-
Continue reading →: How best to use the nGram?
http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf This is a fun film from the ever-stimulating Ted.com. It started me thinking as to practical uses for this fascinating new tool. Can we apply it, for example to trends in political thought? Here's something I tried (click on the graph to enlarge it). Can you come up…
-
Continue reading →: Incompetence is not a bug, it’s a feature
Dead federal retirees paid $120 million yearly, report says – The Federal Eye – The Washington Post. Just to hammer home my point that it's not the character or intelligence of public sector employees that – for the most part – I question. It's the whole concept of big government…
-
Continue reading →: Who pays? What a naive question.
Has any one lost their job over half-billion pound waste? | Grassroots | The TaxPayers' Alliance. This is so naive. Of course the answer is 'No.' It's not even a sensible question. The job objectives of public 'servants' are so much more complex than in the private sector, as is…
-
Continue reading →: The state is not your friend
Pat Nurse has a worrying post up at her blog. A professional colleague and his wife almost lost their children some years ago over unfounded allegations of abuse similar to those now faced by Pat's daughter. My colleague and his wife are wealthy, articulate and both qualified lawyers, yet still…
-
Continue reading →: What kind of country?
Vincent Cooke's plea for family to flee before 'stabbing burglar Raymond Jacob 6 times' | Mail Online. Time will tell if justice will prevail for Vincent Cooke. I hope so. He resisted a forced entry to his home; protecting his family as best he could. We all hope we would…
-
Continue reading →: More lost data
NHS loses CD of 1.6 MILLION patients' records • The Register. The state is not your friend and, if it were, it would be the stupidest one you have. I love the expression "…the trust was handed an undertaking…", don't you? It's an unusual construction meaning – I think –…
-
Continue reading →: Thank you
Top 40 Libertarian blogs | Total Politics. Thank you very much to all of you who voted for me in the Total Politics Blog Awards 2011. Given how subdued my blogging has been in the past year, I am pleasantly surprised to have a place in the rankings at all…
-
Continue reading →: A break from blogging
Mrs P's funeral was yesterday. The service was moving and beautiful. The Misses P made me proud by the readings they delivered over their mother's coffin and by their loving support, amid their own terrible grief, for their distraught father. As I watched their family and their young friends rally…
-
Continue reading →: ‘Mrs Paine’ – 1956-2011
My beloved 'Mrs P.' has passed away. She died peacefully in the early hours of this morning. I was at her bedside, holding her hand and telling her for the last time in this life how much she is loved. I cannot thank enough the staff at the Cromwell Hospital…
-
Continue reading →: See how the state defends you
London Riots: Shop-owners defend their businesses in east London – video | UK news | guardian.co.uk. So far, the only 'community' to emerge with credit from the London riots is that of the Turkish shopowners who banded together to defend their businesses from the thieving mob. Despite the weaselly attempts…
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.