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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…
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Continue reading →: A glimpse into the envious minds of Britain
A glimpse into the modern home of David and Samantha 'two kitchens' Cameron | Mail Online. Mrs P. alerted me to the linked Daily Mail article because she was upset by its envious tone (and even more so that of some of the reader comments). She's right. The Cameron's new…
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Continue reading →: Fiona Pilkington and justice. Shall the twain meet?
Fiona Pilkington case: police face misconduct proceedings | UK news | guardian.co.uk. I am not arguing with the findings of the IPCC. I don't know enough to do so. Nor am I belittling these tragic deaths. These women were as entitled as you or me to a life untroubled by…
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Continue reading →: April’s fools?
Government borrowing hits April record | Business | guardian.co.uk. David Cameron is still rebranding the Conservative Party by his odd technique of never doing anything that Labour might not also have done. This makes life hard for Milliband, who is reduced to attacking what everyone knows would have been his…
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Continue reading →: Criminals suck
Apart from the anti-intellectualism of my Northern school-mates, the worst thing about my school was the way the bad children set the rules. Not that misbehaviour was rife. Those were the early days of the comprehensive fiasco. My "high school" had been a tough secondary modern a year before I…
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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Almost. I think Archbishop Sarah is a Christian. I just think she’s at a loss to know how to reach…
It’s almost as if they are not actually Christian but simply a person being advised by woke PR people in…
She may be gone but you have all those wonderful memories :-)
I miss the more traditional Anglican services that I remember from my younger years. I haven’t regularly attended church services…
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The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
I’m sure there are a few fire and brimstone types they could have had instead of a woke woman. Putting…