We Are NOT On The Right Road
Have you read and considered the implications of Allister Heath’s outstanding analysis of your present problems on page 2 of today’s Business section of the Daily Telegraph? (12 December)
It is the best summary yet of the neglected political and economic priorities and so-called ‘modernising’ trivial diversions which are taking us further down the road Blair started on all those years ago. Image is replacing substance. Opportunity is replacing judgement. Political tactics are replacing the rule of law.
Cameron is proving a disaster. No vision, no courage, no clarity of thought or decisive action about what really matters. Just an inexperienced middle manager out of his depth. He is also now proving an embarrassment, and not just to the Tory party. The opportunity you had in 2010 has been utterly squandered.
When are you and your back-bench colleagues going to wake up ?
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Please Get Your Facts Straight
I read your In Touch leaflet with interest – until I got to two horrific errors of fact.
1. You claim “Net immigration is now falling.” No Sir.
That is disingenuous. At best, it can only be partly true by ignoring uncontrolled immigration from the EU, and – as your own Home Secretary said only last week – “Britain is powerless to stop tens of thousands of Eastern Europeans coming here to live next year.” Added to which it completely ignores the UK’s uncontrolled additional population growth arising from Muslim migrants averaging some five children per woman, while the indigenous population is now below sustainability at 1.6. Unless a clear-sighted UK government finds the determination to stop uncontrolled migration from all sources, by 2050 the UK may well have an Islamic government – and that is not alarmist. It is a demographic probability.
2. You claim our deficit “is now down by a quarter”. Not true. Even Osborne admits it.
In the original Coalition spending review he proposed increasing current spending from £158 bn in 2010-11 to £171 bn in 2014-15. 2010-11 turned out to be £160 billion, and last year spending reached £166.7 billion. This was £3.3 billion or 2% more than the 2010 plan for that year. Even more importantly it was HIGHER in absolute terms – and currently shows no signs of turning down. His Autumn Statement [confirmed] these facts – and indicated the prospective situation getting worse.
Meanwhile, if you wish to sustain any credibility at all in this constituency, you really must not make such absurd claims.
Damian, we desperately need a government with the wisdom, clarity of thought and sheer courage to get to grips with the big issues we face – and take a scythe to the bureaucratic pussy-footing around the edges we have seen over the last two years. You have had long enough and are looking increasingly like disorganised ditherers. (Distinguished exception – Michael Gove.)
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Use Government Resources Act 2000 to control UK money to Brussels
For the 18th year in a row, the EU’s Court of Auditors has failed to approve the Annual Accounts. What a surprise!
Yet again, the unlawful disbursement of many billions of pounds to a body where fraud and corruption is endemic is publicised, complained about, and will then be ignored.
One senior EU bureaucrat once described Brussels money-management to me as “institutionalised looting”.
Yet we have a weapon. This loss and waste of public funds is contrary to the UK’s Government Resources Act, 2000.
The Act calls for public accounts to ‘present a true and fair view’. The EU’s do not.
The Act also demands ‘that money provided by parliament has been expended for the purposes intended by parliament’.
That legal requirement has never yet been enforced on Brussels. It could, and should, be applied to the EU’s disbursement of UK funds.
Mrs Thatcher drafted a Bill to set up an escrow account to hold funds due to Brussels in London until the EU’s financial management was brought up to acceptable international financial accounting standards.
Resurrect that and everything changes. Instantly. In Brussels and London.
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The Law of Succession
Below is the letter my friend and former colleague John Bingley has had published in the Daily Telegraph today. It is important for two reasons. First, he is right in law. (The editor of the DT would have checked the legal facts before publishing this letter.) Secondly, the rule of law is even more important than the law itself.
I trust you will use your good offices to ensure that the government is fully acquainted with the law on this matter…and its wider implications.
SIR – Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, is working on ways to disband the custom of male primogeniture. This would require an Act of Parliament, passing into law by Royal Assent.
The Bill of Rights regulates government and any use of prerogative power, most particularly that of Royal Assent. Is this constitutional regulation merely to be ignored or set aside as inconvenient?
The rule of law is at stake. It must be maintained at all costs. The law that controls the use of prerogative power denies such authority to the Crown.
If the Queen were to give Royal Assent to an Act of Parliament changing the rules of succession, she would be breaking her Coronation Oath and thus have to abdicate. There is precedence for this principle, which was followed by the King of Belgium in 1999. An abdication must cause an election.
If these principles are violated, the executive may use them as precedence to accrue any power at any time.
John Bingley
West Sussex
PS from AM: For the record, I have known and worked with John Bingley for many years. At least one constitutional QC who knows us both has described John as a professor of constitutional law still looking for a chair! That describes him perfectly. John was one of my key sources when I was writing my first book Defence of the Realm published by the original Magna Carta Society
A platitudinous reply prompted a second email to Damian Hinds : Supporting the change is not the same as changing the law. The constitutional implications are significant, as John’s letter demonstrated. I trust you will draw the attention of your lawyer MP friends to its contents. Many thanks
