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Continue reading →: Trust
No lasting institutions can be built without trust. When I worked in Russia, I saw that a low trust society could be very creative when it came to entrepreneurship, but that it was impossible to build banks, insurance companies, pension funds etc. That was an opportunity for my City of…
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Continue reading →: Some, I hope premature, final thoughts
At Craven Cottage for the Villa game, the very modest activity of walking from our taxi to the stadium left me flushed, breathless and near to collapse – to the alarm of my companions. I made it home safely and have booked an appointment with my GP this week. I…
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Continue reading →: Labour appoints 200 ‘cronies’ to Civil Service
Labour appoints 200 ‘cronies’ to Civil Service. In relation to the linked article above, my criticism is not actually of Labour. Rewarding the party's cronies and cementing leftist control of the "Deep State" (the modern name for what – when it was conservative and patriotic – was known as the…
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Continue reading →: Remember 7.10
When I returned to Britain after twenty years abroad, I found myself widowed and living alone in a London very different from the place I was working when I went abroad in 1992. I would ride the 94 bus to town, only hearing the English language on the recorded announcements.…
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Continue reading →: Legalising assisted suicide: Theory and Practice
Legalising assisted suicide would be a profound moral error – spiked. One of the fundamental ideas of libertarianism is self-ownership. If you have legal capacity to decide (i.e. you are adult and sane) then you can do what you like with yourself and your body. If you want to mutilate…
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Continue reading →: The Future
Miss Paine the Elder and her life partner have chosen the name of my granddaughter – due to join us on December 9th – but will not share it with anyone until she is actually born. So for now she is codenamed "Boudicca" – Miss Paine the Younger's jocular suggestion…
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Continue reading →: A crisis of Britishness
Margaret Thatcher famously quoted Kipling's Norman and Saxon to President Mitterand of France in an EU meeting; The Saxon is not like us Normans. His manners are not so polite. But he never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right. When he stands like an ox in…
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Continue reading →: It depends on which immigrants, really.
Politics latest news: People want immigration controls, Tony Blair warns Keir Starmer. One of the joys of growing up working class (middle class in the American sense) and becoming middle class (in the British sense) is that – from your weird bubble where neither the people you grew up with,…
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Continue reading →: An election that’s hard to bear
As I walked home from casting my vote, I felt sad. I live in a solid Labour seat so had no hope of my vote counting. I am used to that. In my life as a voter, I have rarely – under Britain's first-past-the-post system – been on the winning…
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Continue reading →: Why the French are so pessimistic | The Spectator
Why the French are so pessimistic | The Spectator. The most striking thing is the skilled and marvellous way France maintains the public realm. From pavements to lighting, to high streets and motorways and serious infrastructure, France gleams. Frankly, given the choice, I’d rather live in a French roundabout than…
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…
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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.