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Continue reading →: Why I Value My Blog: Lessons from 20 Years of WritingTypepad Support has just supplied a full set of export files. For now the old site still works, but this link will break on September 30th. With archives in hand, I no longer need worry about the imminent demise of their servers. I respect their professionalism. If I had a…
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Continue reading →: Welcome to the new home of The Last DitchThe Last Ditch has been hosted on Typepad.com since forever but the company just suddenly announced it’s closing down on September 30th. I’ve moved my domain thelastditch.org to WordPress. Until Typepad closes you can access all the old content at https://lastditch.typepad.com/lastditch/ I will be attempting to migrate all the old…
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Continue reading →: To what, precisely, are we woke?The late Mrs P.'s contribution to this blog used to be to prevent me overstating my case. I used to write it from our bed at home in Moscow, hours ahead of my target audience. I would then pass it to her and go make coffee. When I hit "send,"…
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Continue reading →: Credo 2
The most-read post in the history of this little blog was this one. Written almost twenty years ago, it began with the words I regret that I have no religious faith. To my surprise that regret has gone. Not because I have resigned myself, but because I am, once more,…
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Continue reading →: The Endarkenment Continues
There are some grounds for optimism. They are: The Supreme Court (how I hate that stupid Tony Blair name for the highest court in a country where the constitution consists of three words – "Parliament is supreme") has thrown the entire public sector into turmoil by answering a question so…
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Continue reading →: The post-truth era in relation to the Middle East
I have spent some time on the website of The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) over the years. The purpose of MEMRI is: Exploring the Middle East and South Asia through their media, MEMRI bridges the language gap between the West and the Middle East and South Asia, providing…
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Continue reading →: Margaret Thatcher Centre Freedom Festival: Day 2
Today was only a half day. We began with a session entitled Defeating Net Zero and other enemies of Freedom in which the panellists exposed some of the stupidities of government policy. Like so much of the weekend's discussion the policy is as much the former "Conservative" government's as the…
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Continue reading →: The Margaret Thatcher Centre Third Annual Freedom Festival, Buckingham University
The Third Annual Freedom Festival Tickets, Sat 22 Mar 2025 at 09:30 | Eventbrite. A festival is a celebration. I'd love to celebrate freedom in Britain, but I'm not sure we still have it. Margaret would be horrified by how closeted real Conservatives are now in British institutions. In fairness,…
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Continue reading →: The future of NATO
I hesitate to opine on a war involving Russia. I lived and worked there. I have Russian friends and am on record as admiring its culture (arguably the most artistically complete of any human civilisation) and its people. I am open to slurs that this translates into sympathy for its…
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Continue reading →: Chamberlain vs Trump
I lived and worked in Continental Europe for nineteen of my twenty years overseas. I have more friends there than here in London and often think I should have refused my late wife’s dying wish for me to come home. I’d have a better life in Warsaw. It’s interesting to…
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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One can only hope his neighbours, fellow lodge members (?) etc give him the cold shoulder.
The problem is that they already know about the blog and some read it. Why is that an issue? If…
Conversationally, I already operate on NATO “no first strike” principles. I am not going to start a political discussion with…
Why don’t you stick with what you are doing on the blogs but simply withdraw from discussion on politics with…
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The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
They are servants. Just not of the public. He gets a full pension because he did his job for his…