
Landfill tax escalator introduced.
42.
Stamp duty on properties increased again.
43.
Council tax up by 6.7% for average bill on Band D property to
£798.
2000
44.
Tobacco duties up by 5% above inflation.
45.
Stamp duty on properties
increased again.
46.
Extra taxation of life assurance companies.
47.
Rules extended on companies using foreign subsidiaries to shelter
profits on low tax regime.
48.
Council tax up by 6.1% for average bill
on Band D property to £847.
2001
49.
Council tax up by 6.4%
for average bill on Band D property to £901.
2002
50.
Personal allowances for everybody under the age of 55 frozen.
51.
National Insurance rate to rise from 10% to 11% from April 2003.
52.
New NI band for higher earners.
53.
National Insurance for employers rises from 11% to 12%.
54.
Self-employed also rises by 1%.
55.
North Sea taxation up.
56.
Tax on some alcoholic drinks up.
57.
New stamp duty regime aimed at stamping out tax avoidance.
58.
New rules on loan relationships.
59.
Council tax up by 8.2%
for average bill on Band D property to £976.
2003
60.
VAT on electronically supplied services.
61.
IR35 applied to domestic workers to stop families from reducing
tax bills on nannies.
62.
Betting duty change.
63.
Tax on red diesel and fuel oil up.
64.
Rules extended on companies using foreign subsidiaries to shelter
profits in low tax regimes extended to Ireland.
65.
Vehicle excise duty up by £5 on cars and vans.
66.
Council tax up by 12.9%
for average bill on Band D property to £1,102
2004
67.
New 19% tax rate for owner-managed businesses.
68.
Six-fold
increase in the amount of tax paid by tradesmen for using their
vans outside working hours. For basic rate taxpayers, an annual
rise of £110 to £660.
69.
UK transfer pricing introduced, substantially increasing red tape
on British firms.
70.
Increase in rate of tax on discretionary trusts becomes 40%.
71.
Increase in tax on red diesel fuel.
72.
Increase in tax on other road fuels, including LPG (Liquified
Petroleum Gas).
73.
Council tax up by 5.9%
for average bill on Band D property to £1,167.
2005
74.
Cancellation of stamp duty land tax relief on disadvantaged areas.
75.
Tax on North Sea oil firms doubled from 10% to 20%.
76.
0% rate of corporation tax abolished which had been introduced
by Mr Brown to encourage small businesses.
77.
Council tax up by 4.1%
for average bill on Band D property to £1,214
2006
78.
Clampdown on trusts and insurance policies commonly used to cut
future inheritance bills.
79.
Increase of £45 in vehicle excise duty for gas-guzzling
4x4s cars.
80.
Council tax up by 4.5%
for average bill on Band D property to £1,268.
Source:
Grant Thornton, Institute for Fiscal Studies and Conservative
Party.
The
years refer to when the taxes were announced by not necessarily
when they were introduced. In addition to these rises, the Chancellor
increased his take by dragging more and more income tax payers
into the 40% tax bracket by consistently limiting rises in allowances
and top rate thresholds.
Merry-go-round
where we're all losers
Commentary
by Edward Heathcoat Amory - Daily Mail, June 6, 2006
Gordon
Brown believes that he is the best judge of how we should be spending
our money. That's why he has raised billions of pounds in increased
taxes, and then handed it out again in the form of tax credits
and benefits. As a result, an increasing number of people have
been dragged into a not-so-merry fiscal merry-go-round, being
forced to hand over hard-earned money to the Government while
also filling out forms to try and get it back.
The
truth is that the system has become far too complex. The Child
Poverty Action Group guide to welfare benefits has grown from
432 pages in 1991 to 1,546 pages in 2005. Tolley's 'Tax Bible',
the accountants' guide to the tax system, has doubled in size
since 1997. As accountants and lawyers get rich - the rest of
us lose out.
The
genuinely badly off suffer because they are least likely to wade
through a Byzantine system and get the money to which they are
entitled. Indeed, more than 20% of those eligible for tax credits
do not apply. Meanwhile, the better off pocket the handouts -
families with incomes of up to £66,000 a year are eligible
for tax credits - but would rather have paid less tax in the first
place.
Because
the tax system is uniquely badly structured for handing out benefits,
nearly everyone gets either too much or too little. Yet another
Parliamentary report this week highlights the system's failure.
For three years in a row, the Government has paid out £2billion
too much in tax credits. Half of that is often unfairly clawed
back. The other half - £1billion a year - was just as unfairly
written off, a free gift from the hard-working to the feckless.
Even
worse, the system costs of £500million a year to maladminister.
A great deal more is swallowed by fraud. Earlier this year, the
Institute for Fiscal Studies worked out that lone parent benefit
is paid to 2.1 million people, but there are only 1.9 million
single parents in Britain. That means at least 200,000 people
are not telling the truth - another consequence of the benefit
system which creates incentives to cheat.
Meanwhile,
the pensions credit system has discouraged countless hard-working
families from saving for their retirement, because it's no longer
in their financial interests to do so. Nursery vouchers, another
tax credit intended to help the poor pay for childcare, save a
higher rate tax-payer more than £1000 a year. But for those
at the bottom of the scale, they aren't worth claiming because
they reduce their entitlement to other benefits.
So,
although these handouts aren't working properly, we still have
to pay for them out of 80+ tax rises since the 1997 election.
Some of them, like the raid on pension funds, weren't very obvious
at the time but that one tax change has diminished the value of
the national pension pot by over £100billion.
Others,
like the regular rises in council tax, massively above inflation,
have been only too obvious but the Treasury doesn't mind because
it knows it can blame the increases on local councils and muddy
the water sufficiently to get away with it.
Sometimes,
Mr Brown doesn't even have to raise taxes to rake in more money.
The system has become so complex that one recent study worked
out that we now pay £7.9billion more a year in tax than
we should. Moreover, another 3.3 million of us have been drawn
into paying higher rate tax every year - an increase of 58% under
Labour. At the same time, despite the Chancellor's protestations,
he's been increasing the tax burdens on business as well.
Last
December, a group of leading businessmen pointed out that in 2000,
20 out of 30 of the world's largest economies had higher taxes
than Britain. Now only ten do - and most of those are in high-tax,
low-growth Europe.
All
in, the Government now raises £516billion of our money every
year, up fro £271billion in 1997. We are becoming a high-tax
economy once again. But worse than that, the dependency culture
has won. So many people have become addicted to Labour handouts
that even ~David Cameron believes that he cannot win an election
by arguing for a cut in the size of the state, or a reduction
in the number of public sector workers.
Today,
he's giving a speech saying that it's time Tories were nice to
the public sector. Politically, he may be right, but economically,
we seem trapped on Mr Brown's damaging merry-go-round for the
foreseeable future.
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