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Continue reading →: En route to House of Commons Terrace
This life long non-smoker (cigars don't count, right?) is making a principled stand (glass of beer in hand, I hope) at the "Save our Pubs and Clubs" event this afternoon, hosted by MPs Greg Knight, Roger Godsiff and John Hemming. I shall report further in due course. For now I…
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Continue reading →: Isn’t the BBC in the public sector too?
BBC News – Warning of public sector strike threat to UK travel. I am looking forward to Thursday. Since the strikers won't be paid, the unions will deliver the first real reduction in public spending since this farce of a government was cobbled together. Thank you, brothers. The only thing…
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Continue reading →: The Guardian: Offenders should NOT get their just deserts
Reverting to 'tough' justice fails both adults and children | Society | The Guardian. When someone writes that offenders should "get their just deserts" you assume they are a tabloid journalist. But when someone thinks offenders should NOT get their "just deserts" and indeed holds the very concept at arms…
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Continue reading →: Open Letter on the West Lothian Question
The Under Secretary of State for Scotland, David Mundell, recently said; I have always expressed the view that there is no desire for an English Parliament—and the same two people have always written to me afterwards to say that I am wrong. To afford the honourable gentleman some variety in…
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Continue reading →: Mr Worstall speaks for England
Oh fuck off you miserable little wankers.Tim is unhappy that our warriors fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan are to be brought home to their families via the back gates of RAF Brize Norton rather than the streets of Royal Wootton Bassett. He says that; Tories used to get this military…
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Continue reading →: Second only to Singapore for Government intrusion
Google report reveals British government web snooping – Telegraph. Those friends who think my concerns for liberty in Britain overblown should consider the country's consistently high position, when adjusted for population, in Google's rankings for requests for private data from government intelligence services. To be up there with authoritarian Singapore…
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Continue reading →: Justice: RIP?
Justice: RIP? | Beneath The Wig. In the wake of Levi Bellfield's conviction for the murder of Amanda ("Millie") Dowler, I have been conducting an unpopular defence of our adversarial system of criminal trials over at the excellent blog of Inspector Gadget. It's an important issue. Our rights to be…
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Continue reading →: Scraping the tax barrel
Wirral Resource Centre/Home Page. Our country must really be in trouble. I knew tax offices were under instruction to turn every stone to find revenue for our desperate (and financially incontinent) government but who could have imagined this would involve reopening the 1990s tax accounts of charities? Had the error…
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Continue reading →: Blood, soil and soccer
Half of Britons have German blood – Telegraph. The linked article is hardly news, surely? Most Anglo-Saxons have only a hazy idea of where the Angles came from (Angeln in Schleswig-Holstein) but surely all of us know the Saxons came from Saxony? We are known by the hyphenated names of…
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Continue reading →: Hammond Meets Moss
BBC – BBC Four Programmes – Hammond Meets Moss. Having complained recently about the poor quality of most modern British broadcasting, let me mention an intelligent show I watched last night. I am a Top Gear fan but have always thought the Hamster (how to put this kindly…?) more charming…
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.