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Continue reading →: Vandalism, art or satire?
Painting the Soviet army monument is vandalism: Bulgarian Minister of Culture – Bulgaria – The Sofia Echo. Of course, the Bulgarian Minister of Culture is right about the criminality of the act. Banksy's a criminal too. He's wrong about this though; We (Bulgarians) are the only ones led by some…
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Continue reading →: Midday train to Georgia
I am on The Freedom Association's Facebook list and the invitation to today's Freedom in the City meeting caught my eye. It was addressed by the Georgian Ambassador to London, Mr Giorgi Badridze. His Excellency has been rather forthright in the past about his country's relations with Russia. I knew…
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Continue reading →: Delusions of importance
One of the most disturbing things about being back in Britain is being exposed – for example when watching Question Time from Norwich this week – to the delusions of the British people about their country's role in the world. One audience member after another said words to the effect…
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Continue reading →: Are they rude, or am I out of date?
Crossing the UK border by car today, the young immigration officer asked me if Mrs P could look up and take off her sunglasses. His view of her in the passenger seat was blocked and he needed her to lean forward so he could do his job. Fair enough. Except…
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Continue reading →: When will they ever learn?
Watching Question Time from my old stamping-ground of North-East Wales this week (Paine the Elder and I used to have season tickets to Wrexham AFC when I was a lad) was a dispiriting experience. I could barely contain myself as, commenting on the care homes scandal, a Plaid Cymru MP droned…
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Continue reading →: Stepping in the same river twice
Returning to England after twenty years abroad is a culture shock. It's amazing, for example, that grown men and women are prepared to spend so much of their time sorting household rubbish into different categories. Isn't life short enough for you all? What do you pay your taxes for? Would…
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Continue reading →: A luxurious home for the politically bewildered?
Eurocrats pushing for further integration – Telegraph If I ever contemplate rejoining the Conservative Party, it's because Daniel Hannan is a member. If he can hold his nose amid the statists, maybe I can too? His article in the Telegraph today makes a simple point and makes it well. Britain’s…
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Continue reading →: The charm of leftist incompetence
There is some amusement in the Paine household each morning at the fact that a certain parcel has not been delivered. Since Mrs P. ordered a reading lamp from (aargh) the Guardian online store, other parcels have been ordered (and arrived) from those wicked capitalists at Amazon, L'Occitane, Aveda, Net…
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Continue reading →: Liberty -vs- Spending
It's the liberty, not the spending, Stupid! I am sure that nothing in this report - even though it emanates from a branch of what conspiracy-theorists call "Them" – will change minds on either side of the political divide. As the Adam Smith Institute comments, Strange the way we have to keep…
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Continue reading →: Wild and Free?
Wild and Free Pigs of the Okefenoke Swamp | Network for Education Opportunity. I wonder if any of the sneering leftists who now have the #rallyagainstdebt Twitter hashtag virtually to themselves could see the point of the linked parable? …the younger pigs decided that it was easier to eat free…
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…
[…] – Tom Paine […]
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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.