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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May
23, 2007 (1453 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 3432 US - 149 UK - >1,000,000? civilians - 25 media
May
29, 2007 (1459 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 3467 US - 149 UK - >1,000,000? civilians - 25 media
This
site has had 
visitors
£45m
to pay for the Whitehall non-jobs
By
Jane Merrick - Political Correspondent - Daily Mail, May 30, 2007
Taxpayers
are paying £45million a year to civil servants who have
no job, official figures revealed last night. At least 634 staff
across 20 ministerial departments in Whitehall are on the payroll
but do no work, the Government's own figures show.
The
cost of funding the 'non jobs' will come as a shock to voters
who have been told that Gordon Brown has cut back on billions
in wasteful public spending by slashing civil service jobs. Details
of the invisible army of out-of-work civil servants were revealed
by Ministers in a series of parliamentary written answers to Shadow
Constitutional Affairs Secretary Oliver Heald.
The
staff are classed as either 'between posts' or 'without a post'.
They have done proper work in the past but when that has finished
they are kept on the payroll until something else comes up, instead
of being forced to look for another job as they would in the private
sector. In some departments, a team of yet more staff is employed
solely to find jobs for the out-of-work bureaucrats.
Ministers
admitted that instead of being laid off, the civil servants' details
are sent to a central 'Priority Talent Pool' which tries to find
them work in Whitehall. The average Whitehall salary is £71,000,
which would mean £45,014million being spent keeping 634
in their jobs.
Mr
Heald asked 20 Whitehall departments how many staff were being
paid from public funds but had no post. Among seven departments
who had responded by last night, 222 civil servants were classed
as on the payroll but without a job. If that number were extended
across Government, the figure would be 634.
But
the Tories said the number could be even higher because massive
departments such as the Home Office, the Department of Work and
Pensions and Defra had yet to respond. Alastair Darling's Department
of Trade and Industry has the highest number out of work, with
73 twiddling their thumbs.
There
are 67 at the new Ministry of Justice, formerly the Department
for Constitutional Affairs, 32 at the Foreign Office, 20 at the
Cabinet Office and 19 at embattled Ruth Kelly's department of
Communities and Local Government. Six people at International
Development and five at the Department of Transport are also out
of work. It is thought a further 35 have no job at the Department
of Health, but figures have not yet been released.
Three
years ago, the Chancellor pledged to save £21billion by
slashing 80,000 posts, and the Government has already spent more
than £1billion in redundancy payments since the cull was
ordered. Mr Heald said: "Gordon Brown's claims to have cut
back the number of unnecessary civil servants have been shown
to be a sham. Vast sums of taxpayers' money are being wasted by
the Labour Government employing bureaucrats who literally have
nothing to do."
Corin
Taylor of the Taxpayers' Alliance said: "These figures really
give the lie to claims that the civil service is understaffed.
Taxpayers deserve better than to see hundreds of Whitehall officials
wandering around with nothing to do."
A
spokesman for the Ministry of Justice defended the high number
as the result of 'restructuring' following the merger of some
parts of the Home Office into the Department of Constitutional
Affairs. He added: "There is also a commitment from the department
to redeploy people in the most efficient way possible within the
department."
A
DTI spokesman said since the figures were published the number
of people not in posts in the department had gone down from 73
to 56. He added: "We have cut more than 1,000 jobs in the
last three years, around a quarter of the staff, to achieve greater
efficiency."
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