The Express

[Steve]

Like the Daily Mail, but hates foreigners a bit more.

[Redgrave]

Let's get back to basics - only Saxon will save Maggie's legacy


The former Environment Secretary is to be commended for standing on principle 

At the Express, we've been dismayed to hear of the sniping from all sides at former Environment Secretary Harry Saxon, who has dared to do the one thing which many politicians dare not do - stand on principle. 

For the last two years, the Conservatives have done everything possible to try and lose the election to a hard-left Labour party run by Sir James and his cronies Tommy Dawson and Ruth Murphy. Marcus Drummond-Macbeath proved to be a quick, destructive failure whilst Aubyn Myerscough did everything he could to try and forget what made the Conservative Party electable for three successive elections. 

To win in June, the Conservatives need a man prepared to stand on principle and tell it how it is. Harry Saxon is that man. 

For all the polls being leaked and the cracks from the usual suspects, namely Murphy, the disgraced Euphemia Fournier-Macleod and the ineffectual Dylan Macmillan, Saxon is the only man who appeals to Conservative voters and members by solid margins. That is the first step in winning the election, securing the traditional base in a way that Croft nor Macmillan cannot.

The talk of a deficit for Saxon amongst ordinary voters doesn't concern us either. Once the public gets to see a truly hard grafting Thatcherite in Number 10 again, they'll quickly come back on side. 

Saxon stands for a new deal with Europe where we don't get taken for granted, a low tax society supportive of business and a country where we properly fund and use our police and armed forces. 

Margaret Thatcher stood up for this country in 1979 and only Harry Saxon stands a chance of making sure that all she achieved doesn't go to waste.

[LegolasRedbard]

We owe our veterans everything. It is at least time we give them a British Veterans’ Service.

 
As the new millennium approaches, it feels as if defence has been more of a hot button topic than ever – even more so than when the Cold War burned at the back of everyone’s minds. We have been reminded by goings on in South Africa, Iraq and from the instability in the USSR that Britain does not live in the perfect or peaceful world we had hoped for as of recent, and the debate between two reasonable perspectives (one, that we need a slimmer, but more savvy and modern military force and the other that we need to continue to invest in our capabilities and retain the kind of army we have been used to historically) seems to rage on.
 
But beneath the discussions of the United Kingdom’s tactical interests, of weapons, soft power and of diplomacy, there are individuals and families across the United Kingdom who we owe so much to. It is time we bring them back to the centre of this debate.
 
Parliament is full of veterans, including those who fought in the Great War and the Second World War. So too are most of our communities. While I myself, for obvious reasons, have never fought on the frontline, many members of my family including my father have.
 
We all have military links, and whatever our beliefs we were all raised by a generation of veterans. And we all enjoy the privileges that they fought for, including the right to make our political case to our countrymen and for us and those countrymen to vote for the vision we all believe in. In the sense that they gave us our politics, our veterans go beyond politics.
 
Even if I disagree with Macmillan’s imperial adventures in Iraq, I respect the immense bravery, sacrifice and heroism of those who are not asking questions, but are fighting in Britain’s interests and holding British values such as democracy, freedom and fairness to heart every step of the way. We know up to 130 of those, possibly more as the war in Iraq rages on, have given the ultimate sacrifice.
 
We cannot have them return to a country where they have no job prospects, no counsel and possibly not even a home. For all they have given this country, we should all agree the country should give them something back.
 
Unfortunately, for far too long that has not been the case and it’s a tale as old as time that too few politicians talk about, let alone act on. Many of the great war veterans we celebrate – our parents and grandparents – go year on year barely able to get by, with almost half of our pensioners in poverty now when it was barely a fifth pre-Thatcher. The cycle had often been repeated: too many of those who fought to defend the Falklands came back to their communities decimated, jobs sold off to the City and the social safety net they could once rely on torn in tatters. We know that as homelessness and poverty have skyrocketed, it has often been veterans, vulnerable from the scars of war, who have disproportionately fallen through the cracks. It is a national scandal we must confront.
 
We cannot, overnight, turn back the dial on Thatcherism. And nor should that be what the debate is centred around. But we must ensure that those who return from the War in Iraq can return to a Britain that will guarantee them a good job, stable housing and support where it is needed, while ensuring that this support is also made available to all veterans.
 
We have had little snippets promised to veterans here and there, but we must be clear that they haven’t been enough. Small cuts to income tax as promised by Dylan Macmillan mean little to those veterans who have been unable to find employment or a house, nor can it wash away the battle scars – mental and physical –all veterans struggle with on a day by day basis. Many don’t even have an income to be taxed at all.
 
Just as a comprehensive welfare system was set up by a Labour government to tackle Beveridge’s ‘five giants’ for the British people, I propose that we set up a comprehensive service to tackle these five giants which plague the lives of our veterans. It will be a British Veterans’ Service.
 
It will be designed to tackle disease by establishing the prioritised provision of all healthcare for veterans, including prioritising strong care in the community for the thousands of veterans whose lives are plagued by post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental scars that come from battle. The Thatcher government’s mishandled transition from institutionalised psychiatric care to care in the community has hit veterans hardest. We’ll take the first steps in putting that right.
 
We know that veterans are often hit hardest by the skyrocketing unemployment we have seen in the past decade – and find that after their service to the country they are not left with transferable skills that can help them make their way back into the workplace and society. By establishing a guaranteed jobs scheme, we’ll ensure that veterans are helped back into employment when times are tough, and they are hit hardest. In doing this, we will take the steps needed to tackle idleness.
 
But we don’t just want veterans to have jobs: we want them to have careers, too, and to tackle ignorance. That is why we would establish free training schemes and further education places for veterans, ensuring that they are given the vocational skills or the education they need to thrive in a changing and dynamic economy, without being left behind in the dole queue or – worse still – the streets.
 
Squalor is perhaps the gravest issue our veterans face, with veterans disproportionately at risk of being victims to the boom of homelessness we have seen in the past decade. All too often, in cities such as London, Manchester and Glasgow many of those that sleep on benches and shop doors are people who have given the most for our country. Within the British Veterans’ Service, a homelessness taskforce would be established to ensure that veterans at risk of homelessness or veterans who are homeless are provided with their own accommodation so that they are provided stable housing.
 
And we will take the small but crucial steps to tackle the want that too many veterans face on a day to day basis. We would establish a free and confidential helpline for our veterans, providing them with financial advice, advice on the pensions and benefits they are entitled to and crucially a service that can help them navigate the British Veterans’ Service in the quickest and most effective way.
 
It would take only £250 million – for perspective that is just one twelfth of the cash the Conservative government handed to big business in the last budget – to establish this service. And we must be clear: such a service would not in itself be a cure all pill for the many issues our Veterans struggle with on a day to day basis. But it would be a strong start that the government could provide the funds for in the upcoming budget. That, combined with a comprehensive strategy to provide the necessary provision of services to our veterans, could be a game changer.
 
That is why I am pleased that The Express has not only agreed to share my idea of a British Veterans’ Service but is proudly attaching a petition that will demand that at the next budget the government will provide the £250 million necessary to establish it. Whatever your political allegiance – Labour, Conservative, Liberal – I hope that we can unite as Britons and demand a better future for our veterans.
 
Ruth Murphy, Shadow Foreign Secretary.

[LegolasRedbard]

The Death Knell of the Conservative Party
Harry Saxon
Parliamentary Leader of the Referendum Party

If you went back five years ago to June 1987, the Conservative Party had just won a third term in Government led by the great Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher had just masterminded a second landslide, leading a campaign on lower taxation, a strong economy, and a strong defence. Neil Kinnock, then leader of the opposition was considering his position, while the people of this country adored the Iron Lady. Fast forward three years to November 1990, when the very first cracks appeared, which indicated the beginning of the end of the Conservatives in power was approaching. 
With the departure of Margaret Thatcher, a power vacuum emerged in Conservative HQ, with many MPs from rival factions’ intent on setting the agenda for the party. Instead of focusing on the vision of lower taxation, a strong economy, and a strong defence under a leadership where they could unite, the Conservative Party since 1990 has been rooted in chaos.

In the last 2 years we have had a fugitive Prime Minister who ordered an assassination on British soil. We have seen a former Home Secretary as a KGB agent who has now been hanged. A bitter and brutal leadership contest which saw the appointment of Dylan Macmillan – who not only set out to ratify his Maastricht pet project without consultation with the British people but who has questions hanging over him from the Hutton Inquiry. 
We have also seen his challenger William Croft who is now in some god forsaken cesspit which is fully deserved, the man who single-handedly destroy any chance of a Conservative revival in the upcoming election, taken into custody for perverting the course of justice, misconduct in a public office and espionage.
You could not make it up and if the last two years were fictionalised in a blockbuster film instead of becoming a reality, it would be up for several Academy Awards.
Let’s not beat around the bush, this is the Conservative Party’s own fault. Under the right leadership the party may have met a different fate but we’ve seen it go from bad to worse.

After MDM, Myerscough and Macmillan, enter the Conservative Party’s “saviour” …. Bibi Lauria
The situation is so bad in the Conservative Party that no-one wanted the job of tainting their political career by leading the party into a general election. The Conservatives had to turn to a former Liberal out of sheer desperation.

All the dubbed favourites, Alun and David Williams, Wilfred Hart, Isaac Westcott all declined to touch the poisoned chalice, preparing for the next Grand National when the Conservatives enter opposition.
In fairness to Bibi Lauria, she has just entered Number 10 and has a mountain to climb but as a chief architect of Maastricht 2.0 and a co-chair of Let’s lead Europe, the new Prime Minister is an even worse prospect than Dylan Macmillan. Bibi Lauria is purging those who do not support a federal Europe from cabinet and ultimately the party, we’ve already seen Wilfred Hart, a former colleague of mine sacked as First Secretary of State. Lauria wants a federal Europe and a European army with the United Kingdom becoming a vassal state to a European Superpower. 

Under Bibi Lauria this Conservative Government will not only sell you out, the British people giving our European friends control, but they will carry on going round in circles not actually making the changes that need to be made in this country to make our society better.
This is where the Conservative Party is now, an abject failure. We are seeing the Death Knell of the Conservatives in Government and ultimately, as a party.
The Countess will be furious with what the Conservative Party has become, a pro-federalist party infiltrated by wets seeking to sell out our country’s identity and sovereignty.  

For those of you who despair at that thought and also at what may seem an inevitable socialist Labour landslide on paper, there is an alternative.
The referendum party has been working hard in recent weeks in preparation for the upcoming election. Sir James, I, Charles, James, Phoebe and all referendum MPs have been working round the clock to ensure that we are not only ready for the election, but we are ready to represent you.
If you want a government that will put this country first, in Europe or in the world, then we can deliver that. If you want a low tax economy with strong public services, a society where you can feel safe and secure in your homes or in your community, a sovereign country that takes pride in our strong armed forces and a Global United Kingdom at the forefront of the world stage, the referendum party stands ready.
There has been speculation that the referendum party may stand in a limited number of seats in the upcoming election. I can confirm however that the referendum party will be standing candidates across all 634 seats across England, Scotland and Wales. We will stand in all 634 seats, whether that is against Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, SNP, Plaid or Independents.
It’s time to end this Punch and Judy show that is a reckless and volatile Conservative Government that has lost all of its values.

It is time for referendum.