In for a penny...

As it is Saturday and everyone else has a life, I can say with reasonable confidence that nobody will read this so I can say pretty much what I like. I must stress the following is entirely my own view and not endorsed by any persons now living or dead and isn't likely to be either.

I have been more or less silent in public at the decision to select young Thomas as our Norwich North Candidate. I didn't want to dampen anyones' enthusiasm. Like most people I was naturally skeptical about the selection of an eighteen year old. But then as libertarians we should let him stand purely on the basis that he wants to.

But as a young UKIP candidate back in 2001, I was largely reading from the script with a head full of received opinions without the experience to confirm my worldview. If a 21 year old kid knows nothing then what can an eighteen year old know?

But cynicism aside, and there is room for it, as a new party we are not tainted by the corruption we have seen from our Westminster politicians and as such, we are in the best position to attract a whole generation of young people who have now seen Westminster for what it is, and at no time in living memory has an alternative party looked more attractive to them. They will be guided by their parents who will have seen that Brand A, followed by Brand B, followed by Brand A again, is nothing but a countdown to extinction. They know that if you vote the same you get the same. Thomas could well be the right guy to tap into that.

We all want something new but the alternatives are pushing negative agendas. UKIP is anti-EU but we don't really know what it is for. The crisis in Georgia last year left Nigel Farage floundering for a policy because they have no philosophical grounding. UKIP suffers from a musty old colonial smell where despite their protestations, it was and still is, a party of old Ruperts longing for the days of empire and moonbat Bilderberger conspiracy theorists. The media dubbed them "brown-shirts in blazers" and it wasn't entirely unjustified. I think even at the age of 23 I was still the youngest member.

The only other choice has been the BNP and they are anti-absolutely everything, including liberty. While they have tapped into a rich vein of public outrage, racism or no, they are still, economically speaking, a bunch of blood and soil fascists. One being a Labour splinter group, the other Conservative. That's a road to nowhere, so just for once in my life I have allowed myself a shred of untainted optimism, enough to say what the hell! I'm not voting against something anymore. I'm going to vote for a completely new and untried idea. No vote is a wasted vote.

I do keep hearing scoffs that LPUK isn't a serious party and isn't going anywhere either. But did they not say that about UKIP? It is true that UKIP has yet to break into Westminster but now it is not entirely outside the realms of possibility, and UKIP, to be fair, has blown more chances than Tim Henman on a winning streak.

And I would remind those who scoff, that ten years or so ago, UKIP was nothing. I was there at those public meetings in 1997 at the Wirral South by election, in which only the candidate, the local branch organiser, myself, Alan Sked and two sleeping pensioners were in attendance. We walked for miles, spent a small fortune on petrol driving back and forth between Yorkshire and Cheshire, delivering leaflets and pressing the flesh, being ejected from supermarkets for canvassing and oh boy was it soul destroying to lose our deposit with only 410 votes. It accomplished nothing. But with perseverance and blundering on in its own defiant way, it is now a semi-credible threat to the European Establishment. Or it would be were there a shred of democracy in the EU.

It would be delusional to say that LPUK holds any serious chances of election to Westminster any time in the next ten years but we have seen that the minnows can swing elections if the main parties do not do as they are told. We can be one of those voices. A voice detached from the racism of the BNP, the sleaze of UKIP and the elitist preaching of the Greens.

We hear talk of "big tents" and libertarianism is the biggest tent there is. A party for those who hold liberty to be the greatest prize there is, a party for those who want to keep their own money and live life the way they choose and a party for those who would rather our government didn't drop bombs on people in our name. Me, I'm just in it for the money and the freedom. I don't mind too much if our government drops bombs on bad people, but would prefer a government which couldn't afford to drop bombs if it wanted to, because if the last seven years have taught us anything, it is that we are simply not up to the job.

So Thomas, if you are reading this, young as you are, sod it! The oldies haven't got anything right with their supposed wealth of knowledge and experience because they are still under the impression that government is a solution and not THE problem. So you go for it and damn the naysayers. There is yet to be a statue built down Whitehall of an ageing armchair cynic.