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Continue reading →: The redemptive power of labour
What I Learned in the Poverty War by Peter Cove, City Journal Autumn 2012 The linked article is one of the most encouraging I have read for a while. It describes the experience of a former member of the "welfare industrial complex" (the author's splendid coinage) who founded a private…
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Continue reading →: Spending isn’t good; what’s good is producing
“Pure fallacy from beginning to end” at Catallaxy Files. In this video, Milton Friedman deals with the left’s eternal favourite, the broken window fallacy. When I was a student politician, there was a Trot called Andy on the NUS executive. After every conference motion, he screwed up the papers…
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Continue reading →: What chance to our children have of hearing these arguments?
Follow-Up Letter to a Very Bright 11th-Grader American state school teachers may, for all I know, be as consistently left-wing as ours. One needs no conspiracy theory to account for it. People who choose careers financed by force either have no scruples about it when they sign up, or soon learn…
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Continue reading →: Even the prospect of power corrupts
How No 10 warned off the Telegraph – Telegraph So there's no threat to freedom of the press, eh? If even the "good guys" who claim to be worried about Leveson's recommendations reach for them as a weapon when threatened with exposure of alleged expenses fraud, imagine how the enthusiasts…
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Continue reading →: Le vice Britannique
I have been taken to task by readers here for over-generalising in my last post in which I referred to; …the depths of ignorance, prejudice and hate-addled envy that now characterise most of the British people… I would love to agree with my critics but the only places I encounter…
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Continue reading →: These are entirely useless idiots – unless you are a politician
Britain could end these tax scams by hitting the big four | Polly Toynbee | Comment is free | The Guardian. Ignore Polly. She's just writing her usual hypocritical twaddle. Read the comments. They would be hilarious if they did not so clearly reveal the depths of ignorance, prejudice and…
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Continue reading →: Political priorities
Gay marriage or economic Armageddon: which do you think matters more? – Telegraph Blogs. Mr Delingpole has a point, but I am surprised he is surprised. Isn't fiddling while the city burns the classical recreation for political arsonists? One of the best practical arguments for libertarianism is that, given fewer…
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Continue reading →: Harman threatens Guido, as predicted here
See my Leery about Leveson post. They ARE after the big bloggers, whatever they may say. H/T her target.
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Continue reading →: Another way of looking at the tax avoidance fuss
Patently Rubbish: An interesting conversation. Patently makes some good points, as usual, but most striking is this question; Let's rephrase this, shall we: No-one in the UK managed to set up a Starbucks, a Google, or an Amazon The UK has an attitude which is distinctly unfriendly towards entrepreneurs,…
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Continue reading →: How Government controls the British broadcast media
British television – a brief potted history. | Samizdata.net Please follow the link for an excellent history of British television. I confess that I did not know until I read it that all British TV is state controlled, not just the BBC. Amid all the fuss about regulation of the…
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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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.