THE LAST DITCH
How No 10 warned off the Telegraph – Telegraph
So there's no threat to freedom of the press, eh? If even the "good guys" who claim to be worried about Leveson's recommendations reach for them as a weapon when threatened with exposure of alleged expenses fraud, imagine how the enthusiasts for state control will use any new powers they win.
They ought to call it the politician’s charter and be done with it.
I also saw some comment somewhere about Levenson eyeing up the blogsphere for control saying that the press might be like lead astray if they say Bloggers and Twitter getting away with stuff they could not. It would all be so reasonable if power didn’t corrupt.
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The ‘good’ guys? For a supposed value of ‘good’ no doubt.
Also known as the “It’s okay if it’s us doing it” paradigm.
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Yes, even the prospect of power corrupts.
One of the reasons that I have moved towards the political position of minimising the power of government is my belief that nobody, in any position of power, can avoid abusing it.
Sooner or later everybody will do something reprehensible because of the power they hold. Of course it varies in degree but: parents/children, husbands/wives, teachers/pupils, bosses/subordinates, bureaucrats/citizens, all of those will sometimes behave badly because of power they have because all are flawed human beings.
Nearly all the time we can overcome the generally small abuses.
But it’s all made much worse when politicians get more power because all of these have deliberately chosen to accrue power because of the pleaasure they get in interfering with people’s lives and instructing them how to live.
We can’t eliminate this universal flaw in human character or the desire for politicians to meddle; we can minimise its effects by minimising the role of government and its power.
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I could not agree more.
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We are dealing with base instincts here-if you expose my expense shenanigans, I will destroy your livelihood.
This kind of person is unfit for office, the MP and camorons PPS should be fired today.
There could be no better example that becoming an MP is hugely financially worthwhile with very few restrictions on travel and expenses and almost lifetime incumbency if you choose the riding correctly. These incentives must be curtailed, we no longer attract candidates willing to be public servants but candidates who see the public as a never ending means to finance a luxurious lifestyle for the MP’s and their families it would seem.
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I’m not sure if that logic is consistent.
If politics needs to attract people who are not obsessive meddling busybodies surely they need to be incentivised somehow. The desire to altruistically not interfere will never be as potent as the lust for power.
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They used to be incentivised by the wish to do something useful* for their country, but I suppose that’s old-fashioned stuff now.
*Where “do something useful” does NOT equal meddling, puritanising, and nannying, of course.
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Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.
Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.
He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that
“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”
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The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
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