Silent Majority Speaks

Rescuing Democracy in the United Kingdom from our current Elected Dictatorship

Write this letter to your Labour MP to get rid of Blair

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

WWW silentmajorityspeaks.com

The Government plans to build over the countryside and strip local communities of their say on planning. The campaign was launched in Ashford, Kent, whose greenfields have been designated by John Prescott as an ‘urban growth area'.

Mr Howard has said: "Labour - with the explicit support of the Liberal Democrats - plans to build more than 100,000 new buildings in Kent in the next twenty-five years. 40,000 of those homes will be built on green field sites. In Ashford, Labour wants to build 30,000 new homes - doubling the size of the town. More than 20,000 of those will be on green field sites.

"We need to find the balance between preserving what we have, what we inherited from the generations that have gone before us, and ensuring that we continue to see thriving, growing communities. The best way to do that is to give back to local councils the powers that Labour are secretly stealing."

Michael Howard added: "The next Conservative government will let local councils, elected by their local communities, have a much greater say in how their local communities should evolve. John Prescott famously said that the Green Belt was a Labour achievement and he meant to build on it. For once, he meant what he said. But he was wrong. The Green Belt is our common inheritance. Labour has let the countryside down. And we, as Conservatives, mean to defend it.

Concreting the countryside will get easier

by the Political Editor, Daily Mail - August 4, 2004

John Prescott's easing of rural planning rules was yesterday condemned as 'opening the flood-gates' to new housing on some of our best farmland. New guidance from the Deputy Prime Minister's Office cleared the way to a countryside building boom by weakening the power of local authorities to block development on agricultural land.

The announcement appeared in the small print of the new guidance called Planning Policy Statement 7. The Council for the Protection of Rural England said last night it 'significantly weakened' the hand of local authorities in controlling countryside building on top quality farmland.

The highest quality agricultural land is termed 'best and most versatile' and accounts for about a third of all farmland in the country. The old guidance said 'development of .... best and most versatile land should not be permitted unless opportunities have been assessed for accommodating development on previously developed sites'.

The new guidance waters this down dramatically. 'The presence of best and most versatile land ...should be taken into account alongside other sustainability considerations (e.g. bio-diversity, the quality and character of the landscape, its amenity value or heritage interest, accessibility to infrastructure, workforce and markets, maintaining viable communities and the protection of natural resources) when determining planning applications. It continues: 'Where significant development of agricultural land is unavoidable, local planning authorities should seek to use areas of poorer quality land in preference to that of a higher quality, except where this would be inconsistent with other sustainability considerations.'

The Conservatives warned that the relaxing of the rules threatens to transform rural communities. "We already know that John Prescott was planning to let rip with his bulldozer over England's Green Belt," said the Deputy Premier's Tory Shadow Caroline Spellman. "Now he has England's farmland in his sights. Downgrading the protection of farmland will open the floodgates for a barrage of attempts by developers to cover some of our most beautiful and valuable countryside with concrete."

CONCRETE BRITAIN

A million new homes by 2016

Two Jags Prescott unveils his vision for our green and pleasant land

by Graeme Wilson - Political Correspondent of the Daily Mail - August 7, 2004

Huge swathes of rural Britain will vanish under explosive plans to create a fresh generation of new towns, it emerged yesterday. Villages will disappear and rolling fields replaced by endless suburbia under a crusade led by John Prescott.

The Deputy Prime Minister was accused yesterday of using unelected quangos to force through plans for hundreds of thousands of homes in sprawling developments across the South of England. Villages, Oakington and Longstanton, will be gobbled up by proposals to create 'Northstowe' - a town of up to 10,000 homes - north of Cambridge. Two other villages near the university city - Little and Great Abington - will be engulfed by parallel plans for another 20,000 homes to the south-east.

In Bedford, there are plans for The Wixams - a settlement of 4,500 houses - while another 40,000 homes will be thrown up around Corby, Kettering and Wellingborough in Northamptonshire. In Winchester, there are contentious plans for 9,000 homes to be built around the hamlet of Micheldever. Another 3000 homes will spring up outside Plymouth, while a development of 2,000 is planned east of Exeter.

The scale of the proposals could change the face of southern England for ever. The effects are spreading even further afield, with a new town of 2.500 homes planned just outside Stirling in Scotland.

Mr Prescott was accused yesterday of fuelling a new generation of new towns by taking crucial planning powers away from elected councils and handing them to unelected regional assemblies which are appointed under his 'guidance'. There are fears the changes will leave many councils feeling they have no option but to rubber-stamp big developments. If they do not, the plans could be forced through by the unelected assemblies anyway.

In a blistering attack, the Economist, one of the world's leading business journals, accuses Mr Prescott of riding roughshod over local people. It highlights the Deputy Prime Minister's plans for an extra 200,000 homes in four 'growth areas', Milton Keynes and South Midlands, Thames Gateway, the London-Stansted-Cambridge corridor, and Ashford in Kent. It takes the total number of new homes to be built in the South-East over the next 12 years to a staggering 1.1 million.

The Economist acknowledges that new homes need to be built. But it is scathing about Mr Prescott's approach, which it says aims to 'undermine local planning powers'. It focuses its wrath on his Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act coming into force next month. This will 'shift power from elected county councils to unelected regional bodies' it says.

The regional assemblies, made up of hand-picked councillors, union bosses and business-men, will be responsible for drawing up regional 'spatial strategies'. This is Whitehall-speak for the regional planning guidance produced by local councils. At the same time, Prescott has given himself new powers to set targets for the number of houses built in 'growth areas', which again undermines local control over the pace of development.

Decisions on big projects, like airports or motorways, should be made by national govern-ment, says the Economist. But decisions on how much busines and housing an area can sustain should be 'made by the locals who live with the consequences'.

The criticism of Mr Prescott was echoed by the Conservatives, who claim his policies will destroy thousands kof acres of green belt as well as exacerbating the North-South divide. Tory spokesman for the regions, Bernard Jenkin, said: "These unelected regional assemblies are little more than agents of Whitehall, but John Prescott is determinedk to force through developments based on a ludicrous central plan, rather than let local communities decide on what type and scale of development is appropriate for their area."

But the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister defended the new powers. A spokesman said unelected regional assemblies included representatives of local councils, as well as people from unions, business and churches.

The arrival of another clutch of new towns comes 85 years after the creation of Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire, widely seen as England's first. The first big wave of new towns came in the decade after the Second World War, with the rapid expansion of places such as Stevenage, Basildon and Harlow. The process continued into the Sixties with the arrival of Milton Keynes and Telford. However, the growth of new towns slowed in the Eighties and Ninetimes as councils resisted new developments on their doorstep.

Beware the houses that Jags builds

"Is Britain short of housing? No, it is not. The last national census shows there are more dwellings in Britain than there are house-holds to occupy them," writes Max Hastings.

"Yes, there is a huge demand for second homes. There is also a great need for 'affordable housing' at the bottom end of the social scale. But neither of these considerations suggests a national need for housing so great that it justifies putting thousands of square miles of grass under concrete. Andres Lilico, of Europe Economics, points out that between 1991 and 2001, the number of households in Britain grew by 1.2 million, yet we built 1.5 million new dwellings. so where is the great nationwide shortage of roofs?" Read his full report.

Making existing houses financially available to first-time buyers is a far better option than to cover the countryside with concrete. The Tories' propose a lifeline for first-time buyers.

Should we help young people and other first-time buyers on to the property ladder? Agree strongly Agree Disagree Disagree strongly Don't know Don't care Please click one of the links above to cast your vote Current results

Current and prospective Parliamentary candidates of all Parties running for election could share a platform at public forums in every constituency. They would be presented with  the results of polls on this issue expressed by the majority of voters in that constituency.

The candidates could be asked if their own views and that of their Party manifesto corresponded with the polls, and if not, how they intended to represent the will of the majority of local voters.  Local and National Press, Radio and TV coverage would be arranged and the results published on this web site.

Here is another powerful strategy for using your vote effectively in the forthcoming General Election. Send your sitting and prospective MPs a letter defining your requirements if they want your vote. This example deals with the proposed EU Constitutional Treaty.

Your letters would end: "If you do not answer this letter, I shall take it that you intend to follow the Government line. I shall act accordingly in the forthcoming General Election."

Blair's defiance of the will of the majority of we, the people of the UK, over the invasion of Iraq must be exposed by voters as a matter or urgency, and not just in the two by-elections we have had this July and the European elections in June 2004. But how can this be done?

The most effective way of getting our deceitful PM to resign would be to mobilise the army of Labour MPs currently in the House of Commons and get them to demand it, the loss of their seat to be a penalty if they did not. All voters in Labour-held constituencies need to write a letter along these lines to their local Labour MPs:

Here's one to get Tony Blair to resign:

Dear Despite his absolute and unequivocal assurances over the past year of the serious risk to our security of Saddam Hussein's 'weapons of mass destruction', Prime Minister Blair has admitted, that the threat was non-existent. For that critical error of judgement and for his gross incompetence in handling this very important issue, I ask you to take immediate steps to ensure that Tony Blair does the honourable thing and resign without delay.. I would therefore be much obliged if you would propose and help mobilise a Parliamentary vote of 'No Confidence' in Mr Blair which, despite Labour's huge majority, would leave the PM with no option but to resign. If I get no reply to this letter, I shall assume you will continue to support Mr Blair as our Prime Minister. In such circumstances I shall not vote for you in the forthcoming General Election. Signed:

Simple, non-violent, protest letters along these lines on a variety of issues could be the basis for re-vitalising our democracy and increasing voters' interest and participation in politics. Download a printable copy of the above letter here.

Or why not create a questionnaire that you send to all the candidates in your constituency, getting them to give yes/no answers to questions of your choice, and ending it with the same paragraph(above).

Download a printable example of the questionnaire.

It is high time for the people of this United Kingdom to stop allowing themselves to be manipulated by politicians. We need our representatives in Parliament to genuinely reflect the view of the majority in their own constituency, even if this means going against their personal and/or their party's policy. While they may argue their case, hoping to change the minds of the majority in their constituency, they should ultimately be obliged to reflect the majority view of those who elect them. 

It will be argued by politicians of all parties that most voters don't have the knowledge necessary to express an opinion on important subjects at issue, and that our vote is a form of delegated democracy. We should argue that it is their duty to ensure that we voters do have ready access to such information as is necessary to form an intelligent opinion. That, after all, is one main purpose of Opposition Parties in our Parliamentary Democracy.

Most important of all, such proceedings would rekindle in voters their latent interest and obligation to cast their vote,, knowing that the candidate of their choice would be more likely to act in accordance with their wishes. A much higher turnout in elections would be the result.

Contact your local Party Chairman. Gain his support for setting up public forums in your constituency on these, as well as any other relevant topics, well before the next General Election expected in 2005. You should then, depending on the integrity of the candidate of your choice, feel fairly certain that your view on any subject being debated in Parliament will more accurately be reflected by your representative in that assembly.

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