Thanks to everybody who responded to the funds appeal in April

Many Many Thanks for everybody who so generously donated to the party in April in response to our appeal for funds to start preparing for local elections and the long awaited general election.

Please keep giving anything you can spare in these difficult times and make May an even better month.

I am going to try to get something on the blog that shows how much money are collecting on a monthly basis, but need to speak to the propellerheads on this first.

But this is just a big thank you for the effort made since I took over as Treasurer.

RESIGN

As Gordon Brown speaks (drivel) at PMQs, the petition calling upon him to resign is surging to the government e-petitions top spot.

In 2005 Gordon Brown received 24,278 votes in his constituency of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.

That 60m are being ruled-over by a man who has personally received the consent of UNDER 25,000 voters - and then - NOT for the role of Prime Minister, is just one of the many striking indicators of just how broken our 'democracy' really is.

The petition (which has been running for under one week?) has long-since passed the 25,000 mark and signatories are coming in fast, but it needs over 1.7m to beat the road pricing petition of 2007.

If you haven't done so yet, please make sure you sign; why wait for the general election, why not exercise direct democracy?

10m may be out of work by the time of the next general election, let's see if we can get 10m signatures NOW and take him down early!

Below, Gordon excessively borrows from his nose to 'invest' in his mouth...

UPDATE @ 16:00: 'resign' now tops the e-petition list with over 28,500 signatories (adding 500+ per hour). Please tell all your colleagues, friends and family - dooon with Brooon!

Ban GBL and the problem will just float away?

This is another emotional tale about the misuse of drugs...

Hester Stewart, 21, an "outstanding" student whose ambition was to become a surgeon, was found dead at a house in Brighton on Sunday morning, after a friend called police and said that she had taken a liquid drug called GBL.

Police are investigating whether she took the drug knowingly, but a long-term friend has told Miss Stewart's family that she "never ever took drugs" and would "never have knowingly taken this substance".

In an emotional interview with The Daily Telegraph, Maryon Stewart, her mother, a leading nutritionist, said that she felt "cheated, frustrated and angry" that the Home Office had hesitated on a promise last year to ban the substance, despite it being illegal in several other countries.

Leaving aside the emotion. Who honestly thinks banning GBL would have made any difference in this case?

Only idiots I assume...

We really need to start getting real in this country. Banning drugs has never stopped this sort of thing happening. And never will stop this sort of thing happening.

Banning drugs is simply a waste of time, money and effort.

We Are Nu Labour

H/T Iain Dale

Young Conservatives Get behind the 'Send Your Shirt To Gordon ' Campaign

The Young Conservatives get behind the 'Send your Shirt To Gordon' Campaign

Sorry Still Need More Cash

The Membership applications are coming in hourly, but as we have pegged the fee at £10, the donations are the ones I look out for. Last week was a good week for donations, but we still have elections to fight, stuff to print, fetching rosettes to order.

I even had a look at the Rich List yesterday to see if I could spy any likely donors of a Libertarian bent- anybody know Michael Caine ??

Ssssh- Don't tell Gordon the peasants are revolting

The Sunday Times


Gordon feels the wrath of shirty protesters

Fetch your tin hat from the wardrobe, Gordon, there are signs that the mob is getting restless. A petition calling on the prime minister to resign is gathering signatures at an alarming pace. On Friday, about 800 people had signed the simple appeal “Resign” on the Downing Street e-petition website. Yesterday there were more than 7,000 names.

“This could be big, very big,” says the blogger Guido Fawkes, who is backing the petition.

Other bloggers are going further. They are urging readers to send Gordon “the shirts off our backs”. This idea seems to have been launched by a blogger known as Old Holborn, but is now spreading to other sites. “I am dispatching four different shirts from different post boxes tomorrow,” says one disgruntled – and possibly shirtless – protester.

A Downing Street spokesman says no shirts have arrived so far, adding: “I’ve no idea what we would do with them.”

Libertarian Tories are wasting their time

Good post here by Michael Heaver with an astute post of what the Cameroonian Conservative Party will look like.

Its a shame that Michael is an activist with UKIP, which still has more than its fair share of old time Tory Authoritarians.

Another reason for the state to get out of education

This sort of thing really annoys me. Firstly because I'm more concerned about Government propaganda in education rather than Christian propaganda...

Atheists are targeting schools in a campaign designed to challenge Christian societies, collective worship and religious education.

The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies (AHS) plans to launch a recruitment drive this summer.

Backed by professors Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling, the initiative aims to establish a network of atheist societies in schools to counter the role of Christianity.

It will coincide with the first atheist summer camp for children that will teach that religious belief and doctrines can prevent ethical and moral behaviour.

However, the main reason it annoys me is because the solution is so bloody obvious. Get the state out of education. But does this ever dawn on any of these people? Nope. The answer is always, let's form a pressure group so we can make everyone follow our beliefs.

How about we just let the Christians, Muslims, etc have their schools. The Atheists have their schools. And the people who don't give a toss their schools.

Then we can all start leaving each other alone.

McCarthy Witchhunt

One of the few MP's who have been prepared to engage with the libertarian movement has been Kerry McCarthy- and I'm not sure she has always enjoyed the engagement. She responded on her blog to our 1984 campaign and has been prepared to discuss other issues. In return she has received a degree of personal abuse from certain quarters, perhaps born out of frustration at the many unwilling to engage, but that I believe has been unfortunate and unhelpful.

Of course our political agendas could not be further apart, but we have to accept that her leftist politics are founded in her obvious humanity- her concern for the pain of her fellow human beings.

On a recent post she described a typical constituency surgery.

I had a young woman who ended up in tears telling me about her housing and health problems; obviously I can't talk about her case, but it was a big step for her to pluck up the courage to come and see her MP and ask for help. I also saw two women who have gone through an absolutely horrendous time over the past few years, which again I can't talk about, and several people very worried about their asylum or immigration status, and others with financial problems.


By contrast, DK recently posted on why MPs should not be social workers.


Everyone should be equal under the law. Does anyone object to this principle? No? Good.

If an MP is "helping" one of their constitutents, then they are, by definition, trying to ensure that said constituent is treated differently from those people whom the MP is not helping.

This. Is. Wrong.

Of course, on one level, He. Is. Right.

There are other agencies and organisations specifically set up to deal with all of the problems described and there are other people properly trained and qualified to give the appropriate help and advice. But it is clear that Kerry enjoys this aspect of the job and is probably good at it and probably does actually help people. And that is congruent with her fundamental political motivation.

The reason I bring all this up is because libertarianism is often portrayed (and often expresses itself) as a selfish political creed. We are often depicted as having the moral compass of the 19th century mill owner or slave trader.

Where is the humanity, the concern for the welfare of others?

To counter this , I think we need to work harder at explaining why this portrayal is wrong- that we are interested in the rights of the individual because we want to ensure that everyone is free to live their lives with a greater degree of fulfillment than is possible in a state controlled system. We need to explain that, along with the rights we demand, we are aware that there are personal responsibilities and that, although we do not believe in formal structures of state help, we are properly concerned with the welfare of our neighbours and our communities. In a libertarian society, children will not be allowed to starve in the street.

We need to explain that libertarianism is, in fact, rooted in a belief in our basic individual humanity- that we believe people do not need to be compelled to help their fellow human beings and that a disconnect occurs when the impulse to kindliness is hijacked by the state and contorted for the purpose of control.

So, DK, if Kerry McCarthy wants to help people, I'm not going to criticise her.

Sign and Sign now

I don't do petitions, but just do this one to send a message

Just putting it into perspective- twelve years of Labour

This Baby born today, will be twenty three before this mountain of debt is under control, the Japanese had their 'lost decade', we are going to have a 'lost generation'

Please donate to the LPUK and help us stop this State Madness



Donations have trebled this month, and new members are joining every day.

Remember Labour blew the wealth of this country, and the Tories failed to oppose for twelve years. If you can spare £10, £50, £100 or more it will be used to bring the State under control.

Budget causes gilts to tumble

Sometimes I get the impression the market might be trying to tell us something...

UK government bond markets sold off sharply for the second day in a row on Thursday amid increasing alarm over the country’s rising debt levels.

Investors took fright after the government’s annual Budget on Wednesday revealed borrowing would soar to levels not seen since the second world war, with a debt to gross domestic product ratio rising to 80 per cent from today’s 50 per cent.

The government said it would issue a record £220bn of gilts in the current financial year, 50 per cent more than last year.

What I think it might be trying to tell us is that the Government are being really, really stupid.

It's just a shame that the Prime Minister and Chancellor are probably sat at their desks right now with their fingers in the ears shouting...

La la la la la la la la la la la I can't hear you. No, don't try and tell me anything. I told you, I can't hear you. La la la la la la la la la la la...

LPUK response to Budget - Official

A Response to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling by Tim Carpenter, LPUK Head of Policy


Anyone who has ever flown on a commercial flight will know the drill.

If the cabin de-pressurises and the masks drop, the first thing you do is pull on your own mask before helping others – even before helping your children. The reasoning behind this is stark - unless you do, you will rapidly be in no fit state to help anyone and in fact you will end up a casualty yourself, and who will be there to help you and your dependants?

Unless the flight crew pull on their masks and stabilise the craft, we are doomed. Well, in Britain’s economy, the masks have most certainly dropped.

This is due primarily to the reckless navigation and now piloting of Gordon Brown. Had a more competent pilot been at the helm, had the aircraft been in a fit state, the current turbulence would have only required a tightening of safety belts.

Instead, we are told that we must expect additional borrowing by the government of £175bln this year alone and similar figures for the coming years, doubling our National Debt to £1,200,000,000,000, from 40% of GDP to 78% - and these are the Chancellors figures which many say are wildly optimistic.

Yet the Chancellor only proposes to reduce the growth in expenditure. He talks of a £15bln “saving” while increasing spending by 1/1%. Unless you call 40% off something you have yet to buy and cannot afford a “saving”, you will see through this turn of phrase. Drastic cuts are required to public expenditure.

It is not just about making efficiency savings, it is a hard look at what the State does, or purports to do and cutting back on things that are unnecessary or better performed by the wider economy. People might say that is drastic, but our debt burden is drastic - one that will saddle every one of us and all our children for a generation to come. They will grow up under its yoke like some poor Japanese rice farmer who inherits a mortgage from their forebears. New Labour has mortgaged both us and our children’s future.

Spending other people’s money and running up debt are common factors in a Socialist administration. So is the politics of envy, and we see this in the rise in tax rates for higher earners.

Economists and analysts will readily tell you that the 50% tax rise is a tax rise too many. It will raise only millions, not billions, but it will punish ambition and wealth creation. As Winston Churchill so rightly said:

“We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”

Alistair Darling is straining at the handle and his red-faced exertions are driving wealth away and our prosperity with it.

Those earning over £100,000 often pay more tax in both absolute and percentage terms than most other people, yet they are now asked to bear additional burdens. Such people are far more mobile and have far more transferable skills. Faced with such discrimination and blatant theft of their income, they will consider, seek out and in many cases find a life beyond these shores, taking their wealth, energy and business with them.

The untaxed part of their income is spent on goods and services that keep people employed and keep other companies in business. This will be lost. Taxing high earners more with the intention to “create” jobs is a delusion. Even if not one single high earner left the UK, not one single company baulked at relocating to the UK over this policy, even then the taxation will not “create” real jobs, but will only serve to destroy them.

No, I must correct that. It will create real, sustainable jobs - but not in the UK.

At the other end of the scale, we see promises to raise Tax Credits. This grotesque piece of social engineering taxes the working poor higher than they need to be so those the Government deem “worthy” – families - can go cap in hand clutching their paperwork to beg for some of their own earnings back. It is an utter disgrace.

Even before there is a Libertarian Government that will scrap income tax for all, Tax Credits should be scrapped and personal allowances raised so the low paid are not subjected to income tax. The social engineering, needless humiliation, waste and administration must end.

One bright light on the horizon was the long overdue rise in tax-free ISA limits from £7,200 to £10,000 and this is welcomed, as far as it goes. We would rather see an end to Capital Gains Taxes completely, however, preferring to limit taxes to consumption, which is what would happen if the gains were not re-invested.

Another announcement in this area is the idea of “green collar” jobs. It is a conceit of the Government to think that such industries would not advance if it were not for their guiding hand - only one hand, mind, for the other is needed to pick our pocket to pay for it all. And this is where the problem lies. Jobs created require taxes to fund the subsidies.

Ignoring the problems of lobbying, corruption and rent-seeking that such initiatives spawn, Spain has shown that for each “created” green-collar job, two are lost in the wider economy as a result.

The British are very industrious if left alone. The biotech industry took off in part because of a lack of obstructive regulation. If the State gets involved it will begin to direct matters intentionally or unintentionally via the mechanism and decisions involved in who, what and where the subsidies are spent. Wind? Wave? Ground Source? As if those in Whitehall know or can ever keep up. The arrogance!

Our Formula 1 manufacturers show our country has some of the finest entrepreneurial engineers in the world. How well would a Government- subsidised F1 team work, I wonder? I think we know the answer to that. Forget pole position – they would not make the grid.

The topic of motoring contains another disastrous, counter-productive headline, that of scrapping vehicles over 9 years old in return for £2000 towards a new car. This makes no sense economically – only 14% of cars sold here are built in the UK - or environmentally - 80% of the energy a vehicle consumes in its lifetime is used in its production. It is encouraging wealth to leave the country so a group of middlemen can secure their incomes. It is foolish environmentally, negligent economically and so one wonders if it may be borderline corrupt.

A government is meant to be responsible, not irresponsible. A Government that weakens itself becomes dependent on and a burden to the population. This Government, because of its fiscal incompetence, arrogance, spendthrift nature, cowardice in confronting the systemic inefficiencies and expansion in public services, has become a burden to the population, yet it seeks to heap yet more burdens upon us as it continues to fail.

Einstein said that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over, expecting different results. This budget is irresponsible. This budget is insane.

+++

More on car scrappage

Well, the government has, indeed, brought in a car scrappage scheme.

This is, as I have already argued, not good news. It could, however, be worse. First, because it seems that the scheme will be temporary, and only run until March 2010 - though it is, of course, possible that it will be extended. Second, of the £2000 discount the car buyer will get, only £1000 will come from the tax-payer. The car maker will have to provide the other £1000.

But it is bad. It doesn't even seem to be that environmentally friendly. After all, it will involve destruction of the vehicle, and there are many 10 year old vehicles that are in good working order. In other words, this scheme will lead to things that have value being destroyed, which is not economically wise (See the "broken window" fallacy of Bastiat and Hazlitt). And is it really a good use of the earth's limited resources to destroy an asset?

Environmentalists have also expressed doubts about the scheme. Phillip Selwood, chief executive of the Energy Saving Trust, has commented:

"The government's announcement on scrappage contradicts the carbon friendly announcements in the budget such as money for electric vehicles, CO2 related Company Car tax and the increase in fuel duty."

"This policy will increase car purchase regardless of CO2 emissions and the government has missed a significant opportunity by spending public money to incentivise any car upgrade when they could have incentivised the lowest carbon emission cars."

Now, I don't agree with all of that, but he is right when he says "This policy will increase car purchase regardless of CO2 emissions." Talk about old cars being dirty and polluting is simplistic. There are ten year old cars which run economically, and don't emit much carbon dioxide. And there are modern cars that are not economical and have high emissions. But under the scheme, you can trade in your old Citroen Saxo and get a new Mitsubishi Evo and be subsidised by the tax-payer.

And by the way, it is the tax-payer who pays. Curiously enough, the Telegraph wrote "The "scrappage" scheme, costing the Government £300 million, is intended not only to boost the ailing car industry, but to take some of the most environmentally unfriendly vehicles off the road."

Costing the government £300 million? Er, no. It doesn't cost the government. It costs us. Don't get the impression that the money will all be coming out of the pockets of politicians. It's your pocket it will come out of.

Terrorist Police

There has been little on the blogosphere regarding the proposed deportation of the North West "terror suspects" and, in passing, it would be interesting to hear views on why this is. So what occurred?

There are two possibilities.

1) The suspects were planning a terrorist outrage. The police and security services found out about it but, despite all the surveillance advantages given to them by the Prevention of Terrorism Act, they were not competent to put together a set of allegations that would stand up in court. In other words, there was no reliable evidence that anybody was guilty of anything and it took the police only 14 days of a possible 28 to realise that this was going to be the outcome.

2) The arrests happened as the result of some colossal balls up. Incompetent security officers intercepted and misinterpreted some "coded" emails and arrested a bunch of entirely innocent Pakistani students.

Which was it?

Like most people, I am inclined to lean towards the first scenario as being the more likely. Smoke and fire etc. However when the head of the security police cannot be bothered to put Top Secret documents in his briefcase, the "colossal balls up" theory has to be a possibility at least.

So when will we know?

Well, almost certainly, we never will. The cases will go to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission. effectively a national security tribunal. It will hear evidence in secret - which means that intelligence assessments with no weight in a criminal trial can be used to ban someone from the UK. If anyone would like to wager any money on them not being deported, please contact me privately.

More than any other factor, the Government uses terrorism as the major justification for the loss of so many of our civil liberties. The only certainty in this affair is that, given the spectacular incompetence demonstrated by the state apparatus, these losses are felt ever more sharply.

Government gets it right

The Libertarian Party is not small minded. Though we think that Her Majesty's Government is profoundly and dangerously mistaken on many (make that 'most'. ed.) things, we are prepared to give credit where credit is due. We are therefore heartened, in these days when so much taxpayers' money is being spent on frivolous things, to note that the Culture Department is limiting its spending on St. George's Day to just £116. This sum will go toward the purchase of a new St George's flag, a purchase which seems to us to be quite reasonable.

We trust that those entrusted with taxpayers' money will be equally prudent when, er, ahem, St. Andrew's Day comes along later this year.

Hat Tip to Guthrum - who has an interesting alternative angle on this story.


p.s. A Happy St. George's Day to one and all. May you live to see the dragons slain.

Shirts to Gordon Campaign

My note to Gordon

This is a copy of the note I will be sending to Gordon today along with my shirt.

Dear Gordon,

This is my shirt, and I’m giving it to you. It’s not a fancy shirt or an expensive shirt. But it is an important shirt.

It is important because it is the last thing I can give to you. You’ve already taken my liberty, my country and my money. So I have nothing left to give.

I hope it brings you comfort as you contemplate the thought that you are to go down in history as the worst Prime Minister this country has ever seen.

Yours faithfully,

Rob Waller

Remember today is St George's Day so there is no better time to stand up for your country.

SEND GORDON YOUR SHIRT NOW so that he knows what we think of him, his government and his budget.

Nightmare Budget

The little gloss that remained on the New Labour project was stripped away by today's budget. I've always thought Alistair Darling looked like a seagull, and as seagulls are prone to doing, today he has shat all over us.

Apparently, gambling on rapid economic recovery by 2010, he has hiked up taxes on fuel, booze, fags, and upped income tax for high earners to 50%.

The reality: the government forecasts for recovery are utter, utter crap. 3.5% growth by 2011?! Are you kidding me? They must be smoking some good crack.

The government's contention that with enough spending and borrowing, we can pull ourselves out of the downturn in a year, is complete hooey; an example of brainless Keynesian dogma, based on a totally fantastical theory of how an economy actually functions.

For everything that could have been announced in today to improve our situation, the opposite was done. Taxes, spending, borrowing, debt - all significantly up. The borrowing and debt statistics are terrifying.

Borrowing is forecast as £175 billion this year alone; £606 billion over the next four years. This is dire news for already battered sterling. We can look forward to more failed government bond auctions. What happens if our foreign lenders universally decide our credit card is maxed out? I wonder if such an eventuality is all that far away, particularly now that, rather than taking the first tentative steps towards reining in our deficit and closing up the gaping black holes in our public finances, we have instead announced to the world our plans to continue at quickening pace down the slippery slope of national bankruptcy?

UK net debt is forecast to be 59% this year, 68% next year, and rising to 79% by 2013-14. The golden fiscal rules seem a long time ago now, don't they?

These figures are unprecedented and catastrophic, and to see the Gorgon smirking and giggling while David Cameron lambasted him for these very things was a damning indictment of the type of man the Gorgon is: he just doesn't give a hoot.

The scariest thing about it all is how woefully inaccurate these governments forecasts nearly always are - normally the reality ends up being much higher.

And so much for axing the beer tax. 2000 pubs closed in the last year, and yet the Seagull hikes up the tax again. You can't even drown your sorrows at the mess of this country without getting financially shafted by the State.

And finally, a big middle finger from the government to anyone who is successful enough to have a salary of over £150,000. If I was earning that much, I think I'd rather gouge out my own eyeballs than, quite literally, directly split it with the government. Just on principle, no one should ever have to give half of their income directly to the government - lump indirect and stealth taxation in there, and let me tell you: if a brain drain does indeed take place, I certainly won't be criticising the brains.

Mary Riddell, writing, bizarrely enough, in the Telegraph, lauds the budget's "boldness" and how "redistributive" it is, calling it a "Robin Hood budget."

No Mary - Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor. The State is stealing from the rich to give to the State. This budget is shafting us all, and shafting our children, and shafting our children's children. The very fact that the Seagull has taken a particular interest, this time round, in shafting our most efficient wealth-generators, probably to no benefit in terms of tax revenues - in fact, possibly to its detriment - is proof that the government do not have the interests of the average Brit at heart.

They have the interests of their dogmatic political base at heart - those who bray for the blood of the wealthy and successful, and whose idea of social equality amounts to little more than equality of poverty. There is nothing noble, moral or "fair" about thieving more than half of a man's income to fund a public sector and welfare state so bloated and bureaucratic that it has become almost unrecognisable as a provider of basic services, or to pay for ridiculous, expensive initiatives and schemes dreamt up by morons insulated in the cushy political class which never deliver on their promises - just because said man is wealthier than others.

That the Tories won't just stand up and say this is very sad.

When it's all said and done, I think Labour know they're screwed. They are scorching the earth for Cameron. I think they know that the levels of debt and borrowing as they stand are not sustainable for much more than a year or so - they are just banking on the hope that it doesn't all unravel before the election, so that their defeat will maybe, just maybe, not be the humiliating and utterly crushing defeat we all hope it will be. That's what the 50% tax on top earners was all about - a desperate attempt to consolidate what they have left of a political base - namely a bunch of sad, angry leftwingers who cling to the belief that there is any place left for class war and that class warriors are fit for any purpose than reminding us of an embarrassing, depressing past. Then Cameron's UnTories will come in - and Labour are praying that they will do exactly what

I hope they have the balls not to do, but suspect will be the case ... nothing. At least, nothing significant. They might reverse a couple of things, tinker a little here and there, change the rhetoric a little, and generally seem like a bit of fresh air. But I sincerely doubt, as do Labour, that David Cameron will have the gumption to take any of the drastic action needed to try and set the economy back onto an upwards trajectory, and roll back the stifling state.

And, perhaps, by the time they get into power anyway, it may already be too late and the damage will have been done: earth scorched past any chance of relatively fast recovery.

This was the Bugger-it-all Budget. The Shaft-Everyone Budget. The Nightmare Budget. Will the last one into the poorhouse please turn off the lights? And be careful of the flying seagull shit.

Taking the Shirt off your Back Campaign

Its started off on Old Holborn's site Don't just sit there and accept this crap budget designed to bail out this corrupt Government and its Banker friends.

Dig out that old shirt and send it to 10 Downing Street with a note of what you really think of this budget- let us know that you have done it on 1984@lpuk.org

Gordon Brown
10, Downing Street
London
SW1A 2AA.

One more time for good effect

On the 1st of January 2009, the Libertarian Party celebrated its first Birthday. From its inception at the beginning of 2008 support for the Libertarian ideals laid out in our manifesto has been steadily growing, and today we have taken the first major steps from that single national structure into regional Branch formations.

We have formally launched the South East Branch this morning, to add to the one we have in the North West, and new Branches throughout the country will soon follow, as will the names and details of our first PPC's and Local Election Candidates, which will continually be updated as new candidates are taken through our selection process.

As this country slips further into Authoritarian rule the support for Libertarian ideals has never been stronger, or more vocal.


However, as people who are coming to LPUK are telling us in no uncertain terms, the Conservative Party has no room for Libertarian thought, Cameron has made clear that he will be continuing on the present path to a Federal Europe and will not be walking with Libertarians , Osborne is providing more Keynesian economics, and William Hague has refused to commit to a referendum if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified. In other words, more of the same under a disguised 'nudge'.

Those who have come to us from the LibDems tell of horrific infighting, with the SDP controlled leadership squeezing the Liberal element out of the party, marginalising them at branch level and suggesting that there is no room in the modern LibDem party for them. The LibDems have lost their Liberal roots and become the Social Democratic party, set to continue where Brown leaves off. More of the same.

Both LibDems and Conservatives are on a collision course with the British people, 57% of whom have now indicated that they no longer wish to remain in the EU. They are looking for a genuinely free society, services that work, lower taxes, much smaller government, less nannying and laws that are Made in Britain.

The voters of Britain are not stupid people, they are not happy about being led on the road to Authoritarian rule, and they are more than aware that the Libertarian Party is the only party that offers a direct rebut to the path we are currently on.


Like all political parties the Libertarian Party relies on donations to keep it going. We urge you to make generous contributions to allow us to continue to mount the challenge, to provide the voters of Britain a voice for Liberty against this backdrop of Authoritarian politics.


To those who continue to spin the State line that we are still a free country, I would suggest a quick review of the facts that would tell you otherwise.





Iain Dale published Damian Green's wife's top ten tips on what to do if your home is being searched by the Police. How has it come to pass that we now consider this an every day event?





How has it come to pass that we consider the list below every day events?





Ballot Boxes are interfered with


Voting registers go missing


The Police can kill innocent people and get away with it


You can be put in prison for 42 days on pure suspicion


You can be put in prison indefinitely on the word of a politician


The State can torture people


Your children are monitored at School by Political Officers





Your children's fingerprints are taken without your consent by willing teachers


Their behaviour is logged on a State database for their entire lives


Your innocent fingerprints, iris scans and biometrics are held by the State


You do not have the right to remain silent


You are watched on 4 million CCTV cameras


You may not photograph the Police





The media is controlled by the State


You do not have the right to protest peacefully


Curfews exist for entire communities


Your travel movements are logged and monitored


Who you vote for is logged and monitored


Your shopping habits are studied and logged by the State


Your emails and telephone conversations are recorded by the State



Your Bank and financial detailed are accessed by the State


Your passport can be withdrawn at the whim of the State


Government agencies can use lie detector tests on you



.

List of life in the UK from Old Holborn.






Is this how a free country works?




If like me you think the answer is No, then join the Libertarian Party, help us to work to give you those lost freedoms back.



If you want to make a donation to LPUK so we can continue to stand for your rights, and I will be very honest here, yes, we need your money,



If you want to stand at Local Elections or as a Member of Parliament yourself to make that difference, then email us at contact@lpuk.org.



No, we don't have all the answers, anyone who tells you that they do is lying, but we believe that we are putting forward far more credible options than the Conservatives or the LibDems.



The world is a very fluid place at the moment, there is an air of uncertainty over Economics, military posturing, the real threats of terrorism, energy security, food security and much more as governments around the world are forcing us into Global governence, Global financial control, unelected european control.





We are looking for your help to get the LPUK ready for the Local Elections and then General Elections, we intend standing, we intend fighting this battle at the ballot box, for we are no longer prepared to stand by and watch our Country destroyed from the inside out.




Ian Parker-Joseph Leader LPUK

Thanks to Patrick Vessey

I have just taken over as Treasurer from Patrick Vessey with effect from last Saturday.

Having got to grips with the efficient system that he has set up I think that the Party owes Patrick a huge debt of thanks.

What I was surprised about was the daily numbers of new members pinging up on the email screen, and as we know we have set a very modest joining fee of £10 so every penny helps. What is even better is the very generous donations that are made on a daily basis as well.

Having said all of that we are putting up our first candidates for both Parliament and Local Government. So in these straitened times and if we are allowed to have any money in our pockets after the budget, please help us to be able to support our candidates.

It is the sad role of treasurer to whine about money, so expect more whining, but at least we are in the black unlike some other parties.


On May 16th will be a meeting for all Regional Organisers and PPC's, also the first meeting of the LPUK SE branch. The Regional branch system has been brought in to ensure that local issues are dealt with, and that the administration of the Party, as far as Electoral Law will allow is devolved away from the centre.

French Mayor has got it in one

Natacha BOUCHART Mayor of Calais has got it in one when she says that Britain's generous benefits system is responsible for the economic migrants desperate to reach our shores.




Libertarian Party Policy has always advocated open borders where people can live and work whereever to the best of their abilities. The LPUK has recognised however whilst you have a system that is effectively waving free fivers in the direction of the desperately poor of other countries, and a failed asylum system, an effective immigration has to be in place.




The fact that this Government are so incompetent that they have not a clue how many people are coming to the UK, is distorting our economy, allowing parties like the BNP to thrive on racial hatred, but at least it is creating a 'client state' for future Labour voters.




Scrapping our benefits system is the only way the incentive to come here is going disappear, but this also applies to those born here as well.

We're saved -- Government to invest our money in high risk industry...

It's almost as if the Government enjoy coming up with stupid new ways to waste our money...

The government is considering setting up a new bank to invest in start-up and high risk business ventures.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would look at the case for setting up such a bank, targeting hi-tech firms.

He said the proposed bank would "provide the finance for more difficult and more risky start-ups for high-technology businesses of the future".

Who on Earth would trust the British Government to invest in high risk industry? Just look at their track record. We'll probably end up with a fleet of cucumber powered power stations. And that's if we're lucky.

God, they really must think we're a bunch of mugs.

LPUK grows up - getting ready for elections

On the 1^st of January 2009, the Libertarian Party celebrated its first Birthday. From its inception at the beginning of 2008 support for the Libertarian ideals laid out in our manifesto has been steadily growing, and today we have taken the first major steps from that single national structure into regional Branch formations.

We have formally launched the South East Branch this morning, to add to the one we have in the North West, and new Branches throughout the country will soon follow, as will the names and details of our first PPC's and Local Election Candidates, which will continually be updated as new candidates are taken through our selection process.

As this country slips further into Authoritarian rule the support for Libertarian ideals has never been stronger, or more vocal.

However, as people who are coming to LPUK are telling us in no uncertain terms, the Conservative Party has no room for Libertarian thought, Cameron has made clear that he will be continuing on the present path to a Federal Europe and will not be walking with Libertarians , Osborne is providing more Keynesian economics, and William Hague has refused to commit to a referendum if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified. In other words, more of the same under a disguised 'nudge'.

Those who have come to us from the LibDems tell of horrific infighting, with the SDP controlled leadership squeezing the Liberal element out of the party, marginalising them at branch level and suggesting that there is no room in the modern LibDem party for them. The LibDems have lost their Liberal roots and become the Social Democratic party, set to continue where Brown leaves off. More of the same.

Both LibDems and Conservatives are on a collision course with the British people, 57% of whom have now indicated that they no longer wish to remain in the EU. They are looking for a genuinely free society, services that work, lower taxes, much smaller government, less nannying and laws that are Made in Britain.

The voters of Britain are not stupid people, they are not happy about being led on the road to Authoritarian rule, and they are more than aware that the Libertarian Party is the only party that offers a direct rebut to the path we are currently on.

Like all political parties the Libertarian Party relies on donations to keep it going. We urge you to make generous contributions to allow us to continue to mount the challenge, to provide the voters of Britain a voice for Liberty against this backdrop of Authoritarian politics.

To those who continue to spin the State line that we are still a free country, I would suggest a quick review of the facts that would tell you otherwise.

Iain Dale published Damian Green's wife's top ten tips on what to do if your home is being searched by the Police. How has it come to pass that we now consider this an every day event?

How has it come to pass that we consider the list below every day events?

Ballot Boxes are interfered with
Voting registers go missing
The Police can kill innocent people and get away with it
You can be put in prison for 42 days on pure suspicion
You can be put in prison indefinitely on the word of a politician
The State can torture people
Your children are monitored at School by Political Officers

Your children's fingerprints are taken without your consent by willing teachers
Their behaviour is logged on a State database for their entire lives
Your innocent fingerprints, iris scans and biometrics are held by the State
You do not have the right to remain silent
You are watched on 4 million CCTV cameras
You may not photograph the Police

The media is controlled by the State
You do not have the right to protest peacefully
Curfews exist for entire communities
Your travel movements are logged and monitored
Who you vote for is logged and monitored
Your shopping habits are studied and logged by the State
Your emails and telephone conversations are recorded by the State

Your Bank and financial detailed are accessed by the State
Your passport can be withdrawn at the whim of the State
Government agencies can use lie detector tests on you.

List of life in the UK from Old Holborn.

Is this how a free country works?

If like me you think the answer is No, then join the Libertarian Party, help us to work to give you those lost freedoms back.

If you want to make a donation to LPUK so we can continue to stand for your rights, and I will be very honest here, yes, we need your money, click here

If you want to stand at Local Elections or as a Member of Parliament yourself to make that difference, then email us at contact@lpuk.org.

No, we don't have all the answers, anyone who tells you that they do is lying, but we believe that we are putting forward far more credible options than the Conservatives or the LibDems.

The world is a very fluid place at the moment, there is an air of uncertainty over Economics, military posturing, the real threats of terrorism, energy security, food security and much more as governments around the world are forcing us into Global governence, Global financial control, unelected european control.

We are looking for your help to get the LPUK ready for the Local Elections and then General Elections, we intend standing, we intend fighting this battle at the ballot box, for we are no longer prepared to stand by and watch our Country destroyed from the inside out.

n.b. LPUK will not be standing in the European Elections. Until the people of Britain have made a decision on EU political union through a referendum, we consider that the European Parliament is not a legal institution and we shall not provide it false respectability.

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The banning of this advert on the basis of three complaints, has been so widely reported that I couldn't think of anything further to add. It is of course, nannying at its most extreme and has the added annoyance of shutting down an attempt to revive a historic slogan. The ASA's action has broken another small and fragile link with the past.

It was only when I realized that the basis of the ban was that the advert:

was likely to be understood by consumers to carry the clear implication that the beer would give the man enough confidence to tell the woman that the dress was unflattering

that I began to wonder. Has no one at the ASA seen this ?



..which was widely screened by the 'Know Your Limits' campaign from the NHS. The clear implication is that alcohol has made the man confident. In this case, confident of his ability to do backflips on wibbly wobbly scaffolding.

They can't both be right can they ?

Since one of them is clearly wrong, and we live in straitened times, I'm going to suggest that one of these two groups be shut down. The envelope please......

...and the winner is the 'Know Your Limits' campaign. Although the ASA are idiots and ought to take common sense into account, Know your Limits is wildly expensive, and they are the minds behind the alcohol units campaign, which is in turn based on the flimsiest of evidence.

Economic recovery by 2010...

I know I'm no highly paid Ernst and Young economist but isn't this just a little optimistic...

The economy is no longer in free fall and a recovery next spring is likely, a renowned economic think tank has said.

Stabilising markets and the easing of credit conditions may well mean that the worst of the recession is over, the Ernst & Young Item Club said.

It is forecasting the economy to shrink by 3.5% this year and by 0.1% in 2010.

The only way this is going to happen is if public debt and the Labour Party disappear into a black hole. But let's get realistic.

Precisely how are we going to pay down public debt between now and next spring? Public debt stands anywhere between £1trillion and £3trillion. Where are we going to find that sort of money?

The answer -- we're not. Which means taxes are going to remain high and possibly get higher. And that will restrict savings, which will restrict investment and therefore delay recovery.

So how can anybody think the economy is going to recover by next year?

Let's face it -- we're screwed!!

The Thumb-Twiddlers Are Confused

 

The increasingly on the ball Dick Puddlecote has provided us today with some interesting data with regards the burgeoning civil service. (Thanks for letting me republish this in full).

 

Back in January, Lord Digby Jones saw through the Emperor's new clothes and stated the bleeding obvious about the civil service.

"Frankly the job could be done with half as many, it could be more productive, more efficient, it could deliver a lot more value for money for the taxpayer. I was amazed, quite frankly, at how many people deserved the sack and yet that was the one threat that they never ever worked under, because it doesn't exist."

Well, now it seems that many of the state salaried rubber band flickers and thumb-twiddlers are in agreement.

ALMOST 8,000 civil servants admit they have little idea what they are supposed to be doing when they turn up for work each day.

They told staff surveys they are "not clear about what is expected of them within their job".

Isn't it to just take the money and vote labour when the time comes? That, and play spider solitaire and minesweeper, of course.

It gets worse ...

They have revealed that across the 13 Government departments only 37.5 per cent of civil servants felt their organisation was well managed.

They are correct. If 8,000 civil servants haven't a clue what they should be doing, management should have issued 8,000 more P45s. But why bother? It's not their money, is it?

At the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, created when Gordon Brown split the former Education Department in two, less than half the staff said they understood what the department was trying to do.

That's easy too. It's to enable the education service to continue pumping out illiterate halfwits to twiddle thumbs and flick rubber bands, in civil service and local authority offices, for generations to come.

Here's a mad thought. Considering the government is going to need to save as many of our pennies as is humanly possible to service the astronomical debt that the psychotic one-eyed spendthrift has committed, and seeing as the results of these new staff surveys (also paid for by us to the tune of £500k pa) seem to agree with the musings of Lord Digby Jones, maybe a drastic slimming down of civil service staffing would be in order.

How long should we hold our breath?

 

 

 

As the Libertarian Party is the only party to find itself in full agreement with the views of Lord Jones, perhaps his Lordship would consider taking up a position to speak for the Libertarian Party in the Upper House, and to work towards making his recommendations a reality.

 

 

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Worcestershire Mental Health NHS Trust again

The Guardian Newspapers presents a high death rate in psychiatry .

Worcestershire Mental Health Trust Partnership is slated over its suicides.

"Ms Ditheridge was speaking following the death of Maia Brohan, aged 39, on December 11, last year. She was found hanging in a shower room on Abberley Ward at Newtown Hospital, Worcester. Speaking at a recent meeting of the trust board, Ms Ditheridge said: “The coroner was quite surprised we didn’t take people’s shoe laces off but we’re not a prison"

Cripes, everyone does a risk assessment and takes the shoe laces and belts etc off any high risk patient. Very surprised that a shoe lace would be a human rights issue when velcro on shoes does the same job. We go to the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicides and Homicides to see what they had to say

"However, figures on hanging include a number of cases of self-strangulation and in these the ligature point can be virtually any fixed or heavy structure, suggesting the need to remove ligatures as well. Ligatures are often personal objects such as belts or shoelaces. It is obviously a delicate matter to remove someone’s possessions and, if this is to be done, it should normally be with the consent of patients and their full understanding. However, clinical teams should be able to discuss sensitively with patients the need to agree such measures in the interests of their safety. We therefore believe that in-patient units should consult local service user representatives on how this should be carried out. Protocols should be agreed, by which high risk patients should be asked to wear (and, if necessary, be given) shoes that do not have laces and clothes that do not need belts. The outcome of discussion with patients about safety measures should be clearly recorded. The protocols should apply to anyone who is detained under the Mental Health Act or placed under non-routine observation because of suicide risk"

Further research stated

"The main ligatures used in suicides occurring on psychiatric wards in the 2 years up to September 2003 were: belts/dressing gown cords (50%), sheet or towel (13%), and shoe laces (9%) (see Table 2). It has been suggested that high-risk patients should be given or asked to wear clothes that do not need belts and shoes that do not have laces, though it is acknowledged that this would need to be sensitively discussed with such patients.³⁸

Ms Dithering Ditheridge has clearly got her research all mixed up.

The Worcester News article went onto say.

"The trust was criticised for failing to remove “ligature points”, places from which people can hang themselves such as door handles and coat hooks"

We then view the what the leading research stated

"Recently it has become a legal requirement in England and Wales for all non-collapsible frames, such as bed, shower, and curtain rails to be removed from psychiatric wards (by March 2002).⁴¹ In the 2 years up to September 2003 a hook or handle (27%), part of the bed (20%), or door/wardrobe (17%) were the most common ligature points"

Therefore Worcestershire Mental Health Trust had quite a few years to correct themselves but decided not to.

A briefing to trust directors, which mentioned the coroner’s reports, criticised the trust’s “haphazard” documentation and poor communication between staff.

Anyhow, this is what Ros Keeton stated following a damning CHI Report in 2004.

"She said: "We had some early indications from CHI and we didn't want to wait for the report to be published. We wanted to get on with it and start right away.

"Since then, we have been working together with staff to put in a much stronger system of risk assessment, management and how we respond to significant incidents."

Remaining ligature points - which patients could use to hang themselves from - had been removed and what constituted a "near miss" had been clarified so an eye could be kept on patients at risk, she said.

So lets see it again Ros, in 2008 this is what the criticism was

"The trust was criticised for failing to remove “ligature points”, places from which people can hang themselves such as door handles and coat hooks"

So when is it going to happen Ros? Something is afoot Ros?. Death by Shoelace by any chance? Let us see what is occupying Ros' mind and distracting her.....

At a time when Worcester Mental Health Trust should be putting their foot down, their Chief Executive at Worcestershire Mental Health Trust was happily spending her time reading our blogs and surfing the internet.... A total of 22 hours and 16 minutes and 8 seconds

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Just wondered whether it was in her job description to be reading our blogs while she could be putting her brain to good use like saving patients?! Just an idea eh Ros. You never know who could be hanging themselves with their shoe laces while you spend your time surfing. Hopefully, the managers of Worcestershire Mental Health Trust will be suspended soon enough. Old Steve Choong, Medical Director and covert GMC Panelist must surely show these figures to the General Medical Council as further evidence of his ability to manage patients effectively. That is if there are any patients left.....

More to come in the Sunday's tomorrow

Looks like another interesting day coming

The Baroness and the Badman - a fairy tale

Hat tip to Tom Paine, who was so inspired by this post by Renegade Parent, that he wrote "Why are other peoples' blog posts so much better than mine?"

Tom is too modest, but he is right about one thing. Renegade Parent's modern fairy tale is well written. It is also a brilliant indictment of the folly of the government's determination to ensure that the state brings up our children.

As Tom says, "Do go and read the whole thing."

How big is nepotism in politics?

Saw this at Tory Bear today. Whether you salivate over political researchers or not the really interesting thing about this is the nepotism...

Her mother has barely been out of the news all week, but it seems that Nadine isn't the only Dorries to make a stir. Jenny Dorries came out top of the lady researchers with 46% of the vote:

Honestly -- how big is nepotism in politics today? I personally know of one excellent example. But I'd really love to see stats on it.

How many sons and daughters of politicians work or have worked in government?

Sometimes makes me think the political class are becoming like a self replicating bacteria.

Has ANYBODY learned from Smeargate?

No.

Whitehall sources unleashed an extraordinary salvo at Christopher Galley, the civil servant who leaked to Mr Green but was also freed from the threat of criminal prosecution. One labelled him a “complete loser”. Claiming that he had used a term from Star Trek as a computer log-in, an insider said: “That says it all, doesn’t it. The guy was a laughing stock.”

Really, I don't know where to start.

1. Has the Times not noticed that people don't like the press's collusion with the government in dripping poison? So why are they quoting "Whitehall sources" and "an insider"?
2. Has the government not noticed that people have just been exposed to the dodgy workings of how they smear people? So why would we give these fucking Whitehall sources and insiders anything but a hearty "SOD OFF, YOU BASTARDS"?

Nothing's going to change, is it?

Originally swearblogged here.

One Reason Why You Should Not Vote Social Democrat

Still bent double with hysterical laughter at the latest risible attempt by the Social Democrats to get down with the kids

The Destruction of Self-Help

Building Societies have always been one of my favourite historical institutions.

The were started by a combination of solid working class folk and radical lawyers or Churchmen, chipping in six pence a week to build a fund that would enable them to buy land and build their own homes, and as property owners they would also get the vote.

The State encouraged these self help societies with legislation going back to the reign of William IV, that was the extent of state interference. I wrote up a History of the Northampton Freehold Land Society.(Which appears to have been filched by the local Social Democrats, is the mistaken belief that they are the inheritors of the Liberal tradition) The houses they built still stand. Solid airy Victorian houses. The idea was such a success that they became Permanent Building Societies- such as the Leeds Permanent. The Northampton FLA eventually became the Nationwide.

These were bedrock institutions, that built up a solid capital base over a hundred and fifty years.

Under the Tories, wholesale de mutualisation and rampant corporatism led to these organisations becoming 'faux' Banks, under Labour's financial mismanagement and Brown's regulatory 'reforms' the Building Societies have been thrown to the dogs.

State interference, greed and incompetence have destroyed a once great tradition of Self Help, Statist Parties like the Cons/Lab/Social Democrats cannot believe that ordinary people are individually and collectively capable of achieving anything outside of State provision.

Statism just creates fecklessness and infantilism

It's our money -- not yours...

Even for the Grauniad Chuka Umunna's article on tax avoidance is way, way up there on the moron scale...

Benefit fraudsters cost us just £800m; tax avoiders cost £13bn – so where are the headlines?

The headlines are so familiar: "Benefits cheat gets 10 months" screamed the Sun last month. In the resulting piece we were told how "scrounging" James Smith, 48, had "grabbed £35k in welfare handouts by claiming he couldn't hobble more than 20 metres – even with a stick".

Well, let's think. Maybe because benefit fraud is a crime -- it's stealing from the taxpayer. While tax avoidance is a means to lawfully keep as much money as possible out of the hands of the tax-man.

They're not really the same at all. But Chuka goes on...

Whereas £800m is lost annually to benefit fraud, in 2008-09 the TUC estimated that tax avoiders stole a whopping £13bn from public funds.

Precisely where does this idiot get the idea that this £13bn ever belonged to the state? It didn't. It belongs to the people who earned it. Which certainly isn't that parasite we call the state.

Car scrappage: another robbery coming up?

The government is poised to raid the taxpayers again, this time to give our money to car manufacturers and dealerships. It's called a car "scrappage" scheme. This idea had been spoken about for some time, but some of us trusted that the government had thought better of it. Now, they are tipped to do it. I just hope the tipster has it wrong.

Basically it means that tax-payers' money is given to car buyers in exchange for an old car. They spend the money on a new car, which means that, other than having a new car, they are no better off - unless they were going to buy a new car anyway, in which case, they've just been given a nice present, courtesy of you and me. If you don't drive, you'll really appreciate being forced to pay up to subsidise motorists.

So who profits? Motor manufacturers and traders, of course, which is why the SMMT has been so keen on this scheme. It's good for car salesmen. And it's good for car manufacturers. Unfortunately, most manufacturers of cars bought in Britain are not British, so much of the money the government will be taking from us will be leaving the country.

In the government's favour, at least we are behind France and Germany in this - they've introduced such schemes already. But since French car buyers tend to buy mostly French cars, and a high proportion of Germans buy German cars, their schemes are not quite as foolish as a British one would be.

Across Europe little interest in EU elections

There appears to be little interest in the EU elections, not only here in the UK but right across the European empire. It seems that people will be rejecting the validity of the EU and voting with their feet and going to the pub instead of the polling booths.

Only 34 percent of the 500 million European Union citizens say they will vote in the European parliament elections on June 4-7, a survey suggests.

Belgians topped the list with 70 percent saying they would probably vote, while Poles were at the bottom with just 13 percent, according to the Eurobarometer poll. The figure for Belgium was still low though, considering the EU is the largest employer in Belgium and the country has compulsory voting with people who fail to turn up to polling booths risking a fine.

In the Netherlands, 39 percent of those eligible to vote turned out in 2004. However, in June of 2006, 63 percent voted in a referendum on the European constitution, which was then rejected by 61.6 percent of Dutch voters.

The only time that voters have come out in strength in any EU member state has been to reject the Constitution at a time when referendums were still allowed.

In Britain, 30 percent of respondents said they would definitely not vote - far more than in other EU member state.

In the June elections, 750 members of the European parliament will be elected by proportional representation to represent some 500 million EU citizens.

The vote is being billed by the EU as the largest trans-national election in history, the reality however will be that it is likely to be the largest trans-national failure in history.

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The Libertarian Party will not be standing any candidates in the EU parliamentary elections, it will not give that validity to imposed political union without a referendum of the British people.

If you would like to support the Libertarian Party by donating to its UK General Election fund, please write to us at donate@lpuk.org, or use the Donate button in the sidebar.

 

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Boost personal spending by increasing taxes?

It shocks me how people like Prem Sikka get titles like Professor when they come out with this sort of rubbish. Especially when they're a Professor of accounting...

The government should begin the task of building a sustainable economy by addressing inequalities and boosting people's spending power. No one on the national minimum wage should pay income tax or national insurance contributions. The state pension should be raised to bring it into line with the EU average. There should be generous help for the unemployed and families with children. Prescription, optician's and dental charges and university tuition fees should be abolished.

The cost of the above can be met by removing the upper limit on the national insurance contributions and levying higher rates of income tax on the rich so that the benefit of higher personal allowances is clawed back. Tax relief on pension contributions should be restricted to the basic rate of income tax. There should be an aggressive assault on the tax avoidance industry, which is costing the UK more than £100bn a year. Tax should be deducted at source for all dividends paid to non-domiciled individuals so that they cannot easily avoid taxes.

The government should broaden the tax base by levying tax on speculative financial instruments, such as derivates, and a Tobin tax on all currency and stock market gambling. A land value tax should be levied that so that when house and office values increase due to adjacent road, rail and public investment some of the gains are shared with the taxpayer. Companies should not be able to abandon their pension commitments to employees. Thus any company making a payment of dividends to shareholders should also make good the underfunding of pension schemes.

Does this make any sense whatsoever? Basically what this idiot is saying is we should boost personal spending power by increasing taxes massively.

Sometimes I wonder if Guardianistas believe that the taxpayer is in fact a mythical leprechaun who sits on an infinite crock of gold at the end of the rainbow. And whose sole purpose in life is to laugh hysterically as he hands it over to the Government.

A Labour MP admits

For years, I have had a great respect for Frank Field. I disagree with him about many things, but he has generally seemed remarkably honest for a politician. His thoughts on the McBride affair (as published in the Guardian) are, as a result, worth reading - and entitled, significantly, Darkness at the heart of New Labour.

But there is one part of his article that is quite striking:

We have lived through an age of record public expenditure provision, but are now entering one of increasing cuts. There have been some beneficial results from this huge taxpayer largesse, but they in no way match up to what radicals predicted would be the outcome.

There we have three quite extraordinary admissions for a Labour MP.

First of all, he has admitted that government spending in recent years has been huge. In other words, the country has been run by spendthrifts.

Second, he has admitted that there is not much to show for all this spending.

Third, he has admitted that that the money came from, and belongs to, taxpayers. OK, every Labour MP will probably admit this if pressed, but Mr Field, in using the phrase "huge taxpayer largesse", has highlighted the fact that taxpayers have given rather a lot to the government. He has even asked "Is the task to look much more carefully how each pound of taxpayers' money is spent?"

I fear that he remains emotionally wedded to socialism and far from libertarianism. I fear he will not draw the obvious conclusion that taking other people's money and spending huge amounts of it in ways that bring them very little benefit is basically immoral. But one must admit that he has done well for a Labour MP.

Arresting Freedom

It is often stated that the test of whether you truly believe in freedom of speech is if you are prepared to fight for the right of someone to express an opinion with which you fundamentally disagree.

I am somewhat sceptical about the whole climate change industry and believe that green campaigners are, on the whole, well meaning but misguided fools. However, the police action in arresting over 100 of them based on intelligence that they were about to launch a protest is a quite shameless attack on civil liberties. The "law" under which they were stopped was originally enacted to clamp down on anti-hunt demonstrators and, like many conspiracy laws, it is highly susceptible to abuse by the authorities.

Having been embarassed by climate protesters in the past, the police tactics seem to have been to monitor and intercept phone calls and emails among the protesters. They then turned up in force at the meeting point and arrested everybody they found. Armed with names and addresses they then broke into peoples houses and took away their computers and other communication equipment in order to try to build some kind of conspiracy case against them.

I would speculate that very few, if any, of the arrests will result in convictions for any offence but that is not really important- the objective of thwarting the protest has been achieved. Four police forces were involved in this action and there will no doubt be plenty of self congratulation going on at ACPO today.

What is a police state?

Teachers demand £3,000

One of the main reasons we need to privatise the education system is this...

One of the biggest teachers' unions in England and Wales is demanding a pay rise of 10% or at least £3,000, whichever is greater.

Delegates at the annual National Union of Teachers conference backed the call despite warnings it would be unseemly when people are being made redundant.

A state backed system simply allows large unions to hold the taxpayer to ransom. It also means people who don't use the system have to pay for it.

And it means a lot of very skilled teachers are under-paid. Which leads to ridiculous demands like this.

War of the Worlds

No one would have believed in the opening years of the 21st century that the UKs working population was being watched keenly and closely by the political sector; that as men and women busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied much as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.

Across a philosophical gulf, minds - infinitely more malicious than our own, a myriad of intellects, cruel and unsympathetic regarded the private sector with envious eyes, and surely, slowly, they drew their plans against us.

....

In the War of the Worlds, the Martians are described as launching an unprovoked attack on Edwardian Britain and generally ravaging the place. Eventually they are brought down by bacteria - 'the humblest things that God in his wisdom has put upon this earth' Wells describes them as.

When bad things happen I usually assume that this is down to incompetence rather than wickedness. It's a maxim that has served me well. However if the latest scandal over the McBride emails shows anything, it shows that there are members of the political classes that truly deserve the epithet 'evil'.

...and of course, its not just Labour that are damaged by this. McBride was a public servant, employed using taxpayer money who saw fit to write emails suggesting that a man who had recently lost a child was 'suffering from an embarrassing illness', and that the wife of another was mentally unstable. When the next lot get in, how long will it be before there's a Conservative equivalent ? I've met candidates on both sides of the conventional political divide and frankly, some of them make me recoil in disgust.

I know that in return, they view me and my friends and colleagues as 'vermin' or even lower. Well, as one of God's humblest things, I propose to start multiplying.

Does Sir Michael write with fear in his heart today?

Not long after I had given my own considered view on the #smeargate story, I took some time to read an article in the Guardian this afternoon, something I regularly do to see which way the wind is blowing in Downing St, but today I had to stop and begin again because I could not at first take in the words that were laid before me.

The once mighty former political editor of the Guardian Sir Michael White writes today as though there is fear inside him, it is clearly visible, you can smell that fear as you read the words he rolls out attempting to meekly defend that which is in all honesty the indefensible, and the writing is that of someone who knows that the end of a dream is but a heartbeat away for Labour, has given up the fight and can no longer write with conviction.

There in his words you can see the fear of change, a fear of losing all that his brand of politics has tried to propagate and enforce over the past 12 years, has been planning for the past 60, yet still not so weakened that admission of the methods employed are unacceptable.

Sir Michael is no fool, he knows that the Tories are not the real enemy, at least not under Cameron. They have moved so close to the Blair style of thinking that they don't really pose much threat to that dream and the continuation of geo-political integration and global structures. No, what Sir Michael is more than fearful of is that the real threat lays elsewhere. Libertarians.

The way by innuendo that all bloggers are right wing Tories, and that those who may be libertarians are also Tories is Sir Michaels mechanism to keep the Libertarian view corralled inside the established parties, to be mocked as a mere fringe.

We know that Cameron is barely tolerant of Libertarians, he has publicly stated as much, yet it is still why Sir Michael and other media outlets refuse to acknowledge that the Libertarians have their own Party, that Libertarians can stand on their own feet, that their blogs proudly carry the LPUK emblem.

It is the fear, the fear that Libertarians would dismantle the house that Blair and Brown have built, the house that Toynbee and White bow before that refuses to let them acknowledge that the Libertarian Party exists.

I do not write of Sir Michael with vitriol, nor do I have a sub-prime degree in psychology, but I do know people. I have spent a lifetime evaluating situations, projects, people and skills, and can recognise fear when I see it.

I can only hope that this fear of Libertarians extends into No.10. Somehow I think it does. The silence from Westminster was deafening in response to our 1984 campaign last November which delivered a copy of George Orwell's famous book to every MP, the fearful exclusion continued and was apparent by not allowing LPUK an official voice at the Convention for Modern Liberty which was intriguingly organised by the Guardian, moves designed to ensure that the Libertarian Party is kept in the dark recesses of the media, managed by a frightened establishment, for this Government is learning to fear its own people.

It is vaguely possible that this is not the case, if I have misjudged and that trepidation is not there, then let Sir Michael write of the Libertarian Party, can he dare to speak its name and let the public decide, because we all know that the next political battle will not be along the quickly disappearing left/right axis, but between the Authoritarians who reside in the Lab/Con/LibD coalition and those who would seek Liberty under their own banner, with policies that have been long thought through and costed.

Even then, could Sir Michael write of the Libertarian Party objectively, without his usual air of condescension, or of muddying the waters and conflating what happens in the UK with what goes on in the US. It was the same argument used when He and I met on TV debating MP's corruption, but its just a distraction, an argument that doesn't wash.

Its a challenge, one that Sir Michael will either take up or ignore. My money is on him ignoring it, because to take up the challenge would be to admit that there is indeed a real alternative to modern political thinking, one which I surmise Sir Michael would rather never saw the light of day.

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