-
Continue reading →: Compulsion works
Rob Riemen, Nexus Institute I attended three sessions on the second day of the Battle of Ideas 2012. The event helped me understand how Britain has changed during the twenty years I was away. My classical liberal views, as held by most enlightened people since, well, the Enlightenment are now…
-
Continue reading →: A Guardianista gets it, up to a point
It's elementary – I'm not a racist | Comment is free | The Observer. It's remarkable how clearly all Guardianisti understand the concept of free speech, when it's their own right to opine at stake. Speak up, speak up they say. Let a thousand flowers blossom, let a hundred schools…
-
Continue reading →: More skirmishes in the Battle of Ideas
To be honest, the event today was better than the first session had augured. I guess it's just what you have to expect if you go to a debate about "equality" in Britain, but if I had heard just one more person say that "obviously" we were all in favour…
-
Continue reading →: The pillow fight of ideas
I am spending this weekend at the Battle of Ideas at the Barbican. It got off to a bad start for me with a session on equality that was more like the deep graveyard peace of a single idea than a battle. Four leftists set out possible views of equality,…
-
Continue reading →: One Europe for all, including murderers
You thought the whole 'EUSSR' thing was over the top? Have a look at this poster – Telegraph Blogs. Europeans should be every bit as shocked to see the hammer and sickle on the above EU propaganda as they would be to see the swastika. Tellingly, their leaders don't think…
-
Continue reading →: A chart that needs no comment
h/t Professor Mark J. Perry at the American Enterprise Institute blog
-
Continue reading →: Learning to love public servants
Should Romney Seek the Public Sector Vote? — The American Magazine. This is one of the more interesting posts I have read on the US elections and I wonder how similar the statistics would be in the UK. Libertarians and small state conservatives tend to generalise about public servants in…
-
Continue reading →: This is the dawning of the Age of Mockery, apparently.
Muslims protest ‘age of mockery’ as thousands descend on Google HQ – Telegraph. I applaud the stance of Google and its subsidiary YouTube in response to the demands of the mob outside their offices in London yesterday. I worry that their stance might be less tough if they were headquartered…
-
Continue reading →: Wrong on every level?
Stumbling and Mumbling: In defence of idleness. Is our bias in favour of industry and thrift out-dated? Do we need to adapt to a new paradigm? Chris Dillow of the blog Stumbling and Mumbling, who bills himself as "an extremist, not a fanatic", believes so. He even arranges English words…
-
Continue reading →: The four ways of spending money
I keep mentioning them here, so I thought I should post the video.
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.”
Socials
Subscribe
Receive content by email
Latest comments
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 […]
ARCHIVES
Blogspot Archive Mar 2005 – Sep 2006
TypePad/WordPress Archives Sep 2006 – date
The Great American Road Trip of 2013
The Great American Road Trip Posts
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.