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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July
8, 2007 (1499 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 3605 US - 158 UK - >1,000,000? civilians - 25 media
July
13, 2007 (1504 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 3611 US - 159 UK - >1,000,000? civilians - 25 media
This
site has had 
visitors
£900
- That's what Whitehall bungles cost each family every year
By
Ian Drury - Political Reporter - Daily Mail, July 13, 2007
Every
household in Britain is paying £900 a year to cover the
cost of bungled Government projects. Labour has squandered a staggering
£23billion of taxpayer's money by failing to control the
spiralling costs of hundreds of flagship schemes, figures reveal.
The
2012 Olympic Games in London, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, a
super-computer for the NHS and the Eurofighter military aircraft
are among the projects that have soared over budget. The wasted
money would have been enough to build nearly 100 new hospitals.
MPs
and low-tax campaigners said the sum squandered was 'criminal'.
Philip Hammond, Tory Treasury spokesman, said: "It is outrageous
that hardworking British families have been hit to the tun of
£900 each to pay for Labour's project cost overruns.
During his ten years as Chancellor, Gordon Brown has overseen
the wasting of taxpayer's money on an industrial scale. Labour's
inability to manage projects effectively partly explains why he
has spent so much and achieved so little."
The
TaxPayer's Alliance campaign group uncovered the amount wasted
by investigating the official budgets of 305 Government schemes.
These included new roads, new hospitals, science facilities, computer
systems, art galleries and defence systems. All the schemes have
been completed in the past two years or are ongoing.
Researchers
compared the initial estimated budget for the projects with the
final cost or latest estimate. They discovered that the average
overrun for a project was 34%. The budgets of 14 projects overran
by more than the Millennium Dome, which cost £2-04million
more than planned.
The
biggest drain on the public purse was the installation of the
Department of Health's crisis-hit national computer system, designed
to hold millions of NHS patient's records. The scale and complexity
of this project, thought to be the world's largest civilian IT
project, means it is already years behind schedule. The original
cost was £2.3 billion. But the latest estimate is £12.4billion
- 439% over budget.
The
budget for the 2012 Olympics has spirally from £2.4billion
in 2005 when London won the battle to stage the Games, to £9.35billion
now. The bill for the Ministry of Defence's Astute class nuclear
submarines, being built by BAe Systems, has soared from £2.5billion
to £3.6billion.
And
a wave of hospitals built under the controversial private finance
initiative scheme have seen costs rocket by millions of pounds.
The worst two departments for overruns were the Department of
Health and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Matthew
Sinclair, policy analyst at the TaxPayer's Alliance, said: "These
figures expose a consistent pattern of poor project management.
Taxpayer's are footing the bill for the failure of politicians
and civil servants to manage large projects effectively."
Experts
said the problems stemmed from a failure by departments to specify
exactly what the wanted, underestimating costs to get a project
approved and paying over the odds in an attempt to solve the problem.
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