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Continue reading →: Unhappy Father’s Day
Louis de Bernières: it'll be an unhappy Father's Day for some – Telegraph. There was a moving article by auther Louis de Bernieres in The Telegraph for Fathers' Day yesterday. He condemns as "the biggest social scandal of our time" the way the family courts treat fathers and "the cruelty…
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Continue reading →: World Builder
This award-winning short movie showcasing the CGI talents of Branit FX will resonate with those readers who have experienced the strange delights of building in Second Life. Others may find it of interest too (or not). Apparently it was filmed in a single day but took two years of post-production…
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Continue reading →: Classical liberalism – Part 1
The discussions here at The Last Ditch are generally (our friend and active contributor Mark excepted) informed by a broadly classical liberal view. LearnLiberty.org has an interesting series of short video lectures by Dr Nigel Ashford of the Institute for Humane Studies explaining five different schools of thought in modern…
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Continue reading →: HSBC puts MPs under [their own] microscope
HSBC puts MPs under microscope | Money | The Guardian. When practising abroad as an international lawyer, I often had to raise with clients dealing with companies associated with local politicians the delicate issue of money laundering. You can imagine how the politicians concerned reacted when informed that English legislation…
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Continue reading →: A danger to the state?
The Courier – 'I started laughing, and kept on laughing' — Olympic torch protester gets a police visit. I was asked earlier this year at a professional gathering what change I had noticed on returning to Britain after 20 years. I answered that the police seem more interested now in…
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Continue reading →: Are we sure it wasn’t an inside job?
Armed robbers target Santander in Tooting (From Wandsworth Guardian). Is it too cynical to speculate that this could be nervous depositors jumping the queue or the bank's management hoping to claim on the insurance? h/t @GawainTowler
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Continue reading →: Off for a chat at Tom Paine’s old “local”
The White Hart Hotel. Though many leftists who focus selectively on his ideas on social security and land tax object to my using his name to blog, I am a genuine admirer of the original, best and only important Tom Paine. He was a man who – by use only…
THE LAST DITCH
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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.