Posted by Tom Paine on Wednesday, April 14, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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Until the Great Writ of habeas corpus runs again in the land that conceived it; until the presumption of innocence applies once more and "suspect" means only what the dictionary says; until the right of silence applies again, I cannot promise not to write here. But a line has to be drawn, at least for a while.
I can say nothing useful until the coalition government has had the chance to make those changes and many more. So far, they have spoken and written fair words, but handsome is as handsome does and they have already one very black mark against their name. I cannot quite believe that they have already used the very "control orders" (house arrests of innocents) whose introduction to Britain inspired me to start this blog.
As it happens, there are also changes in my own life I must deal with. Great, sad changes that make blogging - at least for a while - seem a very paltry thing. So forgive me if I fall silent for a while.
Posted by Tom Paine on Sunday, May 23, 2010 in Music | Permalink | Comments (22) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted by Tom Paine on Thursday, May 20, 2010 in Civil Liberties | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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uknn: Now independent thinkers are considered diseased by psychiatry.
I am suffering from "oppositional defiant disorder," apparently. But it could be worse.
"If seven-year-old Mozart tried composing his concertos today, he might be diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and medicated into barren normality."
Posted by Tom Paine on Monday, May 17, 2010 in Leftist lunacy | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
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Coalition will "end war on the motorist", Transport Secretary pledges - Telegraph.
This is a wonderful time for the optimist. New ministers set out their stalls in a positive light, saying the things we want to hear and - possibly - setting us up for disappointment.
One reason I may never return to Britain is that it is such a miserable place to drive. It is under provided with roads and bedevilled by speed cameras. The latter are a tax not a safety measure. They cause more accidents than they prevent, because they distract motorists from the job in hand. The speed limits were set in the days of the Morris Minor and take no account of the fact that a modern car can stop in the same distance from a higher speed than such a car could from 30mph.
In short, the British authorities' attitude to motoring is both puritanical and grasping.
I am no boy racer. I am a guy in my 50s with a clean licence and (touch wood) a good safety record. When the Maserati Corse team tried to teach me how to drive hard on a track, they couldn't overcome the safety reflexes instilled by 30+ years of staying alive behind the wheel. All I want is to have reasonable discretion in the use of my car on terms that I take responsibility for any mistakes I may make.
The test of the new Minister's seriousness is this; will he resist the special pleading of the puritanical single issue fanatic who will whine at him to "think of the children?" Or will he accept that accidents happen, people are best taking responsibility for themselves and that no-one wants children (or anyone else) to die?
Watch this space.
Posted by Tom Paine on Saturday, May 15, 2010 in Motoring | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted by Tom Paine on Friday, May 14, 2010 in Society | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
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City of London security guards told to report 'suspicious' photographers | UK news | The Guardian.
Under Labour's illiberal regime, cameras - ludicrously - became suspicious objects at the same time as they became ubiquitous. I always have at least three with me (two on mobile phones and one "real" compact). At a weekend, I might also have my full SLR kit, as photography is my hobby. Dangerously, at least when I am in Britain, cityscapes are my favourite subject.
It is ridiculous to regard photography as a dangerous activity and (as there's no legal basis for the harassment that is now commonplace) it's easy for the Home Office just to tell the police to stop it. For the first time in 13 years, there are grounds for optimism that a Home Secretary might do the right thing.
Well, Theresa? This seems like low-hanging fruit to me.
Posted by Tom Paine on Friday, May 14, 2010 in Civil Liberties | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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This resignation is the real thing. Ding dong. Brown has been a low plotter and a vicious bully since his days in university politics. He is a man with a deluded sense of entitlement to power. The only open question is whether he has a warped moral sense or is a total hypocrite. I suspect the latter. Despite his infuriating (and ultimately self-destructive) claim to a superior moral compass, I believe he is not (like most of us occasionally, despite our best efforts) merely immoral, but actively amoral.
Now watch the left/liberal spin machine rehabilitate his reputation. John Major was a political failure, but is now a "statesman"; wheeled out on important occasions to lend "gravitas". If it can be done for him - a man who should be remembered only for abolishing the right to silence and launching the assault on liberty continued with such vigour by Labour - it can be done for Brown. That would be hard to stomach.
There is still an outside chance (and here readers will say I am a foolish optimist) that he may do his country some good. If he can't let go of his sense of entitlement, despite having no hope of playing any active part, he may fall into the destructive role played by Edward Heath in the Thatcher years. John Major and Neil Kinnock, losers both, have at least had the sense to avoid that. Brown, however, will probably be well up for it. He could serve the nation immensely by undermining his left/liberal successors at every turn. Particularly if he continues to use smears as he did - through henchmen - throughout his career.
The problem with this happy thought is that, whereas the media were happy to facilitate Heath's sabotage, they will be less willing to help Brown. While some immediate practical action against the left/liberal bias of the media is possible (e.g. bankrupting the Guardian by cutting the government advertising on which it survives) the problem needs to be addressed at its roots - in the universities. The new government has fierce economic fires to fight. It may fall (as Margaret Thatcher did) into the classic leadership error of prioritising the urgent over the important. In all the cuts that must be made however, there will be ample opportunity to close the madrassas of the Left, entirely dependent as they are on state funding.
Who would notice amidst all the pain to come if funding for all but genuine academic disciplines at universities was slashed? Would the howls of the sociologists, political scientists etc. even be heard above those of front line public sector workers? Would any parents protest if the school curriculum was thoroughly de-politicised as part of spending cuts, refocusing resources on academic subjects? Please note, I am not advocating replacing left-wing propaganda with any other variety. I am advocating political neutrality in state education, which used to be taken for granted.
The poisonous priests of the Left in education have a fatal weakness. They are constitutionally incapable of making an honest living in pursuit of their "craft." Most couldn't even find a publisher without the status conferred by their academic titles. Denied a parasitical existence, some might even be redeemed by honest labour. Cut their subsidies and they are history. Continue to fund them however and they will rewrite history.
Blair famously (and dishonestly) promised to be "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime." Cameron should be tough on the consequences of leftism; tough on the causes of leftists.
Posted by Tom Paine on Wednesday, May 12, 2010 in 2010 General Election | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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I read the reports of Gordon Brown's "resignation" this morning with some amusement. In business when we resign, we hand over our responsibilities and walk away. More often than not, the "resignation" is a polite fiction to conceal that we have been fired. That is not quite what has happened here is it? The only sign that Brown has any real understanding of the election outcome is in this passage;
There is intent there, certainly, but intentions can change. If the deal with the Liberal Democrats (and the assorted fellow travellers they would need) can't be made, what then? The conference is not until the Autumn. Until then, Brown is not handing over to his deputy and going to Scotland on "gardening leave," "to spend more time with his family," or even "to pursue other interests." He is going to lead the country as Prime Minister and lead the Labour Party.
He goes on to say that the British People;
...want us to continue to pursue the economic recovery, and I will do so with my usual vigour and determination...
Vigour and determination are wonderful qualities, but only if applied to good ends. The Kray Twins, for example, were much noted for their vigour and determination. The Labour Party has vigorously and determinedly driven the nation into beggary. I loved the fact that The Guardian reported markets fell on news of his "resignation," as if even the wicked capitalists thought it a bad thing. At no other time in Brown's career, even when people and press were fooled by his Humpty Dumpty like redefinition of profligacy as "prudence," would the markets have trembled at his demise. They fell on fear of more Labour, not less Brown.
So Mr Brown is going months from now, perhaps. Between now and then, anything can happen. For all the grave-dancing in the excitable blogosphere, it's far too soon to celebrate. Not that celebration is at all appropriate neck-deep in the mess of debt in which Labour, true to historic form, has mired us. While the supreme proof of the mediocrity of Labour's apparatus is that Brown could rise as he did, the Labour Party is an evil in itself, not because it's led by him.
There was no hope of a positive result from this election. The only good outcome would have been the destruction of Labour. It didn't happen. It bred its client vote parasites on the body politic to such numbers, that it was simply not possible. Those blood-suckers are not even dimly aware that their future depends on the health of their host animal. So, while the politicians bicker over titles and ministerial Jaguars, the fight for our nation's survival is still on.
Posted by Tom Paine on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 in 2010 General Election | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
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Election 2010: Scotland saw through the English public schoolboys | UK news | guardian.co.uk.
The BNP is on the wane, but its spirit lives in Scotland. We knew the Scots were not fond of us, but who knew it was this bad? McKenna's piece is probably criminal, given the extent to which it incites the English to hate his fellow Scots. Not to worry. Spare yourself the cost of a lawyer, laddie. We are not the whingeing, easily-offended types. We have been hated by far better men than you, McKenna, and thrived.
You ask if Scotland and England have ever been farther apart. Aye, laddie. We have been at war far more times than you like selectively to remember. Usually with England's deadliest enemies as your allies, and you their dupes. It only ended when you bankrupted yourselves in a vain attempt to emulate us and came crawling to be bailed out. Of course, it's all forgotten now - South of the Border - but if you want to write fetid stuff like this...
I also detected a mounting fury among Scots voters at what they regarded as a very English election and the viciousness of the vendetta that was mounted against Gordon Brown. We believe that we share with him a sense of rectitude not apparent in louche England.
At times during this election he was like a dancing bear tethered to a wall and suffering the little torments of the mob. Many hearts bled for him, even those who had not previously been well-disposed to him.
...you may expect even the relaxed English to remember their history. "Louche" are we? My dictionary defines that as:
disreputable or sordid in a rakish or appealing way
I don't deny we have our black sheep, but I think you can give us a run for our money in the "disreputable and sordid" stakes. Good luck with the "appealing" part though.
By the way, no wonder you are so catastrophically stupid in your political judgements. You can't even distinguish pompous hypocrisy from rectitude. We don't hate him for being Scots, you ass. We hate him for bankrupting our country while (rather like you in this article) pretending to be our moral superior. We shall feel free to hate you, however, for thinking us as petty, tribal and class-ridden as yourself.
Before you get on your moral high sheep, please bear in mind that you have imposed a government on us we do not want - and not for the first time. Bear in mind also that we are well aware you have the irresponsible luxury to do it because a mere 163,000 of you are net contributors to the national Treasury. The rest of you are serpent-toothed ingrates, as you and your fathers have been since the Acts of Union they grovelled for. You tell us that;
An economic recovery programme that targets the public sector and thus the poorest and most vulnerable will strain the union to breaking point.
I have never read a more high-toned piece of self-serving pompous tosh in my life (and I am a regular reader of the Guardian!) You are hopelessly out of date if you think we give a drunken ghillie's fart for the Union. We are all for anything that will promote the Scottish non-dependence you bang on about, but never actually want. Face it laddie. You want to leave the Union as much as a flea wants to leave a dog.
Be off with you. Found your Socialist Republic. Try not to be shocked when the United Kingdom you have left vetoes your application to join the EU. After all, why should we let you continue your parasitism by other means? The best of luck bleeding white those poor, isolated 163,000! You might have to nail them to their office floors to do it. It might even be amusing, before the borders are closed, to offer them political asylum.
Perhaps that would even be the kindest thing to do? After all, it's about the only way you will ever learn to stand on your own feet and stop blaming everything on us.
Posted by Tom Paine on Sunday, May 09, 2010 in Untied Kingdom | Permalink | Comments (13)
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We already knew that so few people care about habeas corpus, jury trial, the presumption of innocence, policing by consent or even respect for privacy or freedom of choice that these were not election issues. The parties banged on about what they could do for us if elected. What they could spend on us. They talked about tax credits, benefits, "investment" in education and health - all without any word about the cost or who would bear it. Except, of course, for the evil "rich". All three main parties despise those guys, yet all also seem convinced of their loyalty, patriotism and generosity. If you based your opinion on what politicians expect of the rich, rather on how they speak of them, you might think them wonderful.
Nor was there talk of reforming a "democracy" in which the Conservatives' electoral failure would, for Labour, have been a triumph. No-one mentioned the iniquities of a system that allows a Scottish led Labour Party to bribe Scots with English gold into imposing a socialist system for which the English did not vote.
No-one was promising to end the sickening waste of human potential involved in a state education system more Marxist than any ever implemented in the Soviet Union. No-one even hinted at a plausible plan for weaning corrupted millions from state dependence.
The outcome could scarcely have been worse. While the politicians squabble over their dunghills, the decisive economic action we need will never be taken and the cost, when it is finally forced upon us, mounts. This unstable situation will not last. We are stuck in a permanent election where no question is too dangerous to be ignored. The electorate has voted for denial.
The political mould was not broken. The number of Liberal Democrat MPs fell. They are now reduced to political whoredom, pimped by their lightweight leader. The Labour core vote - incredibly - held. I cannot imagine what Labour would have to do to a Glaswegian, Geordie or Liverpudlian before he would stop voting for them, but I am pretty sure - if filmed - it would get an "18" certificate. The Tories sold their souls, but the Devil cheated them of their price. If a two constituency sample is anything to go by, it seems that Britain has about 65,000 Libertarians. Even if all well-armed and fighting fit (and most of us are neither) it's barely enough for a coup d'etat, let alone an electoral breakthrough.
It seems the British people will sleep until external forces wake them from the childish dreams which comprise their political thought. They will believe in "something for nothing" until economic realities take that something away, a la Grecque. So much for the voice of the people then. We will hear the voice of money now. Don't expect it to sing lullabies.
Posted by Tom Paine on Saturday, May 08, 2010 in 2010 General Election | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)
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Mrs Paine woke me by telephone with news of frustrated people clamouring to vote as the polls were due to close. She was watching people being allowed in to vote even as the first results were being declared. Those votes are invalid but will be impossible to distinguish (unless the officials were at least smart enough to use a new ballot box) from valid ones.
It will therefore be open to losing candidates to challenge those results. It's a telling (forgive the pun) story in a few respects. We have conducted elections in this simple way with pieces of paper thrust into boxes for centuries without problems. The turnout may be high, but postal votes were made generally available, reducing the pressure of the "live" vote. None of my family actually went to polling stations this time. There is therefore no good reason for queues if polling stations were properly organised and adequately staffed.
Yet as is typical in Britain, what was once easy is now difficult. An education system in which not only is bad behaviour tolerated (or actively rewarded) but poor performance is never critiqued has resulted in a population that can't distinguish sloppiness from competence. The "self-esteem" of modern Britons is such that piss-poor performance simply doesn't shake it.
It's also interesting that voters would insist (aggressively according to Mrs P.) on being allowed to vote contrary to law. There is so much law in Britain now (and people are so used to being constantly in breach of it) that the emotional significance of Law itself has been diminished. Peelite "policing by consent" is only possible if most people self-enforce, which only happens if the Law itself is generally respected. The alternative, as we have seen, is policing by ever-increasing force. From Mrs P's description of the scenes, it would certainly have taken more force than was to hand to hold the would-be voters back. There was a time when they would have tutted at their misfortune and walked away.
Challenges to results, leading to re-runs of the relevant elections, would be morally justified if results were close but they might be legally justified regardless. Perfectly good results could be overturned on a technicality and the elections re-run because of this incompetence.
Results from affected constituencies are likely to be skewed by more than the direct impact of the votes that should not have been cast. I have always thought it ridiculous that elections are conducted on a working day in Britain (unlike everywhere else I have lived). The unemployed, pensioners and under worked government employees have all the time in the world to vote, but the private sector voters who will fund the government have to fit it in with earning a living. Postal ballots (not least because of the corruption that their introduction seems almost to have been designed to facilitate) will tend to favour Labour. The voters turned away at 10pm however, probably included more Conservatives. Those who work hard to pay the piper tend to be more critical of his playing, after all.
Happy though I always am for my fellow lawyers to make an honest living, I hope the result is clear enough that the courts don't have to decide who won. I can't predict what mischief minor parties might attempt, but the main parties will be embarrassed to resort to law, unless individual results are close. It would certainly be a disaster if we had the equivalent of embittered Democrats in America arguing that the election was stolen in the courts. The next government has dreadful duties to perform and will need all the popular support it can get.
Posted by Tom Paine on Friday, May 07, 2010 in 2010 General Election | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
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Depression – Counting Cats in Zanzibar.
I started to write a brief comment over at Counting Cats, where blogger NickM is depressed about today's election. One of his commenters, IainB, said that Labour would not be destroyed as it deserves because of its "client vote". I am sure that hardly alleviated Nick's depression and I tried to weigh in gently. My comment grew and grew however, consuming my blogging time budget for the day, so I am recycling it here.
Many bitter words have been said in the past few weeks. I defer to no-one in my contempt for the Labour Party, but today - as we try to influence our collective future - we should be one nation. We must try to hate the sin and not the sinners, at least as far as Labour voters are concerned
...even those on the client payroll must know in their hearts that this can’t go on. I feel sorry for some who will vote Labour today out of fear for their non-jobs or the future of the lame “services” on which they depend. Apart from the underclass (probably less than a million individuals) they are not willing parasites. They simply have no experience of providing for themselves. More to the point, given the economic destruction wrought by Labour and the lack of any clear, honest solution from the Tories, they understandably have no confidence that any likely government will ever leave them enough of their own earnings to do so.
Of course I am disappointed in anyone who votes for fairyland politics today, but I accept they are not deliberately destroying our country. They are clinging to its wreckage, with no idea what else to do. Most (if they are honest) know in their hearts that they are stealing from their children and grandchildren. They are familiar with the concept because it’s just what their parents and their grandparents did to them with their unfunded Welfare State. It was only during Blair’s time in number 10, after all, that we finished paying America back the money our grandparents borrowed to fund their great “vision” in 1946. Their “stamps” didn’t pay it all. We did.
None of this is Gordon Brown’s fault. Blair concealed his motives well, but Brown has been openly, honestly intent on reducing us to the living standards and civic culture of the former East Germany. He sincerely believes in “equality” and seriously thinks that we will be poorer but happier in social solidarity under firm government. Under his leadership, Labour has once again been an honest party of losers, for losers. It has openly promoted loserdom as a lifestyle. No, the fault for today’s impending fiasco lies entirely with HM Opposition for failing to sell reality to the deluded and/or terrified voters.
My wife says Cameron had no choice. The voters are hypocrites; complaining that no-one tells them the truth, but punishing anyone who tries to do so. She thinks Cameron will imitate Blair in substance as well as style; pretending to be ideologically close to the outgoing government but then introducing by stealth every aspect of his true agenda. I am not convinced, which in a way is a compliment to Cameron. I don’t think he is that warped.
It has come to something, has it not, when our only hope is that David Cameron is a despicable liar? Just like Blair.
The ordinary people of Britain have never had a greater enemy than the Labour Party and, like Nick, I long to see it fatally crushed today. But too many of my friends and family are Labour voters for me to hate them for their political errors. They are my fellow citizens too and today I simply hope against hope that their folly does us all less harm than that of their predecessors in our parents' and grandparents' generations.
Whatever you do today, vote. I am disenfranchised as a long-time expatriate, so if you weren't planning to do it for yourself, please go vote for me. Good luck.
Posted by Tom Paine on Thursday, May 06, 2010 in 2010 General Election, Labour | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
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For every promise broken, for every lie told, for every soldier sent to war ill-equipped, for every child's future blighted by Marxist educational dogma, for every pound seized and squandered and - most of all - for every freedom lost, Labour must pay tomorrow with its political life.
If we have self-respect as a nation, we must not dodge this choice. Voting for someone who will decide for us later whether David Cameron or Gordon Brown should be Head of Government is cowardice.
If you have a Libertarian candidate to vote for, go ahead with pride. Start us on the long path to a real change that can restore the nation. For the rest of you alas only the Conservatives - flawed as they are - can end this.
Posted by Tom Paine on Wednesday, May 05, 2010 in 2010 General Election | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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h/t Cranmer
Posted by Tom Paine on Tuesday, May 04, 2010 in 2010 General Election | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted by Tom Paine on Sunday, May 02, 2010 in Images | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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I approach The Guardian daily in the spirit of Don Vito Corleone; keeping my friends close, but my enemies closer. The linked article, however, struck a chord. A regular commenter named Chuckles recently asked me (speaking of my perspective on Britain);
Do you think long spells spent in foreign climes under different jurisdictions and compulsions contribute to this?
Yes, I do. Since I left to work abroad in 1992 I have learned that our national self-image differs greatly from the perceptions of others. We see ourselves as the nation of fair play, but we are widely perceived as dishonest, for example. That's a perception worsened by our political correctness. That nasty curdled version of our once-famous politeness causes Brits to approach issues crabwise for fear of causing offence. It comes over as fake and - frankly - it is. When I discuss issues with foreign friends in a direct way, I wince at the inevitable "compliment" of being told that I am "...not at all like an Englishman..."
The foreign correspondents reporting our election are, delightfully, not as mealy-mouthed as their PC British counterparts. Here's the correspondent of El Mundo speaking of some of the campaign's main characters;
We all miss him [Tony Blair]. All the foreign correspondents ... He's such a greedy guy! And a liar. You know he was just a real politician, an actor, a multimillionaire. He was just such fun ... Whereas Gordon Brown is dour and boring, nobody cares about him...He gets on well with the Spanish prime minister but this is because they are both in a terrible position ... they are like two drunks who are holding on to each other in the street to stop themselves falling over ... my favourite is Mr Mandelson. He's the most grotesque character. I absolutely adore him. He's so funny. And he's such a drama queen. He exaggerates everything. But he's very intelligent – he's the first one to come up with a new catchphrase. And he's always in tune with the mood. He smells the mood around him. Yesterday he said: 'Flirt with Nick Clegg and you'll end up married to Cameron.' Which is brilliant, isn't it? He's just so funny. Funnier even than Lembit Öpik.
He has those guys nailed. The France 24 correspondent, however, seems determined to live up to her national stereotype;
The Conservatives have been giving the best press conference breakfasts; good croissants, excellent pains au chocolat…
As a long-time resident in Russia, I smiled at the perspective of the Moskovsky Komsomolets correspondent:
What is hard to explain is how a couple of phrases from Nick Clegg, about the two other 'old parties', seems to have changed the mind of so many of the electorate. The Russians would find it intriguing that the British public could be so persuadable.
But what of the Germans? Though our ethnic brothers, they are after all the most foreign of foreigners to the English, perpetually in opposition to our barbaric culture and Anglo-Saxon values and with no decent food to compensate for their disdain. Yet the London correspondent of ZDF makes some perceptive observations. She is genuinely puzzled by;
...the fact that Nick Clegg has the same type of background as Cameron and yet he manages to be the Robin Hood of the poor. How did he do that? I think he must have very good PR...
She gets into her stride however when giving our democracy a well-deserved Teutonic kicking:
...no one can understand in Germany why Clegg's party is gaining around 30% of the polls but will only gain 15% of the seats in parliament. I have to say that I think our system is more democratic. Which, considering it was Britain that gave the system of democracy to the world, is quite unbelievable...
The main truth of this election however, is also the main truth about us. Like the British people themselves the campaign is self-absorbed, inward-looking and has an air of unjustified superiority. The campaigners preen and strut as if they were taking part in the world's only democracy. Even the pro-EU LibDems don't dare to mention that there is more to the world than our islands. Our Spanish friend Eduardo Suárez of El Mundo (whom I would love to buy a pint someday) nails both that and the world's response to it:
...you are only interested in yourself. You don't care about anyone else, any other country, you just spend all your time looking at yourself, this is very funny...
Funny, yes. And also sad. No-one is impressed guys. They are laughing because this childish self-absorption is just another sign of a great civilisation dwindling.
Posted by Tom Paine on Sunday, May 02, 2010 in 2010 General Election | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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Secret Christian donors bankroll Tories | World news | The Observer.
The Labour Party was once a movement of muscular Christians. Now it's a smear to report that Christians have donated to their opponents. Since all the major donations are public (no real journalism was therefore required to research the linked article) the word "secret" is certainly nothing but a smearing innuendo.
Since religions prosper under persecution and poverty - Labour and its fellow travellers seem intent on creating the conditions for a great Christian revival in Britain. Though I am an atheist myself, it would not particularly bother me. I share most of the Christian values in which our civilisation was marinated for centuries. At least, unlike the Liberals, Christians would return with the same values as when they were last influential.
I had to smile, rather sadly, at the observational comedy of one Conservative donor, Christian businessman Michael Farmer:Posted by Tom Paine on Sunday, May 02, 2010 in 2010 General Election | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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The Magistrate's Blog: The Dog That Didn't Bark In The Night.
I rarely agree with Bystander at The Magistrate's Blog. He has those moral calluses that policemen, magistrates and judges acquire from long labour at the coal face of justice. He tends to see everyone as a potential offender and is particularly unfond of motorists. Yesterday, however, he made a good point; one also made by Henry Porter in his foxhole behind enemy lines at The Guardian;
What is worrying is the chill that has descended on civil liberties, as though freedom was some minority issue for eccentrics, rather than the oxygen of democracy. The failure of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to raise the attack on liberties by the Labour party and so signal its vital importance to the electorate is one of the more depressing aspects of the last few weeks.
Poor dear Henry underestimates the issue. Freedom is not subordinate to democracy. Democracy is of no value unless it serves to protect freedom. It can sometimes be better to be a subject of a tyrannical but limited monarchy than a citizen of a big State kleptocratic democracy.
Labour's worst crime has been its onslaught on Liberty. Five long years and thousands of words ago, that onslaught inspired me to start this blog. This election is a disappointment to me in so many ways, but the key one is this. For all that Labour has done, Liberty is not an election issue.
Our infantilised electorate has been under the clumsy care of Mother State for so long that the bars of its play pen have become its horizon. As Bystander says, echoing Porter;Posted by Tom Paine on Thursday, April 29, 2010 in 2010 General Election, Civil Liberties | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0)
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Gordon Brown 'penitent' after bigot gaffe torpedoes election campaign | Politics | The Guardian.
Gordon Brown is the right man to lead the Labour Party. He personifies its spirit of malicious irresponsibility. A true Labour person is someone for whom every problem is another's fault. Labour's scapegoats march in massed ranks and the party's creativity mainly expresses itself in devising new terms of political abuse.
Mrs Duffy, as some relieved Brown aides noted to the press, got off quite lightly. The remarks were not so much about her as about ascribing blame for exposing Brown to an awkward situation. He didn't say (and would never say, unless forced to apologise for political gain) that he messed up. Rather, he blamed the people who worked for him. Though leader of the supposed workers' party, he is in truth the worst kind of boss. According to the Guardian;
Morale in the Labour campaign slumped as even some of Brown's closest aides vented their fury at him, with one describing him as "a pathetic blame shifter"
Confronted about it on air, head self-pityingly in hands, his unguarded first response was to say he would never have allowed himself to be put in a situation where he would say something like that about someone. What does that even mean? Only that, in true Labour fashion, it was someone else's fault; the fault of some loyal employee whose reward was to be blamed.
A "bigot", to Brown, is anyone who does not mindlessly agree with the Labour Party. If Mrs Duffy was to be subject to public denunciation or private smear, she would be far more carefully categorised. Even now, as his campaign team search for dirt about this bemused old lady, they are aching to call her a racist; to negate her whole life with a single word. And why not? the technique has worked so well for so long that even Labour opponents like Iain Dale have adopted it. Why reason with someone you can cast into the political darkness with a word?
The pathetic shifting of blame is what the Labour Party is for. After a lifetime of malicious smears of anyone who blocked his path, Gordon Brown no longer knows right from wrong. If, indeed, he ever did. In that too, he personifies his party. Built on envy, fuelled by malice and endlessly contemptuous of its own supporters it has now reached its nadir. Deliciously, it got here by choosing a leader with more of its ideological DNA than any before him. Surely its time is now over?Posted by Tom Paine on Thursday, April 29, 2010 in 2010 General Election | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
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Iain Dale's Diary: Good Riddance to Mr Lardner.
There is no reason why a Conservative should not be homosexual or vice versa. A person's sexuality is politically irrelevant. So, per se, is a person's opinion about sexuality. So why are Iain Dale and Tory Rascal in such a tizz about the very conservative (but probably soon-to-be-ex-Conservative) Philip Lardner?
If he had suggested any legal consequences of his view that homosexuality is "not normal", that would be worthy of discussion. It would be outrageous for a parliamentary candidate to suggest, for example, that homosexuals should enjoy fewer civil rights or be subject once more to criminal penalties. Those days are gone and rightly so. That Lardner simply thinks homosexuality is "not normal" (whether you agree with him or not) is however irrelevant. He has observed, oddly, that;
Toleration and understanding is one thing, but state-promotion of homosexuality is quite another...
What's odd about it is the notion that homosexuality can ever be successfully "promoted." If you are not that way inclined, frankly I think it's pretty unlikely you are going to be talked into it. it's as unappealing a notion to those of another persuasion as that of heterosexual fun and games presumably is to gays. For that matter, sexual orientation is not binary. It's a long and at times strange continuum. Whether it's determined by nature or nurture is, pace Iain (for whom that science was settled by Freud) a matter of opinion, but where one falls upon it has little to do with choice. Others have no legitimate interest in your place on the continuum for so long as you only ever act upon it with a consenting adult partner.
That homosexuality exists in nature, is a matter to be taught in Biology. That it was once illegal is a matter to be taught in History. That homosexuals now enjoy equal rights is a matter to be taught in Civics. None of that amounts to "promotion," which is why Philp Lardner's observation is odd. As is his nostalgia for Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which referred scathingly to the notion of homosexuality as "a pretended family relationship."
I don't know Mr Lardner and I suspect I wouldn't like him much if I did. He has expressed some other old-fashioned views unlikely to commend him to the modern voter and I can't help but feel his local party was ill-advised to select him. But his opinions on this matter don't deserve the attention they are getting, not least from David Cameron. Indeed on one point, many of us would have been reassured if his leader had backed him. Freedom of speech is a conservative (and was once a Conservative) value, for which Iain is a strong and admirable advocate, except when homosexuality is the topic. Therefore I could wish that David Cameron, Iain and Tory Rascal would find it in them to agree with Lardner's statement that;
Normality and abnormality are themselves politically irrelevant. The desire to join a political party, let alone to run for office, is statistically far more "abnormal" than homosexuality. I hesitate to offer this as a reductio ad absurdam for fear it will be embraced by the Labour Party as policy, but stupidity is very normal, whereas high intelligence is not. Yet, who (apart from a desperate Gordon Brown) would take seriously a proposal to exclude atypically intelligent people from voting?Christians (and most of the population) believe homosexuality to be somewhere between 'unfortunate' and simply 'wrong' and they should not be penalised for politely saying so
I forget which actor responded to congratulations on being the first black man to win some award by saying that race would cease to be a problem when it was "like different flavours of pizza; not even worth mentioning." I think Iain and Tory Rascal might usefully meditate on that wisdom. I have never troubled my readers with details of my sexuality and I don't propose (you will be relieved to know) to begin now. Not least because I don't seek your approval. On the contrary, if I may express myself in abnormally High Tory terms, it's none of your damned business so be off with you before I fetch my horsewhip.
The "gay rights" movement has triumphed and I, for one, am pleased. That it has yet to fade away is, I suspect, merely nostalgia. The erstwhile activists are simply not ready to leave the field of victory. Their lounging around on their laurels, however, is in danger of becoming counter-productive. The once-persecuted may even be at risk of becoming persecutors. Most of us in Britain take Mrs Patrick Campbell's classically liberal view that:
My dear, I don't care what they do, so long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses.
The religious Right in Britain has never enjoyed the influence it has in America. Nor have social conservatives generally (as witness Mrs Campbell's wisdom). There is a danger that Christians told they may not teach their children "the Word of God" may join forces with immigrants belonging to even more sexually conservative religions. If Iain and others insist on demanding active approval for their sexuality, they will awaken forces we can all - straight and gay - well do without.
Posted by Tom Paine on Wednesday, April 28, 2010 in Society | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBack (0)
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General Election 2010: Nick Clegg's demand for NHS to be broken up | Mail Online.
Has everyone in Britain been taken over by politically naieve aliens? Here we have an article in a "right wing" newspaper "smearing" a "centre left" politician for (unlike the leader of the allegedly "right wing" "Conservatives) making a sensible suggestion (five years ago) about breaking up the Soviet-style NHS. He suggested replacing it with an insurance-based system (horrors!) just like in Social Democrat Germany, France or Sweden (or pretty much anywhere civilised you would like to name, including some countries still nominally "Communist"). Cuba is one of few places these days to have anything resembling the system that Britain likes to delude itself is "the envy of the world." Such is the scale of that delusion, that the BBC has been known to glorify Cuban healthcare, which isn't even the envy of Cuba.
I don't get it. Nick Clegg has made perhaps the first sensible observation by a Liberal since Gladstone died and he's being attacked from the right? He's still a blithering whatsit and a vote for the LibDems still a bad idea, but credit where it's due. He was right on this one. 100% right.Posted by Tom Paine on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 in 2010 General Election | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
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That's just a screen shot and there's no way to embed the movie here, so please follow the link. The production values are not great, the presentation is amateurish and the one joke is lame, but it's a short movie you will be glad you watched. I have suggested before that politicians should be required to cost their projects, not in hundreds of millions of pounds, but in taxpayer working lives or TWLs. It might help people apply some sort of gut-feel cost/benefit analysis to the ideas politicians come up with to waste our working lives. I also think it would be only polite for the Directorate of Slavery (aka Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs) to send "thank you" letters confirming how many days we were forced to work for the government each year.
One way or another, if we don't find a way to grasp the huge numbers squandered by our drones we are doomed.
A deferential h/t to the The Blogfather.
Posted by Tom Paine on Monday, April 26, 2010 in Economics | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted by Tom Paine on Sunday, April 25, 2010 in 2010 General Election | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted by Tom Paine on Sunday, April 25, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted by Tom Paine on Sunday, April 25, 2010 in 2010 General Election | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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