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Continue reading →: I wish you a Merry Christmas and a liberty-laden New Year
BBC News – Tweets to feminist campaigner Criado-Perez: Two charged. The Misses Paine and I are off to cruise the Norwegian fjords from tomorrow. Our access to the internet will be patchy. So let me take this – perhaps final – opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas and a…
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Continue reading →: Who serves whom?
We don't call them police forces any more. That's too explicit an acknowledgement of their role as the enforcers of our all-powerful state. Policing, God help us, is now a 'service'. The question is; whom do our policemen serve? Is it us, the public, or the political class that guarantees…
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Continue reading →: Allies for a day
Mandela has been sanitised by hypocrites and apologists | Seumas Milne | Comment is free | The Guardian. I have been saddened by the hypocrisy of the British Establishment's celebrations of the life of the late President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. I was horrified when, apparently on instructions from…
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Continue reading →: Left, Right, Wrong
The traditional political division into 'left' and 'right' must be used with caution. For much of Europe 'right-wing' refers to nationalist authoritarians seeking to impose traditional values on society at large. I would be uncomfortable in such company. No right-winger on the Continent and few in America would share my…
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Continue reading →: Voltaire’s wisdom forgotten
BBC News – 'Troll' Gordon Mullen sentenced over April Jones web abuse. It's hard to like Gordon Mullen. He posted nasty remarks on Facebook about a little girl who was missing. She was later, sadly, found to have been murdered. Not by him, I hasten to add. I like…
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Continue reading →: Does this analysis ring any bells with you?
The State Causes the Poverty It Later Claims to Solve – Andreas Marquart – Mises Daily. I don't think I have read a better account of what it has been like to live under crypto-Keynesian governments for most of my life. Do please go read the whole thing.
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Continue reading →: What you are, not what you want
I learned during my long-ago university days of the key historical change from 'status' to 'contract'. In a sense, modern civilisation began when, not only were rulers subject to the law, but your legal obligations depended not on who you were but what you had agreed. No more jus primae…
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Continue reading →: Getting into the Christmas spirit
I am finding it hard this year. Cards are unwritten, presents unbought or at best not wrapped. But this video helped, as well as bringing back happy memories of driving the Fiorano circuit on my training course last year. Whatever you do, don't try this at home girls and…
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Continue reading →: Does Lord Lucan know where freedom of expression went?
BBC News – ITV's Lord Lucan drama criticised by victim's son. I returned to live in Britain in April 2011. It was a while before I began to notice some of the changes since I left in 1992. Heraclitus said No man ever steps in the same river twice, for…
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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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 […]
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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.