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Continue reading →: If guns are unnecessary, how come our rulers are surrounded by armed police?
He stepped out of the dark with a gun… | Victoria Coren | Comment is free | The Observer. Victoria Coren is upset that there are too many guns on our streets. Surprisingly, for someone writing in the Observer, the guns she is concerned about are those in the hands…
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Continue reading →: “I had no in-service training”
A man surely does not need "in-service" training to know right from wrong. Or does he? This film is a metaphorical bathyscape from which to peer out in wonderment at the depths of human stupidity. Hard though it will be for anyone capable of reading this post to imagine, such…
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Continue reading →: So much for free movement of goods and labour
FT.com / Europe – Poles returning home face car trouble. As a lover of Poland who lived there for 11 years, I know something about this story. I used to have a right-hand drive car in Warsaw. I drove it from England in 1992 and used it for 8 of…
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Continue reading →: An airship captain writes…
Lost generation | Andrew Hankinson | Money | The Observer. Andrew Hankinson's article blends common sense, fantasy and bitterness. His central point is one I have often made myself; that the two post-war generations in Britain have been guilty – via an underfunded "national insurance" system – of time travel…
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Continue reading →: Does the internet show who we really are?
This TED talk makes the audience (and the speaker) laugh at times. They are so conditioned to the statist view of humanity as evil, that its manifold examples of voluntary cooperation seen naive to them. As I listened to "social theorist" Jonathan Zittrain's interesting speech, the thought that came to…
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Continue reading →: Keynes vs Hayek: the rap
I enjoyed this so much that I must post it, even at the cost of a reluctant link by way of acknowledgement to a Labour loyalist who, when the leg-irons are finally clamped on him, will be grateful for the fact that they are free at point of use.
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Continue reading →: Bloggers; take the day off
underdogs bite upwards: So many queens If you are conservative, old-school liberal, or libertarian spare yourself the trouble of trawling the blogs today. If you are a blogger of that persuasion, spare yourself the trouble of posting. Just link, as I have, to today's post on Underdogs Bite Upwards. Leg-iron…
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Continue reading →: It’s not working. Let’s do it more!
BBC News – Rich-poor divide 'wider than 40 years ago' This doesn't surprise me. The portrayal of the Thatcherite times of my youth by the left-wing establishment has long been ridiculous. It's amusing that it takes such statistics to give the lie to their distortion of history. It's more than…
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Continue reading →: Go on then. You explain it
Hutton inquiry closed David Kelly medical reports for 70 years | Politics | The Guardian. I have resisted speculating about the death of Dr David Kelly. Largely because I am generally a sceptic when it comes to conspiracy theories. If I ever find myself considering one, I am usually put…
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Continue reading →: The campaign against people’s justice continues…
Is the internet destroying juries? | UK news | The Guardian. This is a frothy enough piece for the po-faced Guardian. But it's another foul-smelling drip in an insidious campaign to erode confidence in jury trial. It has all the Guardian's most odious characteristics; purported concern for the little guy,…
THE LAST DITCH
Your blogger
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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I miss the more traditional Anglican services that I remember from my younger years. I haven’t regularly attended church services…
I’m an optimistic person but also a practical one. We need to take action and waiting for some deity to…
I am not sure if you’re encouraging me to be more optimistic or not?
Ukraine isn’t really doing anything spectacular. The terrorists of the middle east have been using simpler kit for decades successfully.…
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The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
She may be gone but you have all those wonderful memories :-)