BEFORE
YOU VOTE ON MAY 5, 2005 - READ HOW POLITICIANS ARE MANIPULATING YOU- THE VOTER.
* * THE PHONEY ELECTION- WHEN WILL A POLITICIAN HAVE THE COURAGE TO SAY WHAT THEY BELIEVE? * Daily Mail 23rd April 2005 Saturday Essay by Peter Oborne [With
days to one of the most important general elections in our long Island history decisions to be made are of such great
importance for the survival of our Ancient Democracy and Freedom and national
Identity. The following article is a
must for those who despair of the present bunch of frightened
politically-correct politicians from no doubt many of the parties contesting
the General Election on May 5, 2005.] * Lies.Fraud.Staged
Walkabouts. Voters cynically targeted by Big Brother technology. This is an utterly
dishonest election And our democracy is paying a
terrible price. * Television viewers watching Tony Blair on the campaign trail in the little Northamptonshire town of Rushden might have assumed he was mingling with ordinary voters. The
camera followed the Prime Minister as he made a speech from the stump, and then
lingered behind to shake hands and chat with local people. It
was the day last week when the Labour manifesto was launched and Tony Blair was
at his most charming and accomplished as he basked in his warm reception. The little scene looked like a democracy in action. It sounded like democracy in action. It even smelt like democracy in action. But
in truth it was nothing of the sort. The
whole event was fraud. Not a single ordinary voter was present in the Northamptonshire leisure centre where Tony Blair spoke. Amazingly
the event had even been kept a closely guarded secret from the public. The friendly crowd shown on TV screens had
been secretly alerted just hours before by Labour Party bosses and given
details of the event, as I discovered after penetrating the gathering while
making a programme for Channel 4’s Dispatches. The point is that every
person there I spoke to was a Labour Party member-there is no doubt that these ‘ordinary’
voters were hand picked. Party officials tried to stop me getting in. Had any other members of the public got to hear that Tony Blair was in town and tried to meet him then they also would have been barred? Mr
Blair had made sure he was among friends, so there were no worries about a hostile
reaction, or even an awkward question.
The media presence was strictly controlled. This
kind of fabricated, artificial public hustings has been repeated hundreds of
times up and down Britain during the last few weeks. The appearance of traditional British democracy may have bee
preserved in the General Election campaign.
But the substance has been dumped. The
result is that this election has its own special and horrible
significance. It is the election in
which Britain has moved stealthily across a new system of government, which
the political scientist and former Fabian Society Chairman Professor Colin
Couch has brilliantly christened: Post-Democracy. At first sight Post -Democracy looks quite like the real thing. The parties go on producing manifestos, even though they are so bland they have become almost meaningless. Britain
still has the ballot box [Only just?] even though, thanks to postal
voting, it has been tampered with and debauched to such an extent that it has
lost its integrity. We
still have public meetings, where all parties can talk to voters. But these
have become bogus devices no longer used for genuine debate, but the cynical
production of a sound bite that can be screened on local and national TV later
that day. Two
Thousand years ago, the Emperor Augustus
seized power in Rome. He was careful to
maintain the appearance of the old democratic virtues of the Roman Republic,
and made a show of treating the Republican Senate with respect. But
the truth was that Rome had moved from democracy to tyranny, and everybody knew
it, even though you signed your death warrant if you said as much in public. A similar kind of change has stealthily
taken place in Britain over the past decade. The ancient institutions of
British democracy have been captured by new professional political elite, which
no longer seeks to communicate with the voters as equals. Instead,
it sets out to dupe, deceive and manipulate us from behind the scenes. The terrifying thing is that many ordinary voters do
not understand this is happening. This
new political class prefers not to deal directly with voters through the long established
techniques of democracy like public meetings, or even door-to-door canvassing. Instead,
it sets out to dupe, deceive and manipulate us from behind the scenes. The terrifying thing is that many
ordinary voters do not understand this is happening. This new political class prefers not to deal directly with voters through the long-established techniques of democracy like public meetings, or even door-to-door canvassing. Instead
it uses incredibly sophisticated computer technology to find out information
about the tiny number of key voters who will decide this election, then targets
them ruthlessly. This is deeply sinister. Political
parties can now use a mass of information about ordinary citizens, which most
of us wrongly assume is private: our credit card details, our shopping habits,
what magazines we read, what restaurants we eat at, how much we are in debt. They
process this data using complex American software. They are able to predict, with astonishingly accuracy, what our
political affiliations are likely to be. In
last year’s U.S. Presidential election, it was discovered that any voter who
drove a Volvo was almost certain to be a democrat, while someone who owned both
a dog and gun was virtually certain to be Republican. In
modern Britain, the three parties have learnt how to make the same observations
about us. For instance, someone who has
lived in the same house for more than ten years and has very low personal
indebtedness is extremely likely to vote Tory. By contrast,
heavily indebted people who have recently moved house are likely to fall into
the category of swing voter. Thanks
to this amazing technology, political bosses can now survey British constituencies
on a house-by-house basis, working out where the Tory, Labour and swing voters
live and how likely they are to vote. These
voters will then be targeted; both the Conservatives and Labour have massive
telephone call centres. The Tory HQ is in Coleshill in the Midlands, while
Labour’s nerve centre is at Gateshead in the North-East [This is where the ‘Yes’
vote for the Regional Assembly took a bleeding nose with the majority of voters
saying ‘No’ and opting to retain their local accountability] These are manned by paid operatives, whose job is to ring key voters. By the time the is made, the parties already know far more about them than they can possibly imagine. So
voters are likely to be the most impressed at the way the caller understands
their deepest hopes and fears. What they do not know is
that they are just dupes in a clever marketing exercise. Not long after the call. He or she will receive party literature, which at once will seem strangely sympathetic. The voter is not to know that it has been specially prepared for voters like him or her. The
truth is that British voters can now be targeted with the precision of a cruise
missile turning left at a street corner in central Baghdad during the Gulf
War. The 2005 General Election is being
fought using precision marketing techniques stolen from the world of big
business. Some
will defend practices like these, saying it is no more than professionalism. In
a way that is true. But there is a
terrible price to pay for this kind of professionalism in a democracy - which explains
why this election is quite unlike any that has gone before. It
has become a clinical affair devoid of commitment. Look around you where you live.
Even in a marginal constituency, you will see very few election posters
out on the streets compared to previous elections. Ordinary people have not been engaged and fewer and fewer participants in what just two decades ago was a powerful and robust democracy. Instead, these people are regarded cynically by politicians as objects for duping and manipulation. It
is this that explains the sheer yawning boredom and grotesque lack of passion
in this election. The political parties
no longer take their ideas and beliefs from the aspirations of their mass
membership, which has largely disappeared. Instead,
they set their policies only after remorselessly testing them on target voters
in the key swing seats. And because the parties test their policies on the same
set of voters, the policies end up being virtually identical. Take
immigration, the subject on which Tony Blair hypocritically accused the
Conservative Party of running a ‘nasty’ campaign. In fact, the moment the Tories launched their campaign on
immigration, Labour responded by making sure its own policies were just as
tough. By
contrast, on taxation the Conservative Party has timidly rowed in behind the
Labour Party. Shadow Chancellor Oliver
Let-them -win has refused to challenge the Government’s lavish spending
commitments with the result that Tory proposals to cut tax are all meaningless,
worth a pathetic £4billion in an economy valued at one trillion pounds. [The saving by voters opting
for the UKIP will save UKPC from £40 -£100 billion a year with No Common
Agricultural Policy-the return of our Fishing Fields and much-much- much- more
from no longer being in the expensive and corrupt EU] Certainly
better than the measly tax cut of £4 billion this year promised by the Tories -Don’t
you think?] On
Law & Order, all three parties are fighting a bidding war to look ‘tough’ and put
more policemen on the streets. For
Liberal Democrats in particular this move to ‘tough liberalism’ is a betrayal
of their values. [By the way this is the Party which intends one day to
bring the voting age down to 16 or is it 10?] Even the language used by the two parties is the same [Why
not they both want our country firmly stuck in the European Union and one day
in a United States of Europe and behind the scenes they must openly joke how
stupid the voters are in their pied piper manner they fall for all the lies and
deceit] When Tory leader Michael Howard went campaigning in the marginal seat of Winchester, I took with me the pledge cards of the three main parties. After Howard had left, I tested them on local people asking them to match the pledge to the party leaders. They hadn’t a clue, and no wonder. All the party pledges have been focus-grouped to death, meaning that they are artificially constructed to be utterly inoffensive to anyone. The
Tories are bad enough but the Labour Party’s pledges were worst of all. Its vapid promises
include ‘your children with the best start’, ‘your child achieving more’ and ‘your
family better off’. No one could
disagree with these worthy sentiments. Labour’s Tory and Liberal Democrat
opponents would be hardly likely to argue for policies like ‘your family worst
off’. Labour’s
pledges are meaningless. This pitiful General Election is turning into a matter for national shame. The main parties all agree about the substantive issues, but pretend they do not by manufacturing artificial differences. Very often they resort to lies and deceit in order to distinguish themselves from rivals. There are far too many examples to mention, from all the parties, but Health Secretary John Reid has been especially shameless, repeatedly making the completely untrue claim that the Tories plan to charge for operations on the NHS He has also made false claims about the Liberal Democrat policies on drugs. General Elections do not need to be driven by this kind of hypocrisy, calculation and deceit. They ought to be occasions when the British nation debates the great issues confronting us in the future. There is a desperate price to be paid for this craven failure by our national politicians to enter such discussions. Long- term problems whether they concern pensions, health or the environment, are being stored away for the future. Democracy means more than just casting a vote in a ballot box every four or five years. It means being told the truth about our fears and aspirations for the future. Some day, some time, a British politician may re-emerge with the courage to stand up and say what he or she really believes without testing those beliefs first with the marketing consultants and the focus groups. A politician of utter conviction who believes that principles and ideas matter, and that it is wrong to manufacture and market them like soap powder or fizzy drinks. In the meantime, the British people will have to put up with the most dishonest and cynically conducted in British history. Font altered-bolding & underlining-comments in brackets] * * * APRIL/05 Peter Oborne’s film, Why Politicians Can’t Tell The
Truth, is to be shown on Channel 4 on Monday at 8pm. * [An excellent article -but why no mention of the most important developments in our Constitutional History- our membership of the EU and the New Constitution - both vital issues to be discussed at a General Election but on which all the main parties are silent.] * * * *
*
The abolition of Britain * Veteran parliamentarian TONY BENN speaks of the absolute necessity of a REFERENDUM HEAR HIM ON http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=o0I-ZdvQz1o *
13th October,2007
So You Want Out Of The EU
THEN WHY NOT SIGN THE RENUNCIATION of EU CITIZENSHIP http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/OptoutDetails from petition creator With the signing of the Maastricht Treaty the people of Britain were given DUAL CITIZENSHIP -both EUROPEAN and BRITISH The extra tier of citizenship was thrust upon the people without their consent -and in many cases knowledge. The PEOPLE of GREAT BRITAIN should be allowed the option of opting out of the EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP if they so wish. The GOVERNMENT will then be able to provide those who have opted out with BRITISH DOCUMENTATION -only such as British (not EU) passports, driving licences and other national documents. EU laws will also NOT APPLY to those who HAVE OPTED OUT OF EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP
[PETITION OPEN UNTIL OCTOBER 08]
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* [Latest Addition - June07]
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Daniel Hannan - Forming an OPPOSITION to the EU
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VOTE MAY -2007
WITH THE ONLY PARTY WITH A MANDATE TO SET YOU FREE
THE UK INDEPENDENCE PARTY
TO RECLAIM YOUR DEMOCRACY DON'T VOTE FOR THE TRIPARTITE PARTIES IN WESTMINSTER BUT SMALL PARTIES THAT SPEAK THEIR MINDS WITHOUT SPIN AND LIES. *
ONLY WILL BRING DEMOCRACY BACK TO THE ENGLISH PEOPLE * WHY NOT
* JUNE/07
[All underlined words have a separate bulletin
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