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Continue reading →: The worst “reform” of modern times?
I was brought to blogging by a shocking piece of Labour legislation, but I am coming around to the view that the worst legal "reform" of my life was carried out under a Conservative government. In 1986, the Crown Prosecution Service opened for business. Before then, the police officers who…
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Continue reading →: Pay it back, Ms Smith. It’s not yours.
Jacqui Smith Request for Payback. The Sunlight Centre for Open Politics has written a very fair letter to Jacqui Smith. Ms Smith has cheated the taxpayer and an apology will not suffice. If you or I cheated our employer of £4,000, let alone £42,000, an apology would not absolve us.…
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Continue reading →: Lies, damn lies and government statistics
Children educated at home at severe disadvantage, study shows | Education | guardian.co.uk. These conclusions are based on a sample of just over 1,000 children. Who selected that sample and on what criteria? Have children who are simply absent from school (because their neglectful parents can't be bothered to send…
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Continue reading →: Innocent until proven guilty? Not in Hampshire.
Dead surfer had been held over child porn | Metro.co.uk. Apart from coping with the sudden death of their husband and father, "…wife Diana and daughter Sofia…" must now also live with the shame of his alleged crime. Have Hampshire Police never heard of "innocent until proven guilty?" There is…
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Continue reading →: Chez Madame Mao
钓鱼台国宾馆. The best part of forty years ago, denouncing the Gang of Four as a fervent young Maoist, I could never have imagined that I would ever spend the day in Jian Qing's (Madame Mao's) then home. It's a beautiful place. I slipped away to take a business conference call…
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Continue reading →: My first new city for a while
Beijing Official Website International – eBeijing.gov.cn. Travel becomes boring when you are used to it, but a new city is always exciting. I am in Beijing (still known to the French and Russians as Pekin) for the first time at an event which may prove to be a blogger's nightmare.…
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Continue reading →: A hoon, or merely a chump?
Geoff Hoon 'checked phone during Iraq war memorial' – Telegraph. Is it any wonder his surname has become one of the British blogosphere's favourite euphemisms? Yet, in truth, Hoon (the only Labour minister with whom I have had the misfortune to break bread) is only displaying Labour's bog standard attitude…
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Continue reading →: I’ll only be happy if banning is banned
I'll only be happy if smoking is banned | Duncan Bannatyne | Comment is free | The Observer. You need read no more of this appalling article than this; "Smoking should be banned in cars, and particularly any vehicle with children in it. On a school visit I met a…
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Continue reading →: Pop memories
Late evening listening – the evolution of music | nourishing obscurity. I was at a party last night with my soon-to-be-ex-team in Moscow. It was at a way-too-cool-for-me bar and I was already feeling old when a kindly, well-meaning (and jollier than I had ever realised) colleague made things worse…
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Continue reading →: Being elected while black
Obama's Nobel Farce – The Daily Beast. The right-wing blogosphere is understandably angry about the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama. Surely that prize, its credibility already much stained, can now never be taken seriously again? How could he possibly have earned it, given that he was…
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 :-)