So This Is How It Ends ?

I have been on the phone this afternoon to a colleague who was telling me the reality of what happens when a country is slowly 'going bust'.


This week (and it is only Wednesday) the local tax office have telephoned his accounts department and asked for a meeting. In the UK you know this usually means trouble, however the meeting was to ask if there was any possibility of paying their equivalent of National Insurance early because the Government has run out of money.


Then this morning he received a letter from their VAT office saying that the Government cannot actually afford to pay a refund this month can they wait ?


The State concerned is probably going to be unable to pay its employees and benefit claimants on Thursday, unless the German taxpayer is prepared to dig deep.


We are avoiding this situation at present by two means quantative easing (printing money) and massive borrowing.


Those marching on saturday under Unite's and Unison's banners have no idea of economic reality, nor has it crossed their mind what would happen if private industry could no longer stump up the cash they are 'entitled' to.

Nice Work If You Can Get It- What To Do With The Other 295 Days Of The Year

David Edmonds reappointed as Chairman of Legal Services Board

David Edmonds has been reappointed as Chairman of the Legal Services Board for a further three-year term.

The reappointment is from 1 May 2011 until 30 April 2014.

The reappointment was made by the Lord Chancellor in consultation with the Lord Chief Justice in accordance with the Legal Services Act 2007.

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Justice, Jonathan Djanoglysaid:

“I am very pleased that David Edmonds has accepted a further term of appointment as Chairman of the Legal Services Board. There are vital and exciting challenges ahead for the legal profession and I believe the leadership displayed by David will provide a steady foundation for ensuring the legal profession of England and Wales remains world leading well into the future.“
 
David Edmonds said:
I am delighted to be reappointed to this post. Maintaining momentum in the modernisation and reform of both regulation and service delivery is crucial for lawyers and the clients they serve. I look forward to leading the LSB over the next three years as we help to bring about that change.”

Notes for editors:

1. The reappointment will be from 1 May 2011 until 30 April 2014.

2. The role is remunerated at a rate of £63,000 per year for a minimum of 70 days per year.

3. The Legal Services Act (“The Act”) created the Legal Services Board as a new regulator with responsibility for overseeing the regulation of legal services in England and Wales. The new regulatory regime became active on 1 January 2010.

4. The LSB oversees eight Approved Regulators, which in turn regulate individual lawyers. The Approved Regulators, designated under Part 1 of Schedule 4 of the 2007 Act, are the Law Society, the Bar Council, the Master of the Faculties, the Institute of Legal Executives, the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, the Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys and the Association of Costs Lawyers.

5. In addition, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants are listed as Approved Regulators in relation only to reserved probate activities.

6. The legal profession consists of some 15,157 barristers, 116,122 solicitors and 12,116 individuals authorised to operate in other aspects of the legal profession such as conveyancing. In total the legal sector employed over 324,000 individuals in 2010. The sector was valued at £25.97 billion per annum during 2008.

7. The draft 2011-12 LSB business plan can be found at: http://www.legalservicesboard.org.uk/what_we_do/consultations/open/pdf/lsb_business_plan_10_web_final.pdf

For further enquiries please contact Ramandeep Bhatti on 020 7271 0061.

Ramandeep Bhatti | Administrative Assistant | Legal Services Board
Victoria House, Southampton Row, London, WC1B 4AD
T 020 7271 0061
E ramandeep.bhatti

Posted in Liberty

H/T  Libertarian Alliance 

UK Contribution To The EU Now £9Bn A Year

The UK's payments to the European Union almost doubled in 2010, according to the latest data issued yesterday by the Office for National Statistics – soaring to £230 for every household in the country

Independent


Thanks for trusting us with a referendum Dave !

GQ Magazine-Inside The Parliament Of Fools (aka The Rotten Parliament)

The ten worst politicians of the last Parliament.

I find it hard to disagree with this analysis, but would have had the corrosive Madelson near the top.

The Quentin Letts list bizarrely includes Van Rompuy described as-

who may now be the most famous Belgian on the planet, has the furtive, apologetic air of a customer in a Soho sex shop

We get the Political leaders we deserve !

A Word From Our Sponsor- Tom Harris MP

Labour MPs Tom Blenkinsop, Ronnie Campbell, Martin Caton, Katy Clark, Michael Connarty, Jeremy Corbyn, David Crausby, Jim Dobbin, Jim Hood, Kelvin Hopkins, Gerald Kaufman, John McDonnell, Alan Meale, Linda Riordan, Virendra Sharma and Marsha Singh. They all signed up to heap praise on UK Uncut, whose spokesman last night refused to condemn the violence.

Source Guido

Rally Against Debt May 14th 2011

This makes far more sense

I will be attending, please try to get there

Not Anarchist, But Trotskyist

In Britain during the 1980s, the entrist Militant tendency won three members of parliament and effective control of Liverpool City Council while in the Labour Party. Described as "Britain's fifth most important political party" in 1986 it played a prominent role in the 1989–1991 mass anti-poll tax movement which was widely thought to have led to the downfall of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Almost all of the large far left parties in Britain are led by Trotskyists, including the Socialist Workers Party (Britain), the Socialist Party (England and Wales), Respect – The Unity Coalition and the Scottish Socialist Party.

Source Wiki

The 'election' of Ed Miliband by the Labour Party was the final defeat of Blairism in the Labour Party, Kinnock for all his faults took on the Militant Tendency and probably saved the 'People's Party' for a generation. Before that the SDP ( now the dominant party in the Lib Dems) split from the Labour Party that had swung far to the Hard Left.

The years of the 'Brown Terror' with its surveillance State was the logical outpouring of the splits within the Labour Party, that have refined it into a hard left party, whose puppet Leader feels compelled to support his TUC paymasters on a public platform, whilst Trotskyist supporters of the big state 'adopted' the flag of convenience of Anarchism .

Have no doubt Trotsky argued for no compromise with 'Liberals' or Capitalism, battle has been joined. The best thing that could happen now to wake up the British is that the 'black bloc'  mount an attack on the forthcoming Royal Wedding next month.

The Labour Party is now in thrall to the enemies of Freedom and Liberty, and are excited as is Miliband about 'direct action'.

The Dialogue Of Political Violence=Fascism Part 2

I have no problem with principled thought through political violence

Laurie Penny

So those of us who opposed the high tax oppressive surveillance state under Brown, Damien McBride et Al would have been perfectly justified in fire bombing HMRC and all government offices, as principled thought through political violence ?

This is utterly appalling.

Baby Gro Socialism

"In the long run, we're all dead."- John Maynard-Keynes, the Fabian princeling who advocated that massive public spending was the way out of recession, again adopted by the Left, advocated that it was perfectly acceptable to lumber future unborn generations with debt. In the long run we're all dead is the economic equivalent of 'eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die'.

Economic responsibility is not 'groovy' to those who who have never had to accept any. Two of these baby gro socialists are pictured above Adam Ramsey who describes himself as as a 'greeny lefty' (not an anarchist then ?) who was 'innocently' caught occupying Fortnum & Masons on saturday (please add your own comments). Miliband ( I am Mandela,I am Pankhurst etc) comes from the same sort of background of shrewd tax moves.

These two are duping 'the workers' that they are the 'natural born ' leaders of the revolution. While they advocate that we should all pay more tax, they are the beneficieries of some pretty deft tax planning.

Not too hypocritical then ?

 Walter Mischel, an American psychologist, carried out a series of experiments forty years ago on deferred gratification on a group of four year olds, he found that those children who had to ' have it all now', carried this on into adult life. Socialism not only creates dependency it also creates a dangerous infantile population, who at the first sign of not getting want they want, start throwing  violent tantrums and smashing things.

That is what we witnessed on Saturday. Infants being told the party was over.

H/T Old Holborn & Dick Puddlecote

Blackshirts On The Streets Of London Again

Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy.

These are not anarchists, anarchists do not advocate a big state and massive state spending.

They are blackshirts bent on political violence.

Liberal Democrats To Finally Come Clean

One of the little snippets in the Sunday heavies is that the Lib Dems are going to have a 'rebranding' exercise after the local elections (I wonder why ?)

They are apparently going to re-introduce the word 'SOCIAL' in their title. I have been fairly consistent in calling this party 'Social Democrats' since before the LPUK was formed, because they are a Social Democratic party on historic fabian lines. They believe in massive State intervention and were spawned out of the Labour Party. The hijacking of the word 'Liberal' was a travesty, and an attempt at trying to get get some legitimacy. Twenty five years on they are planning to dump Liberalism.

About time.

New LPUK Website and Blog Goes Live 31st March

The new integrated LPUK website and blog goes live on 31st March 2011 at www.lpuk.org  in a more user friendly magazine version.

Thanks to Ken Ferguson LPUK's Communication Director and the rest of the team who have put so much of their time and expertise into this project in the last three months

InterLibertarian 2011 Lugano

This morning I received an invitation for the above event 3-4th April 2011 from InterLibertarian, unfortunately I am already committed at the beginning of April, but it is good to see that the movement is coming together across Europe, we need to do much the same with various Libertarian organisations across the United Kngdom.

The Looters March- 26th March

Having wrecked the economy in the previous thirteen years, the visigoths of socialism are on the march again.

Ed Milliband deficit denier extraordinaire was according to his 'followers' making an inspirational speech. Ye Gods this is the same man who betrayed his brother to become leader of the Labour Party by inches in a gerry mandered vote in which the peoples party were informed who they should vote for by the same TUC that has organised todays little shindig.

The premediditated violence in Oxford Street shows what happens when the Fabians do not get the election result they want. They resort to the streets.

So those of us who feel the State is oppressive, steals hard earned money with the threat of imprisonment to redistribute to the indolent, are we entitled to storm and occupy HMRC offices, DSS offices and rampage through Whitehall?

I really don't think that I have felt this angry since May 2010, when the feather bedded public sector refuses to share the pain that the private sector has endured for the last two years, out of a sense of entitlement.

What alternative is Janus Milliband talking about ?, his party still have the same policy they went into the election with, cuts cuts and cuts. Milliband is an opportunist paying his dues for Unite's support for his leadership bid.

To date we have seen no cuts, borrowing by the state last month was higher than this time last year, all that is happening is that the rate of growth of the Fabian State has slowed.

Just Saying- The Census

The Government already has your information, and the Federal Republic of Germany has not carried out a census since 1987, because their Constitutional Court ruled the process of Census as 'intrusive'.

Portugese Bail Out- Read And Weep

Dan Hannan on the Portugese bailout.

The 2011 Budget: A Response

When you have a millstone tied around your ankle, it is foolish to tread water - one must cut it loose and swim to the shore with all speed.

The Spring Budget 2011 is treading water. We have an approximately £800bln[1] debt millstone around our ankles and it is getting heavier.

Overall taxes have not been reduced, and the debt still grows - an extra £500bln by 2015/6 - the State still spends and spends too much. Even after inflation is taken into consideration, the State is spending 53% more than it did in 2001. The UK is not a wealthy nation. It has a spendthrift Government egged on by vested interests. It is a nation treading water with a millstone around its ankle.

Even now, spending is not being cut, only the increases slowed. Even this is portrayed as some scorched earth policy by those who directly benefit yet do not fund the proposals they put forward or aggresively defend. How selfish and self-serving is that?

Spending can be reduced. It is a matter of priortisation and political will. It is a matter of ending costly polices. An example is drug prohibition. It costs the nation billions in crime, policing, incarceration, lost lives and livelihoods. An example is foreign wars of adventure. An example is the scandalous PFI contracts.

There is some hope. The poor are getting a little less income taxation. The prospect of owning up to the pretence of "National Insurance" and folding it in to general income tax may be proposed, but I suspect it will be a "decimalisation" exercise, in that the transition will result in the average person being bounced into paying more.

We need to pay off our debt. We need sound money and so no more Quantitative Easing. We need enterprise to be freed so it can expand, compete. A side effect is higher, more sustainable and higher earning employment. We do not need 21 "Enterprise Zones", we need the entire country to become an Enterprise Zone.

But what is in store for us? Treading water with a millstone of debt around our ankles.

[1] Enough to rebuild quake and wave-ravaged Japan five times over. Imagine the scale of infrastructure - at Japanese prices - that needs to be rebuilt. Think of that five times over. What have the Government been spending it on?

The Story Of George O

Today  is 'budget' day. A budget is something that you work out when you have a fixed amount of money as income and you work out what you can afford to spend.


However government does not work like that, like an adolescent it works out what it wants to spend, then starts borrowing or cadging of everybody else to meet 'the deficit'. With an adolescent that resorts to demanding money with menaces, they were dealt with in a summary fashion by either parents or the local copper. Government has no such constraints on it as it has the monopoly of violence, and when the citizen withdraws his consent to be robbed blind, he/she is faced with jail or heavy fines.



So the word 'budget' is a misnomer, Government has decided it would like to get involved in another shooting war with no exit strategy- AGAIN !.


Brogan in this article is arguing that the 40% rate should now be honestly named the standard rate, and the 25% rate the lower rate. I agree, until we start calling things as they really are, we are never going to get out of this mess.

You will hear a lot today about nonsense about a 'budget for growth', governments do not create real wealth producing jobs, they create public sector jobs which are a drain on national resources.

The Government is still borrowing, State expenditure is still growing.

Would that we had a Sir John Cowperthwaite had the helm, with government spending limited to 15% of GDP.



With George O it is a game of sado-masochism, except in this case the wealth producers are walking away rather than be whipped further.

Quick links and upcomming events 22 Mar 11

A good video at PJTV featuring Glenn Reynolds interviewing author and former Reason editor Virginia Postrel,


Moonbat makes sense shock!,

Dominic Lawson in the Indy sets out how public spending cuts are being blown out of all proportion. I especially liked this bit:

'government spending totalled £343bn in 1999-2000, which, if it had just kept pace with inflation, would have reached £438bn by 2009-2010. In reality, spending in that year reached £669bn, an increase, in real terms, of 53 per cent, over a 10- year period in which GDP had grown by less than 17 per cent. When you factor in how much of that GDP increase was the result of unprecedented levels of private debt then the truly unsustainable nature of the public spending becomes vividly apparent'

Mark Wallace sets out the Libertarian case for intervention in Libya, and a counter argument by Sean Gabb (I'm probably in a minority in that I agree with Mark rather than Sean, indeed foreign policy is the main reason I prefer to call myself a Classical Liberal rather than a Libertarian )

And finally, some events that may be of interest, the ASI's annual Blogger Bash takes place on 21st Of April, plus next week they are hosting a debate on AV. This Thursday the Freedom Association is having a debate on the ECHR.

And then there is the TUC's anti cuts rally this Saturday. After discussing it with the Metropolitan police we felt having a counter protest would be a bit hazardous, what with us being able to field (optimistically) 20 people against 50,000+ socialists in a bad mood.

What we might do is a 'guerrilla' event, just going along and causally giving out flyers with our point of view to members of the public. If anyone is interested in doing this give me a yell .

State Still Borrowing Like It Is Going Out Of Fashion

Corruption and Misuse of Public Office

Corrupt public officials are as old as the hills, ancient Rome was a by word for graft and corruption. Samuel Pepys as Clerk to the Admiralty was also once arraigned for corruption.

Misconduct in Public Office is a common law offence, and considering the massive explosion in numbers of public officials since 1945, the numbers of people prosecuted under the this common law offence numbers in tens. So does this mean that our public sector is spectacularly uncorrupt given the temptations ?

Sadly not.

The oft quoted definition is from Lord Mansfield QC in R v Bembridge 1783

The duty of the defendant is obvious; he was a trustee of the public and the Paymaster, for making every charge and every allowance he knew of… if the defendant knew of the omission… and if he concealed it, his motive must have been corrupt. That he did know was fully proved, and he was guilty, therefore, not of an omission or neglect, but of a gross deceit. The object could only have been to defraud the public of the whole, or part of the interest…a man accepting an office of trust, concerning the public, especially if attended which profit, is answerable criminally to the King for misbehaviour in his office; this is true by whomever and in whatever way the officer is appointed.

Public Corruption predated this hapless accountant in the employ of the Crown.

…even before Bembridge, the common law sought to criminalize the public officer who had the benefit of the privileged position of occupying a public office, but who failed to discharge his duties truly competently and for the public good. Thus, a constable who failed to act in accordance with his duty as an officer of the Crown was criminally liable in Makally’s Case (1611) whilst in Crouther’s Case (1600) a constable was prosecuted having refused to make a ‘hue and cry’ after being informed of a burglary.

So our forefathers took public corruption very seriously. Not so now as the following chart shows-

Number of Defendants proceeded against

Year        Proceedings Issued    Found Guilty

1998        Nil                     Nil
1999        1                         1
2000        5                         1
2001        3                         1
2002        5                         2
2003        Nil                       3
2004        3                          9
2005        10                        4
2006        8                        18
2007        21                      16

The trend is clear in this underused piece of common law. However the threshhold is now so high in bringing an indictable case of misconduct in public office that prosecutors will always consider whether other lesser statutory offences can be utilised. For our MP's caught up in the expenses scandal, prosecutions were brought for the lesser charges either false accounting or under the Theft Act, rather than the common law offence of misconduct in public office. Whose definition is set out in the CPS Guidance November 2007.

a) A public officer acting as such.

b) Wilfully neglects to perform their duty or misconducts themselves.

c) To such a degree as to amount to an abuse of the public’s trust in the officer holder.

d) Without reasonable excuse or justification

 It is fairly clear that various MP's and members of the Lords should have been charged under Misconduct in Public Office which has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

In 1997, the Committee on Standards in Public Life recommended a statutory offence be created. The Labour Government and Jack Straw were not keen.

This is proving particularly tricky and no decision has yet been taken on which categories of public servant might be included. It may, as you say, prove necessary to examine the statutory duties of Members and Ministers in this context. We are conscious that we need to avoid unnecessary overlaps between any new offence and existing offences, civil remedies and disciplinary codes. Clearly, we do not wish to capture conduct which can be best left to disciplinary procedures or other effective mechanisms. Equally, however, there would be presentational difficulty in excluding certain categories of public servant from the scope of any new offence.

Jack Straw- Home Secretary 1998

Basically a carte blanche to any public official who wished to abuse the public trust. Damian McBride safely ensconced in Number 10 had little to fear from the Common Law.

Astoundingly while not tackling public sector corruption , the State went after people who were not directly involved in public office.  

One recent case is that of R v Kearney and Murrer 2008. Sally Murrer was a local journalist for the Milton Keynes Citizen newspaper. She was charged by Thames Valley Police with “aiding and abetting misconduct in public life”. She was accused of helping Mark Kearney, a former detective for Thames Valley Police, to leak police secrets over the period of November 2006 to April 2007.13 On 25 November 2008 her trial collapsed because the judge held that the prosecution had breach the Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998, which relates to freedom of expression.

The last Labour Government then formulated the Bribery Act 2010 which is largely directed at stopping members of the public bribing 'innocent' public servants ! The premise being that public officers good, public bad.  

Jack Straw as The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor finally killed off any prospect of a statutory offence in answer to Peter Bone MP on the 9th December 2008.

The higher courts have made it clear that the threshold for the common law offence of misconduct in public office is a high one. A unifying factor appears to be the existence of some improper, dishonest or oppressive motive in the exercise or refusal to exercise a public function rather than a mere abuse of power. The Committee on Standards in Public Life, in a consultation paper in 1997, recommended the partial replacement of this common law offence of misconduct in public office with a new statutory offence of misuse of public office. In 1998, as Home Secretary, I reported to a parliamentary Joint Committee on the difficulties of defining the proposed new offence. The Joint Committee on the Draft Corruption Bill concluded in 2003 that such a Bill was not the appropriate vehicle for giving a statutory definition of misconduct in public office. I am unaware of any representations made to me since on this matter

Later during Questions to the Secretary of State for Justice, the following exchanges  

Mr. Straw: The issue has not arisen, but when it has been more calmly looked at, the nature of the offence of misconduct in public office, albeit as a common law offence, which the higher courts have defined and refined in recent years, has met with general approbation. I know of no direct provenance for the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion that, even if there is continued, wilful misconduct by an official in breach of their office, the criminal law should [not] apply. That would be a very odd circumstance. I do not wish to comment on current investigations, and I shall not.

Since then we have had the expenses scandal and the case of Gordon Foxley who managed to retain £1.5 m of his proceeds of crime and latterly Ali Dizaei in February 2010. I suspect that these cases are just the tip of the iceberg and while the Government refuses to put the public sector on notice this abuse will continue.

Public Corruption  is the third oldest profession, a large State is a breeding ground for corruption. 

The Seven Ages Of Debt

The Independent on Sunday has a powerful argument on the indebtedness of the average British citizen.

If and when Income Tax and National Insurance are merged ( National Insurance being a misnomer for another tax on employment)it may reveal to the 'man in the street' of the true take of the State from his wage packet. Insurance sounds prudent, it sounds responsible, but at the end of the day the reality is that all money raised by direct, indirect and by stealth taxes goes into a large central pot to be allocated out by central government.

There is no ring fencing, car tax and fuel tax is not spent on transport infrastructure. It would be more honest if it was, and the average citizen could vote allocation of resources.

Would the 'man in the street' have voted for bailing out reckless banks, and mortgaging his immediate future,his children's future and unborn grand children's future, it is very doubtful that that argument could have been made by central government.


The insolvent banking sector had access to Government enjoyed by virtually no other sector. Far from this being a nationalisation of banks, the banking sector has inversely appropriated national funds and guarantees from all of us. We had no say in the matter.


Yesterday British aircraft and submarines were expending a few more millions worth of munitions into Libya, the redtops have excitedly gone into 'gotcha mode' evertime some exciting shots of explosions become available. Money is always available for war and benefits.


The truism is that we all now work for the state, not ourselves or our families. That will lead to a poverty of expectation and dependency. Unless we change this, we will be heading in the same direction as Japan with a lost decade followed by stagnant growth.

The CIA see this debt data as significant as to worldwide stability. Look at the countries at the top of this list and look who is at the bottom.

Secret Prisoners And Secret Courts Of The British State

A well researched piece by Anna Raccoon that is essential reading.

Another Threat To British Liberty

Bedfordshire Police investigating the Spectator for being 'controversial'

The New Nation State ? Or A New Hegemony

Last night the UN gave legal sanction for all neccesary means be used to protect the civilian population of Libya. Why ? out of moral principle ? There are plenty of countries in Africa whose despots have carried out pogroms against minorities and have oppressed their populations and have little to fear from the UN.


The French came out very early on in their de facto recognition of the new Libya, and will expect to be rewarded, the British Government wary of another foreign and bloody entanglement have not followed the Blair model of international intervention and sought legal sanction first. Britain will also be expecting to be rewarded.


Blair/Brown's cosy relations with the Al Ghaddafi regime were nauseating, no doubt they would argue realpolitik to justify their amorality, as socialists do the world over.

The world is in flux at present, there are new countries on the horizon South Sudan and Somaliland.


Somaliland has been de facto independent for twenty years but has few natural resources, so it has not been worth upsetting the international applecart by the west recognising it. However its position is strategically important so its existance is 'tolerated'.

South Sudan is oil rich, and can expect to have a lot of new 'friends'.


The bottom up revolution that started in Tunisia is creating a political tsunami. Post colonial socialist states have failed in a spectacular fashion since the sixties. Authoritarianism of all varieties,monarchical,socialist and dictatorship are being swept aside.


Those regimes that do not recognise this and act in deference to the people will disappear. Housing, business, jobs and health will become the central issue for the new leaders, not guns,fast cars and swiss bank accounts.


Al-Ghaddafi is tonight offering a cease fire, his personal days in power are now numbered. The times are a changing.

Quick links 17/03/11

A few interesting reads I've spotted over the last few days and wish to share, but don't have much in way of additional commentary:

First off happy St. Patrick's day, though as Dan Hannan points out the Irish have little to celebrate at the moment,

Peter Hoskin in the Spectator on rumours that George Osbourne is going to merge NI and Income tax, an idea that has much merit (of course I'd go further and have a flat rate with no exceptions, scrap PAYE and have a single page tax return),

Also at the Spectator, Frasier Nelson on 'Clegg's liberalism' - only trouble with his conclusion is that there still is a quite left wing Liberal party. LPUK would be a better home for him, Laws and Alexander IMO.

Indeed, after reading this great post at Liberal Vision echoing my earlier thoughts on State funded arts I definitely think there is common ground between us and the 'orange bookers',

Moving on, some good thoughts on the Fukushima nuclear incident by Reason's Ron Bailey, and a conclusion I can heartily agree with:

''The main problem with energy supply systems is that for the last 100 years, governments have insisted on meddling with them, using subsidies, setting rates, and picking technologies. Consequently, entrepreneurs, consumers, and especially policymakers have no idea which power supply technologies actually provide the best balance between cost-effectiveness and safety.'

And finally, a plug for an upcoming event that may be of interest: The Liberty Leagues Freedom Forum 2011. Details and how to register here.

You cannot argue politics in a vacuum aside from ethics

The following appeared as a series of comments on a private forum for conservatives, libertarians and Objectivists, and is re-posted with permission. It was (and is) scheduled for publication on the new blog system, since it has been made topical by the ASI's civil war I felt it was worth bringing forward:

Dear Libertarians

The problem with anyone trying to divorce politics from ethics, epistemology or metaphysics is that your opponents are not playing by the same rules.

Let's take two libertarian positions -- sexual freedom and economic freedom. For example, in the US, the end to sodomy laws and the end of farm subsidies.

The libertarian goes and makes his political point: end ethanol! get out of people's bedrooms!

And the democrat says -- you can't end ethanol, it is your duty to support the farmers who are in need.

And the Republicans say -- you can't end sodomy laws, it's your duty to submit to God's will.

And the libertarian argues and argues for individual rights, free markets, practicality, etc-- he makes all the pragmatic cost analysis arguments.

And receives 1% of the vote.

Why?

Because ethics is more fundamental than politics. If a man makes a political case only, he is trumped by an opponent who can make a more fundamental moral point. Yes, the socialist argues -- ethanol is costly, but it's our duty to serve the environment. We all must sacrifice. And who said morality was practical? Yes, the theocrat says -- sodomy laws involve getting the government into people's bedrooms but what else is the government for but to impose the good on everyone? Isn't that what you want to do? Impose by government force your notion that freedom and rights are a good thing? By what argument can you claim it is? "Just because" you say, and you get 1% of the vote.

If Libertarians want to know why they have been doomed to wander the electoral wilderness -- it's this simple answer -- those who make the moral point move the body politic, not those who make the political points. Men will lash themselves across the back, lie on a bed of nails, kill or be killed if they think it's how to be moral. They will never come to prosperity, life, success and liberty via any ethics that tells them such things are evil and selfish.

If a man is free, you don't teach him to keep and maintain that freedom by telling him to serve others, and see himself as a slave to the common good, or tell him every Sunday that he needs to be humble. That's a formula for convincing the man to shackle his own legs and whip his own back voluntarily.

Richard Gleaves

Richard is an objectivist playright living in New York. He blogs at Uncommon Sense, and is deservedly prominent on YouTube for his adaptations of Galt's Speech.

Video of the day: Michael Moore's National Resources

(found via a blog commentator here) Money Quote:

'The grand total of the combined net worth of every single one of America’s billionaires is roughly $1.3 trillion. It does indeed sound like a “ton of cash” until one considers that the 2011 deficit alone is $1.6 trillion. So, if the government were to simply confiscate the entire net worth of all of America’s billionaires, we’d still be $300 billion short of making up this year’s deficit.

That’s before we even get to dealing with the long-term debt of $14 trillion, which if you’re keeping score at home, is between 10 to 14 times the entire net worth of all of the country’s billionaires, combined. That includes the all-powerful Koch brothers ($40 billion between them), the all-powerful George Soros ($14.5 billion), all the Walton family (of the Wal-Mart fortune), Steve Jobs, Oprah (at a paltry $2.7 billion), the Google Founders, Michael Bloomberg, and the Mars family (of the candy bar empire).'

Of course the same applies to the UK, not that it matters to UKuncut, the TUC etc

Quote of the day

'What most infuriated Londoners after the Blitz was not so much the destruction as being prevented from recovering themselves. They were denied access to building materials and permits. They were told to wait quietly for the government to help, help which came late or never. It was the enforced impotence that induced despair. Human beings want, above all, to recover control of their lives'

Simon Jenkins in tonight's Evening Standard

Incidentally I recently finished reading Roy Jenkins' biography of Churchill. This added to my impression that one of the biggest mistakes he made was leaving the socialists in charge of the home front, preparing the ground for the 1945 landslide and the nationalisations/welfarism that followed

Up Yours Mrs Bone

 

As I was in London all day Saturday and had had a busy week, I spent part of Sunday morning catching up on some programmes that I had recorded before taking leisurely walk down to the pier.

I flicked on Prime Ministers Question time to see Mr Peter Bone MP for Wellingborough as the question that he and his constituents would like answering, in particular the redoubtable Mrs Bone who was 'insisting on it', when was there going to be a referendum on our membership of the EU.
 
Our Leader, said there will not be one because I think we are better off in.

There we have it, representative Westminster democracy at its worst. The leader of a party that is in its soul Euro-sceptic, a party that failed to secure a majority of seat in Parliament deciding what our constitutional position is as a nation vis a vis Europe.

Van Rompuy has recently said he is not going to commit EU troops to Libya. What EU troops ? there is no such thing other than in his fevered mind. He was making such statements about Afghanistan in December. Baroness Ashton is taken seriously as the EU's foreign secretary. None of these people are elected by the popular mandate in this country, as an avid political geek of thirty years standing I had not heard of these two until the last two years.

None of this is transparent, precious little of this has any legitimacy constitutionally.


If we actually had a constitution that was assented to by the people of Great Britain, a Constitutional Court  would rule on such matters. Much of the excesses of the last authoritarian Labour government would have been subjected to challenge after challenge in a constitutional court, certainly IDave's dismissal of the redoubtable Mrs Bone would not have been so flippant and easy. It would have been subject to a full challenge as to the legitimacy of EU overlordship.


The concentration of power in the hands of one man was an issue settled on the battlefield of Naseby in June 1645, in th intervening three hundred and sixty five years we have drifted back to a situation where one man by dint of birth and privilege rules nearly seventy million people and Mrs Bone.


This is elective monarchy, with the candidates coming from a tiny political elite.


What is worse is that this monarch is in thrall to a foreign master, not to the people of this country.

Local Elections

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If you would would like to make a donation please make your payment out to

Libertarian Party

Sort Code 40-28-20

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Factoid Of The Day

Germany has not had a census since 1987

Obviously not as 'advanced' as us

Quote of the day

'It is estimated that one uncompleted form reduces public spending by £600'

Anthony Brown in cityam

I should point out that he is saying this in defence of the census (I received it yesterday, and while it wasn't as OTT as I'd expected it does have a lot of questions to which my answer is 'none of your business'). I also have to wonder where that figure cam from, but to me it seems a good reason to chuck the damn thing in the bin

The Anachronism of State-Controlled Money Part 1- Adam Smith Institute

Reasons to be cheerful

Unlike Tim and Andrew, I'm going to (shock!) say nice things about the current Conservative-Lib-dem coalition government. Yes, from a Libertarian point of view there is a lot to moan about, from non cuts to the banker bashing. However there are a few good things here and there which deserve encouraging rather than a constant barrage of 'they're not going far enough'. So here are 5 highlights:

5) Income tax threshold being raised to £10k
Kind of fallen of the radar for now (which is odd considering was a key L-D concession), but come April for most of us there should be a gain, and those on the lowest levels of income will pay no income tax at all (yes I know will still be NI), which is a good thing IMO.

4) ID cards scrapped.
For now at least the idea of a policeman demanding to see your papers is history. In addition there's the Freedom bill, while not perfect is a good start at rolling back the excess of the New Labour years, and (as this summary by Freedom Association shows)

3) Health reforms
Scrapping the SHA's can only be a good thing in my book, though despite what the Guardian thinks this is by no means the end of the NHS. Again it would be better to give patients control of funding rather than GP's but is a step in the right direction. This leads into my next point:

2) Free Schools
Our single best hope for the future in countering the statists? If the ability of parents to start a new school takes off it could leas to questions about why the state needs to run schools at all, then maybe we can move on to hospitals. Plus if the teaching unions are this upset they must be doing something right.

1) Gordon Brown is no longer PM.
Don't those words bring a smile to your face?

Osborne, Cameron, Enterprise Zones and Charter Cities.

David Osborne has spoken in the last few days about his desire to "boost growth" [1]

He states the budget will be "pro-growth, pro-business and pro-aspiration", looking at tackling planning and red tape.

David Cameron has also spoken over the weekend about removing bureaucracy, regulations and red tape from business.

The problem for both of them is that they are not masters of all that they survey. They have no right to roam, but must stay on the EU footpath and if that footpath takes them in the wrong direction, then tough. The EU ultimately decides what regulations, what reels of red tape are imposed, when and where [2]. Cameron and Osborne are posturing, but have no real power to change things in a meaningful way [3].

These zones appear to be the normal tired affair of planning tweaks and regeneration which, I suspect, will benefit certain construction companies and vested interests but will it really create wealth? I stop for a moment to point out that "growth" is not the same as "wealth" [4].

If the Government is serious about wealth, it should seriously consider getting out of the way.

To get out of the way properly, the government must clear up the mess it has created, the inertia, economic rubble and regulatory tank traps that litter the landscape.

I propose that the Government found one or more Charter Cities [5]. These are independent cities free of the legal and regulatory interference that exists in the host nation. They could be seen as, in effect, potential new Hong Kongs [6].

Charter Cities would draw in people, create demand, wealth and a hinterland. The issue the UK has is to find a suitable location to establish such a place. Charter Cities really do need unhindered access to the sea for trade and the estimation is that 1000sq. km is needed for a fully viable, independent self-powering and watering entity. That figure sounds massive, but is only around 20 miles x 20 miles [7]. One could select an existing city but the issue of dealing with the existing inertia, people and property will be a challenge and almost certainly will violate Rule of Law.

Better to establish the right to form a Charter City and let those currently owning the land - not the "local authority", for they own little and should NOT be granted compulsory purchase powers - realise the value and instantiate it amongst themselves or sell up to those who do. Yes, it will result in some odd situations and corridors as individual land owners reject the terms [8] and may even result in the creation of artificial islands off the coast, more akin to Seasteading, which should also be accommodated in any legislation.

They key will be to ensure the autonomy of the Charter City from local laws and to ensure that it is not threatened by kleptocratic tendencies once it becomes successful.

Could the Charter City concept operate on a smaller scale? I do have my doubts. Hong Kong could not supply itself with water and power and so was always at the mercy of the Mainland. I would not wish to see a Charter City put at the mercy of a hostile/parasitic "host" government who wishes to interfere, but if the concept could be made to work, as in multi-century work, on a smaller scale then we might have a hope in the UK.

All the half-hearted measures we hear of are more about pork-barrelling and posturing than true wealth creation. Control is always there and such measures can end up making things worse [9].

Looking at the big picture, the very concept of Charter Cities could be the solution regardless of where they are established.

Britons can relocate to Charter Cities as they did to colonies and concessions in the past. People who would have come to the UK can go to these new Cities and almost certainly have a better life (and better weather, I suspect!). In the long run these places will be good for Mankind and as a result we should work towards removing barriers to their formation.


[1] Osborne also spoke about not doing something - raising a tax on fuel. Of course, he cannot drop fuel duty in a meaningful way or tinker with the way VAT is applied because he is no longer the Chancellor of a sovereign nation, but a Finance Manager of a regional office with a reporting line to his bosses in Brussels. Oh, and he also reports locally to the de facto Town Clerk of Britain, David Cameron.

[2] If the EU limited its regulations to cross-border operations, then domestic productivity, being around 80% of all activity, could operate unmolested and the sovereignty of Nation States would also be unmolested. Exporters must expect to deal with such hurdles and decide if a market is worth the disruption.

[3] It is sad to see. Sad that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Irelend has no real power to get the government they represent off the backs of those who create wealth in this country. He has made a rod for his own back, but I have no sorrow for David Cameron, but I do over the post he holds and all that that implies for us, for in so doing he has made a whip for us all. Had he stuck to his promise of a referendum on membership of the EU - which would the the real outcome of a vote on the Lisbon Treaty - then we would be well on the way to resolving this and restoring sovereignty that has been, IMHO, illegitimately handed over to a foreign power.

[4] All too often, "growth" is really "inflation" in which a minority can grab wealth by being higher up the chain than the majority.

[5] I came across the organisation Charter Cities after I had come to my own, parallel conclusions that mirror many of the features of Charter Cities.

[6] I have lived in Hong Kong and I can say that I felt freer there with no vote than when I returned in 2001 to Blair's New Labour Britain and universal suffrage and "democracy". Hong Kong is a vibrant, safe, optimistic and entrepreneurial place and I would move back there in a heartbeat. The actions of one the most famous Hong Kong administrators, John James Cowperthwaite, KBE, CMG, are a significant factor in "positive non-interventionism" that many believe was fundamental for the scale of wealth creation in Hong Kong.

[7] I do wonder that the biggest obstacle will be concern about wading birds or similar.

[8] We most certainly do NOT wish to see Trump-style bullying of individuals who might wish to retain their property.

[9] When they say they want to remove control, they really mean they want to shift control from one place to another. Removing regulations tends to be followed by a new body deciding who can and cannot be involved. Process is replaced by the arbitrary. As with the Big Society, this is an open door to corruption and so must be viewed with great suspicion.

First Past The Post IS a form of AV

If I vote in a First Past The Post (FPTP) election, it is an Alternative Vote election, for my first choice of person to represent me is myself.

FPTP in the UK does not allow me to vote for "none of the above", which is closer to voting for "me" than abstaining.

What AV does is to add layers to the process and allow my preferences to be recorded for all to see.

That last point I feel is very important, for FPTP currently elections enable politicians to play out the conceit that they know the nature of a "message" being sent to the government, the opposition or other parties. AV might go a little way to reduce that. Is that enough to justify a change?

FPTP is not perfect. AV is not perfect.

The perfect system is voting on a case by case basis with the option to delegate to whomsoever I choose on a case by case basis as and when I choose to do so with the proviso that I am not using Other Peoples' Money in that process. You know, like I do in all private transactions.

I feel that even if we retained FPTP, it would be a step forward if we could have "none of the above".

AV should also have a "none of the above" as a choice.

Do you think the "official" NO and YES "camps" would support such a feature?

RBS Collapse- Just one of those things !

Just over three months ago – at 9.29 on the morning of Thursday, December 2 –a relatively innocuous-looking announcement was published by the FinancialServices Authority. The note informed those that read it that the UK’s mainbanking regulator had closed its investigation into the collapse of theRoyal Bank of Scotland.

It was 304 words long. The FSA said that it had found no regulatory fault inthe actions of the RBS board or its senior managers and that the bank’s nearcollapse, an event only prevented by £45bn in direct taxpayer support andseveral hundred billions of pounds of state-backed loan facilities, wassimply the result of “bad decisions”.

Such a short announcement on one of the biggest corporate collapses in globalfinancial history might have been hard enough for the country to stomach,but there was one additional sting left in the tail – none of the reportwould be made public. Indeed, the FSA’s chairman, Lord Adair Turner,declared there was in fact no actual report after nearly 19 months work at a cost of £7.7m.


Sunday Telegraph 



£45Bn of taxpayers money went into saving RBS plus hundreds of billions of statebacked loans, and the FSA as the regulator of choice of Gordon Brown decided there was going to be no report ?
 
I have seen small and medium sized business directors hauled over the coals and barred from being directors for losing £100 000 ! I have seen travesties like John Gunn and British & Commonwealth being dragged through the Courts. None of these compare to the reckless behaviour of the directors of RBS. They still collect their pensions and enjoy the honours heaped upon them by the State.


Cameron should stop trying to justify bailing out Heath style corprations that are deemed too big to fail. The regulatory system is a two tier one. Friends of the State get bailouts, all  the others go to the wall.


There was no justification in not immediately placing RBS in administration and breaking it up, at nil cost to the public purse. The investigation by the Telegraph is breathtaking, in that the lunatics were definately running the asylum at RBS.


The last such financial catastrophe by a Scottish bank cost Scotland its country, very much like Ireland is now owned by the EU.


The part played by the Treasury under Brown and Balls is also a key factor, like most people who are control freaks, they concentrate on tiny details and miss the big picture.


The FSA held the line for a week saying there would be no report, then at the 'first whiff of grapeshot' they caved in and a report will be produced eventually.


Meanwhile HSBC, the bank that was the first to admit there were problems with sub prime mortgages, and did not run to the taxpayer, is considering upping sticks and relocating its HQ back to Hong Kong, because of over regulation and high taxation. HSBC is a business run for the benefit of its shareholders, not as a milch cow for the Treasury.


Cameron and Cable should stop pretending they have any interest in a enterprise culture, because coming upto their first anniversary in power, the state is still growing and productive industry shrinking or moving abroad.

What It Means To Be A Libertarian In Simple Terms

H/T Dick Puddlecote & Tom Paine

A concise definition from Harvard, which applies equally to Conservative,Labour and the Social Democrats.

Video of the day: The Decline and Triumph of Classical Liberalism

Seems apt how after Barnsley the party that started with Gladstone may end with Clegg

The Military And The State

The new MP for Barnsley, Dan Jarvis, is an ex military officer with service in Iraq and Afghanistan, shame it is as a Labour MP, but I would rather him than the likes of  somebody like Straw, Balls and the Millibands who are just immature Student Union revolutionaries, ready to storm the gates of capitalism over a cup of lukewarm coffee in the students union.

Thanks to Blair's wars from 1997 to the present we are getting a crop of former serving officers entering frontline politics. In the sixties this was the norm as most if not all politicians in the House had fought in world war two.

I expect that over the next ten years, having 'war veteran' on your CV for going before the electorate is again going to become de rigeur and essential. This will have a profound affect on our politics as it has in Israel where all the senior politicians are ex Generals. A certain mind set develops in the military that likes order, instant obedience to a command and the assurance that somebody else will meet the bills. In Israel , America picks up the tab, who do this new generation of soldier-politicians think is going to pick up the tab here ?

Commerce and manufacturing has been driven into the ground, with Vince Cable's Business, Innovation and skills still dreaming up new regulations to keep them selves in jobs. This morning I hear that Mandelson whilst head of the monolith BIS was proposing that schools and universities be twinned with their counter parts in Libya. So rather that British industry pick up the tab for social projects like education the plan was to outsource education to oil rich cash rich dictators in North Africa, who are currently murdering their own people. Sir Howard Davies has paid the price for another of Mandelson's tainted plans when it was revealed that the LSE had accepted £300 000 from the Al Ghadaffi clan.

While peaceful British industry takes a back seat in national life, and the Banks,Politicians and Military come to the fore, we are in for a time of increased regulation and authoritarian government. The banks, political elite and armed forces all have hierachical models, with one supreme leader at the top of each. Not elected, you get to the top in these organisations by climbing the greasy pole and chopping down your rivals.

Welcome to Mandelson's new post-democratic age !

Is this all gloomy has the Fabian Imperium swept all before it ?

Well no, resistance is not useless.


Banks,the State and the military are all human organisations and they are not filled with automata wedded to the corporate cause, that is why Cameron is going to fail if he has Heath style corporatism as his guiding principle for foreign policy.  What is good for BP is not always for GB in the long run.

If you read ARRSE you will see that the armed forces were becoming very politicised under Brown after the multiple failures over ammunition, equipment and helicopters. Don't forget that we have had the Navy go on strike before in 1931 at Invergordon. The MOD should rember this when dishing out redundancy notices to troops on the front line. They are literally playing with fire.

As sure as Empires and dictatorships always eventually die, so do Corporations fail in trying to run our lives, because we will resist in small ways on a daily basis.

In his farewell address Eisenhower warned America about the growth of the Military-Industrial complex in the 1950's. A Corporate State is fascism. It suppresses the will of the people to the will of the few.

When the fear of the State is removed you have change, not politicians change, real change, and uncertain change, revolutionary change. Whinging changes nothing. Activism changes everything.

....governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whatever form of government becomes destructive of these ends; it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.

Jefferson

Andrew Withers- Libertarian Party

Protection of Freedoms Bill, 2011

A curious title.

A bill touted as rolling back such bad law should really be called the Restoration of Freedoms Bill, 2011.

A bill named “Protection of Freedoms” does not specify who’s freedoms. The very word “protection” is a failure. Freedoms should be defended by deterrence based on a visible, real, imminent threat of retribution and the political will to follow through with that retribution should those freedoms be transgressed.

Protection just tries to shield Freedoms, but in the term there is no concept of deterrence, nor of response. Armour alone is not enough.

Considering the content, however, calling it the Restoration of Freedoms Bill would have been misleading.

We have some changes to DNA storage, a welcome erasure of past consensual sex charges on homosexuals, curbs on RIPA use and some puff about CCTV.

These are just bones, a few favourite squeaky toys to chew on as a distraction.

The Protection of Freedoms Bill already determines the scope of what should and should not be addressed.

A real Bill for freedom would be used to uphold basic, axiomatic concepts by testing, in particular, those passed in the last 30 or so years for their fitness and adherence to Rule of Law and enable the mass repeal of those laws that fail to meet the required standard.

To defend freedom is to deal with those who would seek to impinge upon others. That is the prime duty of the State, should it exist, and the UK State does not or chooses not to know.

The Freedom Of Information (Amendment) Bill 2010-11- The Flint Axe

Dry as dust I know but if you read Heather  Brooke's  The Silent State, you will know that Parliament having passed the FOI Act in a rare moment of  principle, government and officials in particular loathe and detest this legislation.

The Telegraph finally got the scoop and hard evidence, but it was Heather who did the donkey work to expose The Speaker of the House of Commons and the English Collective of MP's ripping off the public with their expenses, using FOI.

Chris Mullin in his aptly named diaries Decline and Fall gives the MP's attitude towards the Act in an entry for 2nd April 2007.

The Treasury has been forced under the Freedom of Information Act (another of our liberal reforms comes back to bite us) to disclose the the advice offered by officials at the time..........To compound our difficulty Ed Balls has foolishly claimed, without the slightest evidence, that the move was supported by the CBI, which triggered indignant denials and only served to add fuel to the fire. All very damaging.


The principle provision is to

A Bill to amend the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to remove provisions permitting Ministers to overrule decisions of the Information Commissioner and Information Tribunal; to limit the time allowed for public authorities to respond to requests involving consideration of the public interest; to amend the definition of public authorities; and for connected purposes. 

This is something I have been watching like a hawk since serving Business,Innovation and Enterprise with a notice under the Act in relation to a court case I have been involved with since the dawn of time on 13th October 2009.

This is back before Parliament on the 18th March, and it is the 'connected purposes' bit I am worried about
Remember it was this Act that deposed the Speaker, for the first time in three hundred and fifty years, and is the primary cause of sending a raft of MP's to jail. So do not expect them to be sympathetic to any changes that make government more accountable, especially not Ministers.

In my case I served the FOI request on Mandelson's office in October 2009, they responded with a trickle of about thirteen heavily redacted emails they held on me. The Act states that they need to take no more than forty days. They did not bother with those annoying timescales and I received what Mandelson's office was prepared to give me late. It was fairly obvious that there was more material they were withholding.

A complaint was made to the Information Commissioner who upheld my complaint and instructed BIS to comply on September 22nd 2010. They responded in October to myself and the Information Commissioner that this data did not exist. By now I had direct evidence that it did exist from an insider.

In October 2010, I made an application in the High Court in Bristol under sec 7(9) Data Protection Act with the blessing of the Information Commissioner. The Treasury Solicitor decided to defend the action, I was served with a witness statement with a statement of truth that the data did not exist.

The hearing was set for January 28th 2011, two days before the hearing the Treasury Solicitor wrote to the Court saying something along the lines of whoops we have found something (no kidding), please can we adjourn. Then bundles of documents on me started arriving, the last on the 2nd March, not bad considering that according to the witness statement, 'simply does not exist'.

I will not bore you with the details, but here is a secret government suppresses evidence in court cases, it tells bare face lies about you and seeks to mislead elected government ministers and MP's.

I now have another application lodged (£75 at time) to introduce this evidence that has been suppressed for nearly eighteen months. The written evidence from the Treasury Solicitor is that they did not start search Mandelson's Private Office until the 24th January 2011, when they were served with a forty day notice in 2009.

Parliament has handed the public a flint axe in the FOI Act and another in the Data Protection Act against their laser guided missles and vast treasury. Use it, keep it and keep hitting the state with your flint axe, Heather Brooke did, and I have. It works.

Quote of the day

If the roads, the railways, the banks, the insurance offices, the great joint stock companies, the universities, and the public charities, were all of them branches of the government; if, in addition, the municipal corporations and local boards, with all that now devolves on them become departments of the central administration; if the employees of all these different enterprises were appointed and paid by the government, and looked to the government for every rise in life; not all the freedom of the press and popular constitution of the legislature would make this country free otherwise than in name'

J S Mill, quoted by Hannan and Carswell in The Plan, 12 months to renew Britain (p 145).

Sadly it seems we reached this situation some time ago...

South East meetup tomorrow + YBF Rally

Just a quick reminder that the next SE meetup is tomorrow, usual place and time. Full details here.

Also I had an e-mail from the Freedom Association today and this event may be of interest:

'YBF Parliamentary Rally'

Date: Wednesday 9th March
Time: 2.30pm - 7pm
Venue: House of Commons

Although this event is FREE of charge you must register in order to attend. Please email emma@ybf.org.uk in order to register your attendance.

Confirmed speakers include Steve Baker MP, Eamonn Butler, Adam Smith Institute, Robert Halfon MP, James Delingpole, Sajid Javid MP, Iain Dale, Douglas Murray, Lord Flight, Rt Hon Theresa Villiers MP, Raheem Kassam, Student Rights, Dr Alan Mendoza, Henry Jackson Society, Douglas Carswell MP, Jonathan Isaby, Conservative Home, Shane Greer, Total Politics, Dan Hamilton, Big Brother Watch, Tim Evans, Libertarian Alliance, Nigel Evans MP, Mark Wallace, Andrew Rosindell MP and The Freedom Association's Simon Richards.

The Kings Speech does not mean we should subsidise the film industry

A truly bizarre piece on the Torygraph blogs (does it still warrant that nickname?) on the value of state subsidised films. I beg to disagree. Art and culture are such subjective areas- one mans trash is another's treasure, that there will always be controversy as to what merits support (witness the fuss the Turner Prize generates every year.)

Therefore I am strongly of the opinion that nothing cultural should receive public funding. Despite what the luvvies claim, it is possible to fund films without state support. But what of the projects that the studio's won't back you cry? Well if you are unable to raise the funds for you project, it is probably a sign that it is commercially viable, so why should the taxpayer fund your vanity project?

Plus if you are truly dedicate to your art and believe in it that much take a look at what Kevin Smith did to fund his first movie, or how Japanese animator Makoto Shinkai produced his first movie by himself on a a macbook. You will find a way to fund it without state support, which will make the result even more of an achievement.

BS Alert !

A fresh round of painful spending cuts will not be triggered by a change to the voting system, the Treasury has insisted in a leaked letter, which threatens to undermine claims made by opponents of electoral reform, including David Cameron.


The Political classes sure do want business as usual. It is if the Expenses Scandal never happened.

State Voluntarism ??

In the last few days we have been encouraged by the Coalition to join the Big Society, this appears to be yet another attempt at the State to nationalise the voluntary sector after suborning charities to the will of the state by doling out grants, which rendered charities not as charities that people would willingly give money to in a good cause, but as an extension of the state as 'fake charities'.

Why should money be forcibly taken from us to give to charities, cut out the middle man (the less than civil service) we can pay less tax, give to charities that we deem worthwhile voluntarily (if we so wish) and we can certainly be assured that social engineering agenda of the fabians is not behind this.

The voluntary sector has been around for years and certainly what it does not need is a raft of 'organisers' paid for by the State to organise these groups. The State needs to back off with the CRB checks that have crippled voluntary organisations, along with the risk adverse Health and Safety industry that have reduced our youngsters to both dependent and infantile inactivity.

Yesterday morning I set out photograph to the volunteers from my local big society 'Clevedon Pride' for their website. This group raises funds from the local community to put up Christmas lights in the town, something the local traders cannot get together to fund and the local authority does not have the wherewithall. Yesterday some of the volunteers were out doing the weekly picking up of litter, that the local population are just too exhausted to walk ten yards to put in the bin. They do not need a £20 000 pa organiser paid for by you the taxpayer.

At least thirteen people came up in the ten minutes I spent taking photgraphs, and said how much they appreciated the volunteers efforts, the same will happen when the flower beds are planted out. The state paid employees are nowhere to be seen. The expensive CCTV system has not worked for months, allowing the local knuckle draggers to kick church windows in and throw daffodil bulbs at each other. The local guardians of the law consider foot patrols to be less exciting than other activity, and of course there is the neccessary form filling to ascertain your sexuality and ethnic group when filing complaints.

So why does the State want to co opt the voluntary sector when it cannot do the single job that it was set up to do adequately that of defence and civil emergency.

Yesterday in the Times, which will cost you a £1 to read and picked up by others is the best article of 2011 by Libby Purves, called 'Cut the red tape and let out kiwi spirit fly'. It is a Zeitgeist article.

I was so impressed with the article in the Coffee shop copy of the Times, I invested £1 in buying the whole paper.

Let me give you an extract now that yesterdays news is todays fish and chip paper. (Treat this as a free plug Rupert)

We are more riveted to these stories (NZ earthquake) than even to the greater horrors of Haiti or Pakistan. It should not affect aid and sympathy, but empathy inevitably focuses on those whose lives are more like our own. Not least because we may fetfully wonder how well we would behave. Would we be as cheerfully solid? Some have proved it through mutual aid in recent floods, especially in rural areas, and some Tube passengers were astonishingly altruistic during the 7/7 bombings. But it must be admitted that a certain timid, resentful grumpiness creeps in when we talk of voluntarism and respond to bad luck. The gung-ho open-hearted co-operation of Aussies and Kiwis may touch our hearts, but it also inspires a pang of national self doubt.

Trawling around in official disaster plans and records doesn't quite reassure. " Local resilience forums" are mentioned with bureaucratic details of "umbrella groups, leafleting and "official community flood support groups. The Red Cross, Salvation Army and WRVS do great work they always do, and the same few people man then them in calms or crises alike- The Question is whether the rest of us still have the simple instinct to pitch in.
It sounds to me that Libby Purves is of the same opinion as me do not rely on the bureaucrats and Whitehall if things go wrong, you need to rely of on yourself, your friends and neighbours. I cite the Fire Brigade being held back by senior officers on 7/7, the inability of Whitehall to move quickly and get British citzens out of Libya. Bureaucrats suffer from 'Rabbit in the headlight syndrome' that is why they can hide in the darkest recesses of the big state, unaccountable covering their arses with another departmental memo.

Put a quid in Ruperts tin and read the article, it is worthy of an award.

The Market Rules And The Government Cannot Stop It

I was seventeen when the Yom Kippur War broke out creating the oil price shock that plunged the West into industrial crisis.By kind permission of Raedwald I reprint his article of yesterday-


I can't find anyone arguing that oil at $100bbl is not here to stay; no-one is calling it a blip, and no-one is expecting it to drop back to $40bbl. And few are arguing that it will stay at $100. Now the dreaded
$200bbl is being mooted; it may not be this year, or next year, but maybe by the next election it will be with us. Our economy may still be bumping along the bottom, but elsewhere China and India are growing at
up to 10% a year; tar sands and deep water wells take time to come on stream, and investments are only now being made on the basis of a stable $100bbl price level. So can we live with oil at $200bbl?

Natural gas for space heating and power will become more important. Gas is about a third the cost of oil per btu, so investment and capacity in our gas handling, storage and distribution system will be key over the next
few years; CNG by sea, with a Navy to protect the trade routes, will also be critical. 

The major impact will be on travel and transportation costs. As we import over half our food, this will have a direct inflationary effect. The cost of animal feed and fertiliser domestically, dependent on oil, will also rise. Food's going to be expensive. The supermarket model, with an intensive distribution network of national depots, will cost a lot more to run, making truly local produce sold locally more competitive. 

The era of cheap low bulk value materials from China and SE Asia will be over. This will hit the cost of building products; the big European building products firm that set up a new plant in Thailand a few years ago to manufacture structural cement particle board was based on transport costs of £20/m2. At £40/m2, it won't be competitive. The same for Chinese granite, now so cheap and ubiquitous that every shopping street in England is being paved in it, and every mediocre new commercial building clad in it. Of course cement, steel, gypsum
products, clay bricks and blocks and other domestic building products that are high-oil to make will also increase in cost. As will road bitumen, so expect fewer repairs. 

High vehicle fuel prices will hit car owners, rural ones disproportionately so. The cost advantages of alternative fuels - synthetic diesel, natural gas, hydrogen - will become real. Sales prospects will be bad for Landrover, good for the domestic manufacturer of a cheap volume runabout with a 750cc engine that does 60mpg.  And scooters. 

Now's also the time to buy forests. Wood chip and wood pellet burners are set to take off; currently the plant is sized for District Heating and blocks-of-flats scale, but a domestic heater using the Stirling Engine is not far away, and demand for deliveries of bagged pellets may be equivalent to the old coal deliveries in time (those still with coal cellars will be especially lucky ..)  



All in all, I think we're probably better placed than the US, with it's sprawling cities with suburbs stretching 40 miles or more, to face the crisis, but not as well placed as France. The key will be our adaptability - and we Brits have always been fairly good at that.

Thirty seven years ago we still had a manufacturing base that rebounded into the eighties, we do not have that, we have a managerial fabian system that cannot even react to getting British Oil workers out of the Libyan Revolution. Clegg went skiing for God's sake and Cameron went off with a gaggle of arms dealers to the Middle East.





The times are a changing, and big government cannot help you other than introduce rationing at Tescos