The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

The Devil's Knife: Sound The Last Post…?.

You will already know that former chairman of the UK's Libertarian Party, Chris Mounsey has announced an end to his blog, The Devil's Knife (formerly known as The Devil's Kitchen). Regular readers may wonder why I didn't immediately join the chorus of pleas for him to reconsider.

I owe many of my readers here to links from the Kitchen. In the middle days of The Last Ditch, Chris was generous in his support of a far less entertaining blog than his own. Through our blogging connection, I had the pleasure both of meeting Chris socially and working with him professionally. He is an intelligent, articulate and politically passionate young man. I admire his virtues and have great hopes for his future. I think he has more to offer than he knows himself. I also think someone should note, given his devilish persona and taste for shock comedy, that his concern for the common weal gives the lie to leftist slurs about heartless libertarians.

In truth, I wanted to be sure it wasn't a false alarm. The boy has form in this respect and we may still hope that his righteous anger will haul him back, fulminating, to the keyboard.

Chris, aka DK, aka The Devil, was – on form – one of the most entertaining bloggers around. He has rarely been on form since his mauling at the hands of Andrew Neil, but Mrs Paine and I (Mrs Paine is a big fan of his sense of humour) had hoped he would get over it. Embarrassment and reticence little became a man who adopted "The Devil" as his blogging persona.

The fates sent us DK as the very necessary antidote to the most dangerous woman in Britain. He was not so much the Devil as the Anti-Toynbee. His attacks on her were his nadir in terms of taste and his zenith in terms of wit. He will not be able to watch her promote her destructive political agenda while knowing that she knows she saw him off.

So, at least, we must hope.