-
Continue reading →: We are all “criminals” now (but then, somewhere, we already were)
Raedwald: Integrated EU blacklist of 'criminals' is here. It is hard to know where to begin with Raedwald's sobering post. Did you ever hear of a more sinister concept than for "insult of the State, Nation or State symbols" to be a crime? Yet Raedwald and other bloggers who have…
-
Continue reading →: Ospreys 15-9 Leicester
BBC SPORT | Rugby Union | Ospreys 15-9 Leicester. Yesterday's match was hard-fought. I had forgotten quite how much aggression rugby can involve! It's a miracle the game can still be played in these litigious, health-and-safety minded days. How long before the busybodies demand an end to the glorious legal…
-
Continue reading →: Pax Rupertica ends?
This morning's story in the Sunday Times is significant, not for the revelation that some Labour peers are corrupt, but for the fact that one of Rupert Murdoch's papers is prepared to conduct covert investigative journalism against Labour and to splash the embarrassing results on the front page. The cosy…
-
Continue reading →: Ospreys vs Leicester
A day off from politics. I am the guest of an old friend at this Heineken Cup match, having flown in from Moscow yesterday and driven Vittoria down from Chester to Swansea this morning. It was a beautiful drive on winding Welsh roads. Here's hoping for a match that's half…
-
Continue reading →: I find it amazing too
Britain on the brink of an economic depression, say experts – Telegraph. Albert Edwards, a strategist at Société Générale, likened the British economy to a Ponzi scheme — a fraudulent debt mountain like that allegedly used by the New York hedge fund manager Bernard Madoff. “What I find amazing is…
-
Continue reading →: The dog cooking dinner
FT.com / Europe – Sarkozy unveils €600m press rescue. PJ O'Rourke compares government intervention to "fix" markets to Dad burning dinner and the family deciding to have the dog cook the next one. It is certain is that the trillions currently being spent (they would say "invested" but they don't…
-
Continue reading →: Gordon Brown withdraws plan to keep details of MPs’ expenses secret
Gordon Brown withdraws plan to keep details of MPs' expenses secret | Politics | guardian.co.uk. Now this is (if there is no devious small print) a "green shoot" of democratic recovery. Faced with a real debate on the subject (after the Conservatives decided to issue a three line whip to…
-
Continue reading →: We shall overcome
I agree with every word (apart from the religious slant). So will most described casually as "right wing" by unthinking sloganisers of today. But what has "positive" discrimination to do with Dr King's vision? What has endless obsessing over whether people of a certain skin tone should be called "Black",…
-
Continue reading →: He’s just a guy. Good luck to him.
The weight of expectation on the shoulders of President Obama does him no favours today. No wonder he stumbled over the oath. Dr Martin Luther King's dream has still not been fulfilled. All the fuss today is not about the content of the new President's character. It is about the…
-
Continue reading →: On location in Second Life
I know my Second Life posts bore some and puzzle others, but please forgive me this short one. A film-maker in Second Life used my sci-fi project called "Sky City" as a location for a Doctor Who story. If you don't like sci-fi, Second Life or Doctor Who, I am…
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.