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Continue reading →: Nudge nudge
BBC News – Can you persuade people not to buy stolen goods? The British authorities now seem to have placed property criminals on the ‘too difficult’ pile. The authors of a new “report” say that those who steal take so little interest in the law that they don’t even know…
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Continue reading →: Of sound and unsound money
Frexit fever reaches heart of French establishment – Telegraph Blogs. When the Euro was about to be launched a colleague and I were in Germany on business. Over drinks with our German business partners they teased us about it. In all previous such conversations with them we had been primarily…
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Continue reading →: Robber Barons; then and now
I am happy to be the source of Samizdata’s quote of the day, but my own choice today is from this 1970s lecture by Milton Friedman at the University of Utah; We had robber barons then and we have robber barons today. But there’s a big difference between the…
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Continue reading →: Religion in today’s Britain
At the O2 Arena last week, popular comedian Micky Flanagan got a roar of approval from most of his capacity audience for the following line; "I am not religious … because I AM NOT FUCKING MENTAL." He went on to make them roll in the aisles (a dangerous pastime…
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Continue reading →: Our dangerous zeitgeist
Here is a short quote from someone you have never heard of; Elise Groulx Diggs, co-chairman of the International Criminal Bar. The source for the quote is here, though I read it in the International Bar Association's dead tree magazine. Law is an amazingly transformational tool and it doesn't take…
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Continue reading →: Work, apparently, is not the answer. Is it idleness then?
BBC News – Alan Milburn says child poverty 'no longer problem of the workless and work-shy'. I am trying to stay positive in the face of a nation gone mad. I really am. I was much helped by a pleasant meal last night with a fellow-blogger and occasional commenter here…
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Continue reading →: Where are Reuters when corrupt officials cripple India?
This fawning piece lavishes praise on Indian bureaucrats – the country's 'best and brightest' – for their response to Cyclone Phailin. Perhaps they even deserve it. Yet India's potential is wilfully and systematically damaged every day by official corruption; corruption that is the key story in the world's greatest democracy.…
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Continue reading →: Of selfishness
The conventional view in Soviet Britain is that those who do business are heartless sorts driven by selfish pursuit of that dirtiest of all words in our foul-mouthed society; p**f*t. Yet my recollection of thirty happy years in business is of being under constant pressure to find ways to serve…
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Continue reading →: Lessons from the government shutdown in America
You can't look because the rangers aren't being paid We won't learn much from the current events in America. 'Paine's Law' applies; any fact may confirm any political view. This post may well be an example of that so put on spectacles tinted with your favoured shade and interpret accordingly.…
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Continue reading →: It is possible to be a good public servant
You may have noticed that the URL for my last post about press regulation was a bit odd. That's because, tired of the constant negativity of my own postings, I wanted to balance my criticisms of government's latest idiocies with an example of a good public servant at work. In…
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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Almost. I think Archbishop Sarah is a Christian. I just think she’s at a loss to know how to reach…
It’s almost as if they are not actually Christian but simply a person being advised by woke PR people in…
She may be gone but you have all those wonderful memories :-)
I miss the more traditional Anglican services that I remember from my younger years. I haven’t regularly attended church services…
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The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
I’m sure there are a few fire and brimstone types they could have had instead of a woke woman. Putting…