Silent Majority Speaks
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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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This
site has had 
visitors
Our
PM has been Mr Bean and a Runner Bean.May he soon be a
Has-Bean .. please!
'Straight
to the point' - from Harry Dodd, Bath - Daily Mail, December
18, 2007
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Fixing
the inflation figures
Letter
from Jack Luxon, Weston-super-Mare - Daily Mail, January 10, 2008
Gordon
Brown, on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, told us that Britain's
inflation rate is 2%, America's is 4% and Germany's 3%.
No
one on the programme had the guts to ask him how he knew he was
comparing like with like. He should have been asked whether our
Government-friendly Office of National Statistics calculates inflation
for America and Germany as well as Britain.
The
ONS even produces two figues, the more real Retail Price Index
(RPI), currently twice the level of the Consumer Price Index (CPI)
which is the figure our PM prefers to use.
It
seems that the RPI is a measure unknown to Gordon Brown. Someone
should have asked him if he knew the coast of a loaf compared
with 12 months ago. Does he think rail users agree inflation is
2% in view of the recent double-digit fare rises? Petrol and diesel
at more than £1 a litre is surely 2% more than it it was
12 months ago.
It's
all very well telling us that the cost of flat-screen TVs is coming
down, but we don't buy new TVs all that often.
The
ONS is a government agency and comes up with the numbers the Government
tells it to. It's a shame we can't have a truly independent body
to conduct a realistic survey of prices - council tax is currently
ignored when CPI is calculated.
The
base average weekly household expenditure used by the ONS is currently
£478.10 - expenditure, not income - and the resulting calculation
of RPI determines the annual level of state pension increase.
Not
many pensioner households spend £478.10 a week. The ONS
calculates a figure for pensioner expenditure, excluding rent,
council tax and water charges - but it is then ignored.
*************************************************
Letter
from Barry Lazenbury, Yate, Glos. - Daily Mail, January 10, 2008
Happy
New Year? For those of us on fixed incomes, 2008 will be a bleak
one. Thanks to Gordon Brown's income tax changes - coming into
effect in April - I shall be £200 a year worse off. With
my npower domestic fuel bill rising by £180 a year, a £75-a-year
increase in my council tax, an extra £8 a month to fill
the tank of our modest car and a £60 a year inflationary
food bill, I calculate that I'll be more than £600 worse
off compared with last year.
But
I dare say the Government will pull some statistic out of a hat
which will appear to make be far better off.
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