13,787 source-backed politics facts - each attributed to a named person and a number, linked to the original source. Page 128 of 138.
“The party’s researchers found that the government did not answer fully, openly or at all 2,855 written parliamentary questions between 19 October 1999 and 20 April 2000 – one in eight of those tabled.”
“Dear Mo Mowlam, who as well as being a national treasure is the Cabinet Office minister responsible for open government, failed to answer openly 32 per cent of questions put to her.”
“He signed a three-year, centre-left, social justice partnership with the Lib Dems”
“Elis-Thomas has made many enemies over the first 18 months.”
“promoted from level-5 executive officer to the senior level-7”
“Why does he need a budget of £3m this year”
“Why is that budget set to shoot up to £7m next year”
“Within two days of Elis-Thomas’s outburst”
“Instead of having the simple ballot papers that British voters are used to, therefore, Americans have to endure a bewildering array of voting methods: just 3 per cent use those old-fashioned paper ballots, 37 per cent are required to use p…”
“In Florida alone (which has about 13 million eligible voters, of whom only two-thirds register and barely a third actually voted in 1998), there are 67 separate, effectively autonomous counties”
“In 26 of Florida’s 67 counties, machine‑counted punch‑ballots are used.”
“Even their most ardent proponents concede that these have an error rate of 6 per cent, enough easily to swing the presidency either way.”
“But even when those machines were left and the first recount carried out, 3,583 new votes materialised, thus demonstrating the weaknesses of machine counts.”
“never mind that Al Gore went to Vietnam while Boy George flew for the Texas National Guard and his running mate, Dick Cheney, accrued no fewer than five deferments of national service.”
“legislation signed into law by one Governor George W Bush, in 1997.”
“In 1787, to form a more perfect union, 55 public servants gathered in the sweltering heat of a Philadelphia summer.”
“Only two delegates could be classified as smallholders; one other stated his occupation as running the family’s general store.”
“And, as a reward for agreeing to a system of interstate commerce, the south would be allowed to trade in slaves for the next 20 years.”
“Then there’s the curious matter of these slaves being assessed as “three-fifths of all other Persons”.”
“Wednesday 22 November 2000 marked the 37th anniversary of the death of John F Kennedy.”
“the election had cost his hugely rich father, Joe, $13m – about $100m in today’s money.”
“Richard P Pavlick, a 73-year-old retired postal worker from Belmont, New Hampshire”
“America’s 35th president”
“Kennedy had won the election on 9 November 1960, but he would not be safely in the White House until after 20 January 1961.”
“The house was called La Guerida when Joe Kennedy bought it for $100,000 back in the early 1930s”
“The 100ft-long, two-storey house sits atop a private dock amid lush vegetation that shows a contempt for the cost of gardeners”
“to kill the 43-year-old president-elect”
“Somewhere along the 1,500-mile journey, he purchased detonators, blasting caps, seven sticks of dynamite and four large cans of gasoline”
“And, on 11 December, he drove to the house on North Ocean Boulevard”
“in all, he was parked in the road for five days”
“Pavlick was charged with planning to assassinate the president-elect on 16 December 1960”
“on 27 January, Emmett C Choate, a federal judge, ordered Pavlick to be committed”
“fewer than half of the 200,000 settlers are thought to be 'ideological'”
“In the past seven years, their number has risen by 85,000.”
“Sheina is secular, like 85 per cent of Ariel’s citizens.”
“With a population of 15,000, projected to expand to 100,000”
“its self-contained communities stretch eight miles across the West Bank (itself only 30 miles wide).”
“The 30,000 Arabs in the Israeli-controlled sector”
“they are allowed to leave their houses for only two hours every few days.”
“only a severe curfew can meet the security needs of the 500 Jewish residents.”
“We just shot three Arabs in the next street," said one.”
“If I give three million Arabs the right to vote, they can change the state from a Jewish state to an Arab state.”
“just 3 per cent use those old-fashioned paper ballots, 37 per cent are required to use punch-cards, 25 per cent to operate optical scan-machines, 22 per cent the traditional US levers, 7 per cent electronic voting, and 6 per cent a mixture.”
“Even their most ardent proponents concede that these have an error rate of 6 per cent”
“but even when those machines were left and the first recount carried out, 3,583 new votes materialised”
“In 26 of Florida’s 67 counties, machine-counted punch-ballots are used.”
“Dick Cheney, accrued no fewer than five deferments of national service.”
“Kennedy had won the election on 9 November 1960”
“93 per cent say it should be protected in a British Bill of Rights.”
“new ICM poll of 2,400 people commissioned by the Rowntree Reform Trust”
“Around three-quarters want the Scottish Parliament and Executive to have still more powers.”
“In London, 44 per cent want Ken Livingstone and the Greater London Assembly to have more powers to run public transport, generate employment, etc, as opposed to 37 per cent who want to retain the status quo and 10 per cent who would give m…”
“Even in Wales, where devolution was a knife-edge issue, more people (43 per cent) want to increase the powers of the Welsh Assembly and Executive than back the status quo (28 per cent) or the return of powers to London (10 per cent).”
“In 1997, the result was a near dead heat – 41 per cent for the existing system, 45 per cent for the PR alternative.”
“The result this time provides one of the biggest shocks of the poll – more than half (53 per cent) chose AMS, while only 28 per cent chose the existing system.”
“Backing for proportional representation has risen there from less than half the population in 1997 to more than two-thirds now.”
“Four out of five people think that an independent commissioner with powers to overrule ministers should make the final decision on whether government documents should be released.”
“And more than two-thirds say that policy advice from civil servants – which ministers want to keep secret – should normally be published.”
“two-thirds of those same “people” believe that ministers don’t tell the truth”
“58 per cent think that they put the interests of business before the public interest.”
“54 per cent believe that this country is becoming less democratic under Labour rule.”
“most people (70 per cent) believe that the public should have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of power between elections; but only 19 per cent think that they do have this degree of power.”
“Labour only three points ahead of the Tories among people who intend to vote.”
“Fair trial before a jury: 1995 – 82 per cent support, 2000 – 93 per cent support”
“A woman’s right to abortion: 1995 – 60 per cent support, 2000 – 76 per cent support”
“Right to join legal strike without losing job: 1995 – 63 per cent support, 2000 – 86 per cent support”
“Right to know what information government holds about you: 1995 – 74 per cent support, 2000 – 89 per cent support”
“Right to know reasons for government decision affecting you: 1995 – n/a, 2000 – 90 per cent support”
“Right of the press to report on matters of public interest: 1995 – 53 per cent support, 2000 – 79 per cent support”
“Equal treatment for British citizens on entering or leaving the UK, regardless of colour or race: 1995 – 59 per cent support, 2000 – 82 per cent support”
“slightly under a third of Gore’s supporters reject the legitimacy of a Dubbya presidency, while 36 per cent reject the notion of Gore as the country’s 43rd president”
“next 20 January”
“107th Congress”
“four years’ time”
“118,574 votes (including 121 magically conjured up by the late Mayor Daley of Chicago in a ward where there were only 43 voters)”
“Congressional elections in 2002”
“2004 presidential elections”
“43rd presidency”
“one term”
“In the late summer of 1997, around the time that the government first began pursuing the renegade MI5 officer David Shayler”
“Yet, by August 1997, when Shayler made his first revelations, it was obvious that the new prime minister, Tony Blair, and his Cabinet would be just as obsessed with maintaining Britain’s culture of secrecy as their predecessors”
“In February this year, the UN rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression slammed the government for failing to stop the stream of cases involving journalists and their sources that were coming before the courts”
“Richard Tomlinson, the MI6 officer who was sacked from the service in 1995, continues his battle to take his claim for unfair dismissal to an industrial tribunal”
“He was also a Conservative MP in 1989 when the Thatcher government introduced the latest Official Secrets Act – a vicious attack on freedom of speech and the right to blow the whistle on official wrongdoing”
“Thursday 22 January 1995. A passenger airliner in the colours of Austrian Airlines taxies to a halt on the tarmac and purrs gently towards the shabby terminal building.”
“Last autumn, the British Council polled Poles and other nationals to discover which names they recognised on a list of 20 prominent Brits.”
“When Conover visited Poland in 1959, he was met at the airport by a crowd of admirers, including young women with garlands of flowers, and a cortege of bicycles and motorbikes that followed him all the way into the centre of Warsaw.”
“On a trip to Russia in 1982, he was kissed on the hand by a young Muscovite who declared: “If there is a god of jazz, it is you.””
“debased by the expenditure of no less than $3bn”
“53 per cent of married voters went for Boy George, but only 38 per cent of singles”
“Men preferred Boy George by nine percentage points, while women liked Gore better by a margin of 10 per cent”
“Protestants went for Bush by 63 to 34 per cent”
“Jews voted Democrat by 81 to 17 per cent”
“Four-fifths of voters believed Boy George to be the more “honest and trustworthy””
“three-quarters thought Gore understood the issues better”
“Large cities (those with a population of more than half a million) voted for Gore by a rate of three to one”
“exit polls showed that a clear majority (around 60 per cent) rejected Gore’s views”
“he employed the feminist writer Naomi Wolf (at a cool $15,000 a month)”
“For the first time since the days of Eisenhower – in 1952, to be precise – all three legislative wings of government (the Presidency, Senate and House of Representatives) are now likely to be controlled by one party”
“An ICM poll shows that support for the single currency has slumped to a record low of just 18 per cent.”
