-
Continue reading →: The face he deserves?
Brown to grey: Portrait of a Prime Minister feeling the strain | Mail Online. It's obvious Brown himself has lost the will to live, but what were his advisors thinking about in permitting this undead photo to be published? Surely they had approval rights before publication? Any decent undertaker could…
-
Continue reading →: The brittleness of cast iron
David Cameron to shed 'cast iron' pledge on Lisbon treaty | Politics | The Guardian. David Cameron was elected to lead the Conservative Party for his political and presentational skills, not his convictions. It remains to be seen if he has any convictions, but now we must also question his…
-
Continue reading →: The worst in the world
Burning our money: Worst In The World. Posts like this are why (pace the big boys of British blogging) I always recommend Burning our Money and Wat Tyler to reactionary sorts who doubt the value of new media. Where is the press coverage of this? Why will this not lead…
-
Continue reading →: Ned Ludd rides again
BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | MP warned over electronic readout. Had the Deputy Speaker been in his post at a different point in history, presumably he would have objected to an MP reading out a letter not written on parchment?
-
Continue reading →: Should expatriate Britons continue to be second class citizens?
Iain Dale's Diary: Should Ex Pats & Overseas Territories Have Their Own MPs? What a small-minded spirit sometimes lurks behind Iain Dale's engaging smile. My blood warmed mildly at his remark; …if UK expats were genuinely worried about their democratic rights, they'd vote in far larger numbers than they do.…
-
Continue reading →: Why I love Americans
I hosted a "thank you and farewell" dinner in Moscow last night for three gentlemen who were my first major clients here. They are experienced Russia hands and were reminiscing about the petty restrictions of old. In those days, if you couldn't produce the currency exchange receipts on exit, the…
-
Continue reading →: Everyone’s quote of the day
Heresy Corner: Abusing the evidence. The Heresiarch has hit the nail on the head perfectly in the linked post, highlighting the government's mendacious approach to science (and supporting it with quotes from an academic whose research was disregarded in favour of "data" from pressure groups); We've seen this process in…
-
Continue reading →: Law (0) Religion (1) (o.g.)
Will France Ban Scientology? – Page 1 – The Daily Beast. If Scientologists commit fraud, then let those individuals be convicted and punished. If that discredits a particularly loopy religion (in a hotly-contested field) then so be it. To ban the religion itself, however, would be a mistake. Religion thrives…
-
Continue reading →: A deliberate provocation?
Menezes police officer gets top IPCC role | Politics | The Guardian. The director of investigations of the IPCC, the "independent" body which investigates complaints against the police, is to be a man it criticised in its report on the de Menezes affair. Our leaders were not content with sending…
-
Continue reading →: The next tech thing
TED Blog: Wireless electricity demo: Eric Giler on TED.com. It's been a while since I posted a TED talk. This is not one of those inspiring insights into the human condition. It's just a scientist enthusiastically demonstrating something cool I can't wait to have. http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf The commercial side of…
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.”
Socials
Subscribe
Receive content by email
Latest comments
There are many reasons they’re not passed down, Tom. The Triune code, laid out in scripture in all reputable versions…
I’ve always tried to live my life doing no wrong but life isn’t like that so you make compromised but…
Hate to tell you this, but it’s not going to end until you end it. You think people to whom…
[…] – Tom Paine […]
ARCHIVES
Blogspot Archive Mar 2005 – Sep 2006
TypePad/WordPress Archives Sep 2006 – date
The Great American Road Trip of 2013
The Great American Road Trip Posts
First post (in case you want to read it from the beginning)
The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
A little bird tweeted in my ear that it was time to come over and see how things are.