We want our money back

Having lived in post-communist countries, I have some experience of corruption. I have been asked for bribes. I know people who have paid them. Some regard them as a tax. Some regard them as a useful degree of "flexibility" in an impossibly bureaucratic system. Friends who grew up under Communism, where the State's involvement in every aspect of the people's lives made corruption inevitable have listened politely but have - I suspect - never believed me when I have told them that generations of my family have been in business in Britain without paying bribes.

I have been running an experiment in this matter for 15 years. I have deliberately set out never to pay even the smallest bribe in my personal or business life. I have encountered much incredulity from policemen to whom I have paid the full fine for minor traffic offences (always imaginary) in order to get an official receipt, as opposed to accepting the usual "discount for cash". Accepting the impossibility of obtaining a driving licence properly in Russia as a foreigner, I have elected to be driven. Life is less convenient. Others who enter into the spirit of the corrupt life enjoy friendly relations with policemen; one friend even has a "season ticket" which allows him to break any traffic laws he likes on a particular stretch of road he uses regularly. Others boast about poking banknotes through car windows to be snatched deftly at speed as they make time-saving illegal turns.

Corruption is not a joke. As a lawyer, I don't believe that laws are good per se. Rather, I agree with Montesquieu who said that "If it is not necessary to make a law, it is necessary NOT to make a law". Laws are, at best, a necessary evil. They always cost something; at best they transparently cost money to enforce and to comply with. At worst they inhibit personal freedoms, waste precious time in our finite lives, or encourage corruption. Since all these costs are compulsory, they are tantamount to money extorted under threat of personal violence. Try not paying your taxes or fines and you will ultimately face physical assault by agents of the State and compulsory detention.

Taxes are legalised extortion. Laws are legalised assault. They should only be deployed when, as Montesquieu said, they are truly necessary. Our interfering State has lost all sight of that test. It is willing to legislate the minutiae of our private and business lives. It is seriously suggested, for example, that Tessa Jowell recently committed an offence subject to a £20,000 fine when she and some colleagues burst into public song at a demonstration, as this was an unlicensed musical performance. I heard a recording, and am prepared to defend her on grounds it wasn't music at all, but you get my drift.

Taxes in Britain are effectively much higher than they seem because of the number of people businesses have to employ to ensure compliance with tax and employment laws. Many of our private sector employees don't serve their employer's customers; they serve the State. Compliance costs lead - when they become a threat to the existence of a business - to corruption.

For the first time in my middle-aged life, I am sensing the existence of widespread corruption in my home country. I know of people in Britain going out of business because of corrupt demands from low level employees of the Health & Safety Executive, for example. These demands come on top of compliance costs, direct and indirect, which are making the business uneconomic.

I don't believe these are isolated incidents. They go to the top. As a lawyer, I know a little about reorganising business affairs so as lawfully to avoid legal or tax obligations. After a couple of decades, while you still need to check carefully what you are doing, you develop a sixth sense about the borderline between lawful "structuring" and crude evasion or fraud.

When Tony Blair's fund-raiser asked businessmen for loans rather than political donations, he and they will have known exactly what it was about. A donation would be public and any benefits the donor received in return would have been a matter of public discussion. A loan would be private, allowing any benefits to the lender to pass without comment. Someone who would might perhaps be embarrassed to be seen to "purchase" an honour or some other benefit with a donation, could bask in the glory of that honour without his family, friends and shareholders realising that it was bought and paid for.

Since the Labour Party has no income but membership dues (precious few) and donations, one wonders how the loans were ever to be repaid. That the Party should be in danger of bankruptcy now that embarrassed "lenders" are calling in their "loans" suggests that repayment was not seriously expected. That loans were solcited with words to the effect that "You would be doing the Prime Minister a favour" strikes a chord with a long-time resident of the post-Communist world. Believe me, if a Minister in the old Soviet Bloc asked for something - anything - with those words, every businessman would get the message immediately. He would understand he was being offered something in return. One has to ask what was going through the mind of the bank or building society manager who awarded the Blairs a mortgage well beyond their ability to repay. Was s/he "doing the Prime Minister a favour" too?

These direct - and crude - examples of sleaze are only the tip of the iceberg. When a Party so organises the constitution that 84% of the nation is governed by legislation passed on the votes of legislators whose own electors are not subject to those laws, is that democracy? Either we are one nation, or we are not. If we are, then we must accept that laws in Scotland and England depend of the votes of all MP's. If Scotland's laws depend only on Scottish legislators, but England's depend on those from Scotland (because the Labour Party cannot otherwise govern in England) that is a corrupt arrangement. It was designed by Labour to favour its electoral heartlands and punish the voters of other parties.

When the Prime Minister, without the prior knowledge or approval of Parliament or even of his Chancellor (Finance Minister), gives away two billion pounds of taxpayers' money per year to other European nations, with no advantage for his nation in return, we are entitled to ask the question "cui bono?" and to be alert to future benefits to the man who made the otherwise inexplicable decision.

When local taxes are raised 40% during a Party's reign in its electoral heartlands, and 87% in those parts of the country where it is not favoured, then one is entitled to suspect that the nation's finances are being corruptly rigged to purchase votes.

Britain today is a profoundly corrupt nation. I suspect there is much more corruption than we presently know about. I cannot explain the craven attitude of most journalists to the present Government, for example. I cannot understand why every reference to Labour corruption is set in historical context by reference to stories of similar misbehaviour by other parties - even if the journos have to make unaccustomed visits to libraries to find examples from previous eras. I cannot understand why, during Labour governments, satire in Britain closes down. Why "The Goodies" and "Little Britain" are typical lowbrow comedy during Socialist admnistrations, while "Not the Nine O'Clock News" and "Yes, Minister" are more typical of the BBC's efforts when the Tories are in power. One can smell rottenness, even when one cannot pinpoint the source.

I am depressed that, just when the public may finally sense the costs of Labour's misrule, the Tories have chosen to fight on their enemies' home ground. Dave Cameron may have eschewed "Punch and Judy" politics just when Mr Punch was finally in position to get in a damn good whack with his stick on the crocodile of Labour corruption. Opinion polls suggest (who gets paid to phrase these questions, one wonders?) that the public think Labour is "as sleazy" as John Major's Tories. By breaking with the past, Dapper Dave has lost the chance to make the obvious point that the alleged Tory sleaze related to hundreds of pounds in "cash for questions" and hotel bills, not millions or even billions in extortion and misdirected State funds!

I remain of the opinion that many members of our current Cabinet belong not merely out of office, but out of polite society. Some may even have earned a right to a rather different kind of rent-free accomodation at Her Majesty's expense than the "grace and favour" residences they so enjoy in office.

Telegraph | News | We want our money back

Special reports | Kick out the slippers and choc biscuits. iPods and surfboards catch the spirit of today's Brits

Call me suspicious, maybe even paranoid, but does it make sense for the Government to include high-tech goods into its "basket" of items for tracking consumer inflation? iPods cost hundreds now, but so did calculators when they were first sold. Now they are low value "give-away" items. Aren't MP3 players likely to go the same way in time? The last DVD player to be made in the US cost something close to $1,000. Now China supplies them to retailers at more like $20.

I can't help but fear that the Government, no stranger to twisting the truth, is manipulating the inflation index. Including goods virtually guaranteed to decline in price serves to offset the costs - such as local taxes - that are rising well in excess of inflation.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Kick out the slippers and choc biscuits. iPods and surfboards catch the spirit of today's Brits

French labor law protests turn violent

One consequence of the labour code that French students are protesting is the highest youth unemployment in Western Europe. Were it not for Britain providing jobs - many in catering - to hundreds of thousands of young French people, the situation would be even worse.

The "job security" these young protestors yearn for is illusory. There is no security unless you can first get a job. With millions of French employees "placardisés" (given non-jobs with no prospects because it's too expensive to fire them) no employer will hire young people too inexperienced to be useful on terms that they can't be fired if they don't progress.

Opportunity is better than security. Sure it varies through economic cycles, but "job security" tends to intensify those cycles. It is noticeable when I visit Britain these days that a sense of job security has destroyed what was always a very weak service culture. Why worry about customers, when your boss can't find anyone to replace you whatever you do?

We would all have a healthier attitude to our employment; be more motivated and - ironically - enjoy our work more, if our job were a valuable commodity to be looked after, rather than a civil right.

CNN.com - French labor law protests turn violent - Mar 18, 2006

Cameron's gambit pays off as Blair is isolated

It is remarkable that the leading Conservative newspaper should think that the Prime Minister is only now losing his moral authority. This is the man who has presided over the construction of a police state in Britain; who misled Parliament and people into supporting the war in Iraq; who has raised public expenditure to record levels to no visible effect (other than the purchase of votes from new public sector workers); who gave away two billion to the EU for no good reason (unless to buy goodwill for himself which may prove useful in a future career); who has lied spun his way into the nation's contempt; whose ministers have signally failed to prove - as he promised - "whiter than white".

And NOW he has lost his moral authority?

Apologies for the lack of activity this week. I am in an internet free zone in France. I was especially sad not to post yesterday - my first "blogiversary". I just wish I could say that freedom in Britain was more secure than a year ago.

Telegraph | Opinion | Cameron's gambit pays off as Blair is isolated

Telegraph | Opinion | New suburbia is an environmental cul-de-sac

I can agree with this gentleman about solar panels (although if they were so wonderful, I suspect homeowners would install them themselves) but I cannot agree about "planning gain." Planning gain is a British euphemism for corruption. It is a mechanism by which a local authority can extract a bribe - albeit for the local community, not a councillor personally - in return for giving a landowner permission to use his own land as he wishes. It IS crazy to build thousands of new houses without adding to local facilities, but one can count on private businesses to provide their services without a bribe. Why can't a local authority, which will receive thousands of homes' worth of council tax, be relied on - unbribed - to provide its services?

That the "right wing" Telegraph should publish such garbage is an index of how far Left the "centre ground" in British politics has now moved.

Telegraph | Opinion | New suburbia is an environmental cul-de-sac

Liberty and Trust

I have suffered a personal setback. Someone I considered a friend has proved false. The details don't matter. They are the usual sad melange of self-interest and broken promises. For me, the real issue is trust. I am angry with myself for trusting someone who, with hindsight, was obviously a wrong 'un. I will find it hard to trust again. However, I know that if I allow my misjudgment to inhibit me from trusting, that will damage my life. No trust, no friendship. No trust, no cooperation. No trust, no business.

Attitudes to trust underly politics too. For example, it's not that Socialists trust the collective because they are more trusting. Quite the contrary, in fact. They can see clearly that, left to their own devices, many - if not most - individuals will fail to follow socialist principles. If the massive twentieth century experiment in Socialism proved anything, it proved that. They therefore consciously use State power to enforce their principles "for the greater good". Christians may mutter sadly that "if only" everyone would live a Christian life, the world would be a better place. Socialists are more proactive.

Some Conservatives trust State power too. They want the same big gun as the Socialists, but they want to point it in a different direction. They can be identified by their Daily Mail warcry of "It's a disgrace!" when some wrongdoer escapes the righteous vengeance of the collective. Such people are no more attractive to me than the statists of the left.

Libertarians - or "classical liberals" - trust individuals, but not because we are naive. We don't trust them, for example, to act in a distinterested way. We predict that, more often than not, they will act in accordance with their own perceived self interest. Sometimes we can seem rather cynical because of this. Sometimes Left and Right will attack us for approving of - or even encouraging - the negative aspects of human nature. I don't think that's so. We approve of benevolence. We approve of philanthropy. We are just realistic. We believe that if the State's interference is minimal; mainly focussed on arbitration between conflicting self interests, it can achieve maximum benefit for minimum involvement.

In a sense, therefore, I could trust my ex-friend. He perceived his self-interest to require that I be betrayed. So he betrayed me. Were I a better libertarian, and a worse friend, I might have predicted that.

Man jailed for £1m Prescott theft | the Daily Mail

Clearly this gentleman belongs in jail. Any chance, one wonders, of anyone asking awkward questions of the idiot presiding over a system with such lax financial controls?

Man jailed for £1m Prescott theft | the Daily Mail

Blair stands firm over sleaze inquiries

Of course Mr Blair wants ministers accountable to him, not to an independent commissioner for ethics, or to Parliament. A minister who has erred depends even more on the Prime Minister's favour and is likely to respond with more alacrity to his orders.

The minor corruption of ministers is the echo of the greater corruption in our body politic. The Government is systematically creating armies of dependant voters. Those in the burgeoning public sector hold their sinecures at the Prime Minister's whim, just as much as his craven elite of coddled ministers in their grace and favour homes.

We may already have passed the point at which Labour can be unelected. We may have to wait for the bailiffs from the International Monetary Fund and for the extremists of the Trade Union movement to perform once more the unholy pincer movement that began the Thatcher era.

Telegraph | News | Blair stands firm over sleaze inquiries

Panorama | Double tragedy of Stockwell shooting

There is no sign yet of justice in the case of Jean Charles de Menezes. There was a time when a "Panorama" programme about an injustice could have been expected to lead to some result. I hope it may still be true. The comment in this BBC article about the programme does not give much hope; "However terrible those events of that day, they have to be seen in their context."

In a sense that's true. They should be seen in the context of attempts by the government to whip up hysteria about terrorism. Yes, London had been attacked. How many times has she been attacked in the past? The fact that Israel's policy on "shoot to kill" for suicide bombers requires a positive identification or at least the sighting of a bomb belt speaks volumes.

I wait in hope of this incident being named as what it was; a summary execution by a police death squad on the orders of an out-of-control elite engaged in whipping up public fear so as to justify ever-increasing political power. Somehow I doubt the New Labour poodles at the BBC will do that.

BBC NEWS | Programmes | Panorama | Double tragedy of Stockwell shooting:

A Plot for a Political Novel

If you were seeking corruptly to influence a government, would you bribe a junior minister? Of course not. What could you expect? Would you bribe a Prime Minister? Of course not, it would be too obvious - and dangerous.

Suppose, however, that you spent a Summer holiday with a PM at your villa. Suppose a junior minister and her lawyer husband joined you for a weekend. The PM complained that he was in dire financial straits. Britain is ridiculously puritanical with its leaders. So unlike, say, Italy. "Can you believe, mio amico, that the PM has to pay rent on his Downing Street apartment?". Few people outside Britain can believe that. To be honest, it is crazy. Surely a politician should be able to keep his house, pay his mortgage, and live free in his official residence?

Suppose the PM goes on to say that his position has interfered with his wife's successful business. They have lost money in Britain's booming property market because - to pay the rent on Number 10 - they had had to sell their London house. They could never now afford to buy something like that. It's so unfair. Suppose the PM told his host that he and and his wife were therefore facing retirement without a decent home or the wherewithal to buy one. The obvious way to make money was to write and sell political memoirs, but that had to wait until he left office - and even then his successor would not be happy. How to make money in the meantime? His wife had tried books and speeches, but she couldn't write for toffee and the press had savaged her for her "greed" in charging for the speeches.

Suppose you were that host and made the following suggestion to your guest. "Primo Ministro, let me help you. I will deposit £2.5 million in an offshore account for you with a new company. You can't have such a company or such an account, but I can. Your colleague's husband here is a lawyer, he will organise it. This company will deposit the money with an offshore bank. The bank will receive a fee, and will pay interest on the money at the same rate it charges on mortgage loans in Britain. Then you can take a mortgage loan to buy your house. That loan is "back to back" with the offshore deposit. You will be borrowing my money. The bank will earn a fee. Your colleague and her husband will get a little something for their trouble. They can pay off their own mortgage with that. Everyone wins. It's all completely fair, because your system is so ridiculous and has caused you to lose money by serving your country. And no-one can ever know. What do I want for it? Nothing. Maybe one day, and this day may never come, I will ask you for some favour. Until then accept this justice interest-free loan as my gift."

Suppose then that the go-between political husband - the rank amateur in this high-level group - made some errors of judgement and his little part in the story came out. How desperate would the PM and his advisers be to "kill" that story before further details emerged? Desperate enough to fire her; throw her to the wolves? Of course. But what kind of a reward would that be for her help? Suppose she offered instead to throw her husband to the wolves. He, after all, is a lawyer - unloved by media and people alike. Surely it can be spun that his shady dealings were nothing to do with his politically-savvy, but economically naieve, wife? What journalist will come to his defence? The story will die in seven days. Alistair Campbell always said that no story is a problem unless it lasts more than seven days, right?

Suppose the junior minister loves her husband. She doesn't want him disgraced. Still less does she want to separate. But once the story has died down, she can forgive him and take him back. That will even make some nice headlines - a feelgood story for the rabble.

What do you think? Is this a book you would like to read?

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Lords defeat Blair over terror bill

Is it not ironic that the unelected component of our legislature is the part that best defends - at present - our democratic freedoms?

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Lords defeat Blair over terror bill

Murky: Serious question on the Totalitarianism Bill deflected

Here is an excellent summary by Murky.org of the current position on the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, including an account of a disgraceful ad hominem attack by Geoff Hoon to avoid answering the questions posed by The Professors' Letter.

Hoon's performance does not surprise me. I have met him and he is an obnoxious politico with no sense of the real world.

There are also links to various blog comments on the subject of this appalling bill. It's a great place to begin if you want to understand the issues.

Murky.org: Serious question on the Totalitarianism Bill deflected

Poll shows Labour back in the lead | the Daily Mail

Is this really so surprising? From a principled point of view. there is no point in electing a Conservative Government which promises to be just as statist, tyrannical and determined to squander the nation's wealth as Labour. Dave Cameron has yet to provide the Conservatives with a "unique selling point" to catch the electorate's imagination. Until he does, the best he can hope for is that the rising tide of corruption will damage New Labour's image.

We now have a situation where our political divisions are not betweeen Left and Right, but are essentially regional. If you live in Scotland, Wales or the North of England, then it makes sense to vote Labour. They will subsidise your Council Tax and ensure that you get the maximum benefit from public spending. Of course much of that spending is merely "fiscal churn" (your own money being taken in tax and then given back minus "expenses") but you can expect it to be topped up with tax taken from Conservative voters elsewhere.

In Germany every "Land" (region) has a city which is economically self-sustaining. In Britain, there is only one - London. All the others benefit from net transfers of public expenditure. If you live in London or its "hinterland" of the South, East and Midlands, then you are in the productive parts of our islands. You had best vote Tory. Of course you can't hope for a government that will encourage 9 million unproductive fellow-countrymen into work. Most of them have forgotten how to do it. Perhaps you CAN hope, however, that dapper Dave will be as ruthless and cynical as tinsel Tony in stealing from his opponents' voters and giving to his own.

Of course such regionalism is bound to lead to even greater cynicsm and political division, but it's hard to see how else to proceed. Now that so many depend on the State for their income, no principled stand for a smaller State is likely to win hearts and minds. No doubt the transfer of human resources from productive to unproductive unemployment will all come to grief years from now, but voters worry about how to make this year's mortgage payments, not those years into the future.

Labour has succeeded in making more people dependent on the State than even yesterday's statistics would suggest. In the private sector, many of our employees are "government-facing" not "customer-facing". They are paid by their employers, for example, to collect VAT and personal income tax. In practice, they work for the government and their self-interest is not aligned with their employer. He only cares about serving customers. They care about serving the government. Many can be relied upon to snitch if they think the employer is doing the State down. In former-Communist countries I have worked in, the Government has imposed a criminal liability on accounts staff who fail to report suspicions of tax avoidance by their employer. How long before Gordon does that?

Many "Human Resources" people are working to ensure compliance with employment laws and the government's view of best practice. They do nothing for their employers or their employers' customers and often have no real concept of what the company does. In firms regulated by the FSA (banks, financial advisers, consultants) there are staff dedicated to compliance with money laundering regulations. They decide case by case whether to "shop" customers to the police by reporting suspicions as to the source of their funds. They add no value to their employers or their customers and are effectively out-sourced secret policemen.

Finally, there are those services the private sector provides for Government. I don't name my own firm here because - amongst other reasons - my partners would be unhappy to jeopardise public sector assignments by offending the government. I think that's one reason why the legal profession in Britain, organised into large law firms doing lots of government work, has been so craven in the face of attacks on civil liberties and their professional independence. The small law firms of France and Belgium have been much braver in opposing requirements secretly to shop clients to the police on suspicion of money laundering, for example.

A substantial proportion of private sector employees function as de facto agents of the State; the cost of their employment representing in reality additional tax. Those people know who their real bosses are and are likely to vote accordingly. Even those who are really customer focussed must remain silent when one of their major customers is the State.

Poll shows Labour back in the lead | the Daily Mail

UK: Human rights: a broken promise - Amnesty International

Amnesty International has published a report on Human Rights in the United Kingdom. It is, as readers of this blog would expect, damning.

It is so embarrassing that the nation of Magna Carta should be open to such criticism. Amnesty international is not always beyond politics and has been known to be wrong. I with I could say it was in this instance.

H/T World Weary Detective

UK: Human rights: a broken promise - Amnesty International

Charge women for needless NHS epidurals, say midwives

One of many foul consequences of socialised medicine is that the staff think their views take priority over those of the patient. In a private hospital, one is a customer and entitled to the same sort of care and consideration I give to my fee-paying clients. In an NHS "health concentration camp", one is a cost to the taxpayer and a nuisance to the staff.

If a midwife was not attracted to the profession by a sadistic streak in the first place, she is likely soon to become inured to the suffering of her patients. Birth for her is an everyday humdrum bore, not a life-changing and magnificent event. I attended two very important births in an NHS maternity home in England and was horrified by the arrogant approach of the staff.

A young doctor moaned about needing just one more birth on his training checklist so that he could "get out of obstetrics forever." My wife tried to oblige him but his shift ended too soon and he left with undisguised irritation, the c***.

An arrogant, bossy, brain-dead midwife told my wife that she could not have the epidural she had signed up for in advance as it wasn't - in her view - "necessary". I explained that I thought my wife's view on the subject more important than hers. She disagreed. That was the only time in my life that I did my lawyerly "heavy" act on my own behalf and threatened to sue. I am sure I had no legal leg to stand on, but she read my fierce eyes and complied.

Britain's public servants don't know their place any more. The police don't anwer to us, but preach to us. Ministers don't administer the Government on our behalf, but tell us how to live and even speak of using the law as an instrument of "education". Our midwives think themselves experts, entitled to determine how much pain our womenfolk "should" bear. Our legislators, given a rare "free vote" promptly use it to tell us how to behave behind the closed doors of our private clubs. No wonder the public sector is growing so fast. If you want to experience the thrill of bossing others about, it's a lot easier to get such opportunities in Government, however lowly your position, than it is to build (or rise to the top of) a business empire.

Telegraph | News | Charge women for needless NHS epidurals, say midwives

Telegraph | News | Shooting report may take months

If the suspects were not agents of the State, do any of us believe that it would take so long to investigate this shooting incident? If any of us had shot this young man, would we still be at large?

No other suspects are under investigation. There is no dispute as to the facts. The authorities know (although, despite the fact it was done in our name, we are not allowed to) the name of the officer who fired seven shots into Jean Charles de Menezes' head while he was held down by colleagues. The CCTV evidence either exists or it does not. No factual evidence can be obtained by waiting. The dispute is as to the knowledge and intent of the officers in question and the legality of the orders under which they acted.

There is no possible policing reason for the delay. The suspicion must be that the only reasons are political.

Telegraph | News | Shooting report may take months

The Stoning of Soraya M.

Any wrong done by our troops in Iraq or elsewhere is the subject of endless agonising and condemnation in the media. Rightly so. We will never spread civilisation by behaving in a barbaric way. I am angry with the tiny minority of young soldiers, no doubt fired up by the dangers they face daily, who expose our cause to such needless criticism. I am even more angry with their officers who should be alert to these risks.

Why, however, is there nothing in the main stream media about the routine barbaric horrors of the "religion of peace", Islam? Why are our journalists so craven in the face of those who want to destroy all the gains of our civilisation since the Enlightenment? Is it not racism on their part to hold Muslims to lower ethical standards that we hold ourselves? Does that not imply that our "right on" media types regard Muslims as inferior beings from whom fully-civilised behaviour can not be expected? I think it does. Ironically, as they quest for "institutional racism" in every corner of society, our leftist journalists are themselves profoundly racist.

The story linked to here (don't click on the links to it if you are squeamish) says a lot. Our multicultural mantra is that we must respect all points of view and regard them as "equally valid". I am sorry if it offends anyone, but that is dangerous nonsense.

To assert the equal validity of a religion which mandates death for apostates, physical mutilation for criminals and regards a man's evidence as equal to that of three woman is not tolerant. Nor is it "respectful". It is craven, immoral and dishonest.

Muslims are very clear that we are their inferiors and that we must either convert, submit to the status of "dhimmi" (a non-Muslim second class citizen in an Islamic State) or be killed.

I have daughters. They are fine, intelligent, free-thinking young women, strong of character and conscience. I don't want them reduced to servile wretches unable to move without the supervision of male relatives. No more, if I had sons, would I want them to live in a world where men abused women so, still less to be part of that abuse.

It sickens me that millions of people admitted to all the rights of citizenship of my country should desire, as is suggested by the Telegraph poll yesterday, such barbaric laws in Britain. It sickens me more that I can have no faith in the will of our current leaders to resist.

British Muslims who advocate the overthrow of our laws are doing us a favour by alerting us to our danger. Any who act to achieve that overthrow are traitors and should be dealt with as such. Only when they realise that we will not submit meekly to dhimmitude, will our Muslim "extremists" retreat. The present policy of appeasement achieves nothing but the radicalisation of our native population. That is in no-one's interests.

The Stoning of Soraya M.

Drinking From Home: Religion of Peace "Family Law"

This is worth a visit if only for the wonderful new masthead design for the Grauniad.

Drinking From Home: Religion of Peace "Family Law"

Grizzly Mama: Grizzly Report: We Are At War.

The search for moderate Muslims continues in Philadelphia.

Grizzly Mama: Grizzly Report: We Are At War.

Poll reveals 40pc of Muslims want sharia law in UK

We hear about "moderate Muslims", but has anyone ever met one? It's important here to differentiate between people born into Muslim families and individuals who actually practise the religion. Scratch the surface of a "moderate Muslim" and you may find he's not a Muslim at all.

We should follow Germany's lead in vetting potential immigrants by reference to their attitudes to Western values. Of course people will lie, but there will be no basis in future for them to deny the basis on which they were admitted. It seems absurd to me that we will deny extradition to the USA of accused criminals who would face the death penalty if convicted, but we routinely admit people to citizenship here who believe in the death penalty for such "religious crimes" as apostasy.

Telegraph | News | Poll reveals 40pc of Muslims want sharia law in UK

A sensitive cartoon about Islam

Hat tip to Pub Philosopher for this clever cartoon called "Gevoelig" (which is Dutch for "Sensitive").

NOVA

Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill - the Professors' Letter

Commenting on my post about the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, a gentleman named Paul asked me for some "blood curdling hypothetical examples of how this legislation might be applied". In a letter to The Times today, Law Professors at the University of Cambridge have done the job for me.

Sometimes I feel we liberty-minded bloggers are ploughing lonely furrows. Britain sometimes seems too drink-addled and debt-saddled to care. M'learned friends in Cambridge have therefore made my day. Not only are they speaking for England, but proving liberty bloggers are no mere nutters!

Please follow the links and read the letter. Please accept, if you are British, that your nation's future as a liberal democracy is in imminent danger. Please call or write to your MP and let him/her know how you feel and make it clear that he/she will pay the electoral price for failing to vote against this - and future - "police state" legislation. Then please ask all your friends to do the same.

Kelly egg attack man remanded | the Daily Mail

Remanded in custody - imprisoned - for throwing an egg at a Minister? What has Britain come to? This gentlemen's actions were in the best traditions of British democracy. It comes to something when a mob may incite murder unpunished, and a protestor who throws an egg is such a danger to society that he is refused bail!

Kelly egg attack man remanded | the Daily Mail

Brown says ID cards are vital | the Daily Mail

I despair. Brown has taken up the cause of ID cards and once more revived the canard that they wil help defeat terrorism. Odd that, as David Blunkett admitted that was untrue some time ago.

Brown says ID cards are vital | the Daily Mail

US prepares military blitz against Iran's nuclear sites

If this story is true, it is a disgrace. Not that the attack should be planned, you understand. That seems perfectly prudent. It's a disgrace that the politicians should have disclosed it.

Some brave young Americans will be asked one day to fly across Iran in fragile military planes to destroy the nuclear facilities. The least they could ask of the politicians who put them in harm's way is that they keep their damned mouths shut so that the enemy has not been alerted.

So I guess, alas, it's just sabre-rattling. Too bad.

Telegraph | News | US prepares military blitz against Iran's nuclear sites

How can we have respect for Islam when we are too fearful to criticise it?

Hat tip to L'Ombre de L'Olivier. I love the comment "If only the Czech Republic would publish the cartoons then Hamas would have to boycott Semtex."

Sunday Herald

The Two Types of Human

My political life has been a switchback ride. I was brought up in a family of small business-people, working-class in outlook and Tory by inclination. They had an old-fashioned belief in education. I learned I could have anything my limited young imagination could conceive, if I could only justify it as "educational". Looking back, I feel some guilt. Homework excused all household chores and allowed me solitude for listening to Led Zeppelin through earphones and reading for pleasure.

Inevitably, my reading tended Leftwards. Intrigued by the uproar when I brought a biography of Marx home from the library, I set out to read the great man's works. I am the only person I know who has read "Das Kapital". I live in Russia now, so that's a more surprising claim than it used to be.

I became a Maoist. I was suspended from school for selling revolutionary magazines; the high point in a period of teenage father-baiting.

Working during school holidays on a building site, I had a "road to Damascus" experience; an encounter with the Shrewsbury Pickets. They were not a rock group, but a foul, violent gang of Communist scumbags. An older fellow-Communist at school patiently explained that the violent intimidation I had witnessed was a perfect example of "the dictatorship of the proletariat"; my friends on the receiving end being, as mere construction workers, the "lumpenproletariat". I may have been an impressionable youth, but I knew that giving an evil thing a fancy name could make it worse, but could never make it better.

I dipped again into the political books. Within two years of that incident, I was chairman of my University Conservatives. I had the experience of being introduced to the late Ted Heath as "a recent convert from Maoism". He chatted amiably about meeting Mao, but gave no sign of knowing what a murderous monster the "Great Helmsman" was.

As a student Conservative, I was among the first to call myself a Thatcherite. Mrs Thatcher appealed to the no-nonsense working-class boy in me more than the pompous Heath or other sanctimonious asses (such as Geoffrey Howe) I met at that time. Her undoubted appeal to the working-classes frightened the old-style Tories. They reacted rather as did the more squeamish on the side of Men when Aragorn took the "paths of the dead" and summoned ghosts to their cause in the Lord of the Rings. They were happy to have their support, but reluctant to rub shoulders with such scary recruits. Like those ghostly warriors, working-class Thatcherites duly passed on - with their leader - into the Party's afterlife. So did I. I had read too much Marx, and experienced too much "dictatorship" to turn Left. I was politically homeless.

All might have been well were it not for the propensity of the British Middle and Upper Middle Classes to treachery. Just as their grandfathers had betrayed the nation to the Soviets in the days of the Cambridge Four (or was it Five, or perhaps Five Thousand?) so they flocked to Blair and his "Third Way". With that special British insularity that our geography explains but does not excuse, they had not noticed the outcome of almost a century of global Socialist experimentation. More than half of mankind lived under Socialism in the 20th Century. Behind the Iron Curtain at least, its failure had been accepted. Yet the Islingtonians turned from PG Wodehouse to a half-assed Readers' Digest version of Marx, just as the rest of the world had finally rumbled the old fraud.

I have spent the Blair years behind the Iron Curtain. My Polish, Russian, Hungarian and Czech friends and colleagues are immunised against collectivism. They had reason to fear the challenges of capitalism, for which their education had ill-prepared them. But their families' memories were enough to ensure they did not kid themselves that there was a second or third way to the rigours of the market.

I watched in dismay as working-class former Tories sank into apathy or worse. I took no more pleasure in watching the bitter political journey of the Northern Labourites with whom I grew up. For a while they were so happy their party was in power that they suppressed their doubts about the embroidery defacing its flag. They consoled themselves that once more they had the opportunity to divert the fruits of others toil to the Labour fiefdoms of the North and the Celtic fringe. Blair might have the "look and feel" of the most condescending and matey sort of Old Tory, but he still let good old Gordon channel billions to the public "services" for squandering.

Even the "accounting errors" in the Home Office last year wasted the work of over 150,000 average taxpayers. That's the kind of State the Northern comrades wanted. Their only problems were that they had to wear a tie when meeting journalists and couldn't call their comrades "comrade" any more. It was also embarrassing to watch Prescott's humiliating antics as the token Northern prole, but he was too much of an ***hole to pity much.

I hoped stupidly that the Conservatives would learn from their historic defeat. They didn't. They haven't. They had run out of ideas and were perfectly happy finally to be rid of "that bloody woman" and the embarrassing proles in her army. They retreated into their former mediocrity and squabbled for control of the bankrupt wreckage of what had once been the greatest election machine in Europe.

I hoped even more stupidly that there was some truth in Blair's rhetoric. I reasoned optimistically that only a Labour Prime Minister could muster the necessary support to reform State Education. A product myself of that appalling system, I knew that "Education, Education, Education" was the right set of priorities for Britain. Blair, sadly, was bullshitting. The product of "Scotland's Eton" was happy to send his own offspring to politically-correct faith schools, while leaving his countrymen's children to the "bog standard comprehensives".

Why did he he want power so much, when he had no idea what to do with it? However bad a barrister he may have been, surely he could have earned everything "power" has given him?

My political life now is a daily fight with cynicism. Liberties, carefully structured over centuries to balance the interest of the individual with those of the collective, are being rudely smashed. Blair rhetorically balances "the ancient right to life" against the "ancient right to liberty" as if the former were any use without the latter. By that logic, he might as well offer to lock us all safely away until the danger is over. Even such fragile reasoning goes unchallenged by a feeble Opposition.

I have come to the conclusion that there are two types of human. One believes that he, and groups of people like him, can shape his community to make a better life for everyone. He is a "joiner", who believes that the world can be a better place if only all "old" ideas can be reexamined and old ways "reformed". He feels for humanity in theory; worries about the needless suffering of those less wise than him. His only insight into history is that he was not there when previous attempts to perfect humanity failed. This time, it will be different. This time, it will work.

Tony Blair is such a man, as is every right wing taxi driver who ever said "there oughta be a law against it, Guv".

The second type knows in his gut that, however unfortunate he may be in life, he is a better judge of his own interests than anyone else, however well-intentioned. He does not trust the collective. He knows people will always form religious, political, social or sporting clubs, but he believes there must always be a good selection of them, so that he has choices. He feels for the humans in front of him, not humanity in the abstract. He may well be charitable, but he knows charity given freely is more likely to reach its target than "charity" extorted by the taxman.

In the last century, Socialism, Communism or Fascism were the creeds that offered the greatest opportunities to build an apparatus of "social control" to mould and perfect mankind. They attracted the first type of humans by the million. The second type was more likely to be a conservative (not a Tory), a liberal, or perhaps an anarchist. The collapse of the idea of Socialism, after it was tested in the largest political experiment in history, only gave the first types pause for a couple of years. They they regrouped; defining themselves by what they were against - racism, male chauvinism, homophobia or other evils (real or imagined).

By carefully selecting evils, first types justifed new apparatus of control. Once the apparatus existed, it was easy to expand its application. The lack of a guiding philosophy actually makes this easier! New Labour has become an umbrella group for everyone who wants to badger and bully his fellow men. By defining only what it is against, it has become more dangerous than ever. The uneasy feeling growing in the electorate is simply the dawning realisation that - like Mr Blair - New Labour has no policy goals. It is not for anything but the accretion of power.

I console myself that this too will pass. The amusing contradictions which require New Labourites simultaneously to defend Muslims who hate homosexuals and homosexuals who call Muslims "homophobic" are the first straws in the wind. The Conservatives are wrong to copy the Blair model just as the cracks begin to show. The only thing that unites the followers of our ruling Party is that each of them believes the collective will enforce his will. It must soon become obvious, even to the most blind amongst them, that even a collective led by spin doctors cannot enforce every one of a mass of unrelated and contradictory ideas.

Compromise on ID cards expected

There is no point having an ID Card, unless carrying it is compulsory. The Government will not spend billions (including billions more than estimated) on the most complicated government IT project in history and then fail to follow through. If Parliament falls for this "salami slicing" approach to the issue, it will be a disgrace and a betrayal.

ID Cards do not reduce crime. This can be tested. The Government can commission some research on crime rates in countries with, and without, ID cards. I confidently predict (having lived in both) that the research will reveal no correlation. The Law Society says - stating the obvious as lawyers do so well - that connecting an identified individual to a crime is typically the problem, not identifying the individual in the first place.

For terrorism, we do not need research. The 9/11 bombers identified themselves at check-in. Suicide murderers have no interest in concealing their ID. The Madrid bombers were carrying their compulsory Spanish ID cards. How long did it take to establish the identity of the 7/7 London bombers? As proud jihadists, they wanted their ID to be known.

ID Cards, and the database behind them, are not about terrorism, crime, or easier access to the "Government services" most of us work hard to stay away from (like free surgical knives with which to "self harm" when driven mad by modern Britain). They are not about identity theft (a centralised database run by Government incompetents will make that (a) much more likely and (b) much more damaging when it happens). They are about control. They are about the creeping intrusion of the State into the lives of formerly free men and women.

Every second word spoken about ID Cards by New National Socialists Labour is a lie. They are betraying what little is left of what once was good about Britain. HM Opposition should not be tinkering with "compromises" but telling our nation the truth and opposing the scheme in principle.

Day by day, this Government is building the apparatus of a police state. Even if you think they don't intend to use it (perhaps they are doing it for a bet?) at least consider that some future Government may. Write to or call your MP today and let him or her know what you think. Please.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Compromise on ID cards expected

Blair 'must give more ground' on school reform

Mr. Blair is said to be concerned about his "legacy". He wants to believe that he will be remembered for his achievements. That's understandable. His mantra on taking power was "Education, Education, Education". Many of us hoped that, at the head of a Labour Government, he could reform our pathetic system of State education in a way that no Conservative Government could hope to do. Naievely, we even thought that it was worth letting Socialist idiots into power for a while to achieve that worthwhile goal.

Unfortunately for him (and I am prepared to believe that in this respect he had good intentions), his only educational achievement has been to teach the British electorate that "spin" is just a euphemism for "lies" and that - as history has repeatedly proved - the end, however noble, never justifies the means. In his case, so paltry have been his educational achievements, it might be said no means could ever be justified by such an end.

Telegraph | News | Blair 'must give more ground' on school reform

Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

If you have never read a draft law before, have a go at this one. Then tell me that something is not rotten in the State of New Labour Britain. This Bill, if enacted, will give Ministers power to make law, without reference to Parliament.

Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

Abu Hamza guilty

This story illustrates how unnecessary our new "thought crime" legislation is. Abu Hamza was mainly guilty of soliciting to murder, a very old offence. The "racial hatred" and possession of material "of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism" charges will have made no difference to his sentence.

However, the real problem now is that prosecuting this man ostensibly for what he said (and actually for coming to the attention of the Murdoch media to which our Government is in thrall) will create new ethnic tensions. Nick Griffin was acquitted; Abu Hamza convicted. Extremists will claim that British juries favour White Fascists over Muslims and use that allegation to whip up trouble. How much better to have prosecuted neither of them until they actually DID something. The Americans claim to have evidence that Abu Hamza DID do something. How much more practical to have extradited him to be dealt with by their courts.

Telegraph | News | Abu Hamza guilty of race hate charges

Islamic Imperialism

I am sitting at my desk in Moscow, updating my filing, and listening via podcast to yesterday's interviews on the "Today" programme. For once, the BBC did a good job. The interviewer put questions directly to Omar Bakri Mohammed of al-Muhajiroun and elicited a clear statement of the Islamic view. Those who drew, published and republished the now-infamous cartoons should, he said, be tried under Islamic law and executed. Free speech does not apply to racists, even in our societies, and by analogy it should not extend to those who ridicule the prophet, Mohammed. He was gracious enough to add that the execution should be after due process of Sharia Law and that individual Muslims should not take matters into their own hands. Presumably a "fatwa" (legal opinion) from a suitable authority - a la Salman Rushdie - would constitute sufficient due process for him, but the interviewer did not pursue that point. I think he was embarrassed that the BBC's cosy line on Islam was being so comprehensively shattered.

Asked what should happen if the "offenders" were beyond the reach of Islamic law, he answered that we "live in a global" village and the countries concerned should "take the consequences". The Muslim world does not have to deal with them and "...you don't have to deal with us". In this, I agree with him. We have no right to complain about what is done in the Muslim world provided that it is in accordance with local laws and (where the countries have signed up to them) the UN Charter and other international treaties. That's one reason why my family and I no longer holiday there, as we did for many years. If I don't want to submit to Sharia Law, I should stay away from Sharia jurisdictions. I wish British Muslims understood the corollary of that.

The chairman of the Muslim League, Amr Moussa, was not quite so open but his comments did reveal that he is under the impression that anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and even criticism of Israel are illegal in the West. He seemed to think Islam was only asking for the same protections as Judaism and that we were being hypocritical in claiming the right of "free speech" in relation to Islam.

This is a perfect example of the indivisibility of freedom. Racism is stupid, ignorant and wrong. Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism are stupid, ignorant and wrong, but it is a mistake for them to be illegal. If we suppress the expression of some opinions, however repellent and disgusting, we inevitably face demands for the suppression of other opinions. Before the game is over, none of us will be free. All of us will have to live to the standards of the most ignorant, extreme and hypersensitive amongst us. The Muslims in our countries have done us a favour by exposing our errors.

It is time to recognise that the "progressive" thinking of the past 30 years has been anything but. It has in fact been regressive and has lost us many of the gains of the Age of Enlightenment. Given the bloody nature of the 20th Century and the damage done by totalitarian "isms", perhaps it is understandable that we have fallen into these errors. However, it is well past time to recognise that we have over-corrected. It is time to restore full freedom of speech and to laugh at idiotic opinions rather than to fear them. If there are those amongst us who can't hack it in the rowdy bazaar of human thought, then let them find a country where only their ideas, rather than ideas in general, are sacred and leave us modern men in peace.

Doctors 'to report underage sex' | the Daily Mail

One characteristic of a police state is an expectation by the authorities that every loyal citizen will function as a policeman. British lawyers now have a duty to report their clients to the authorities (without "tipping off" the client) if they suspect a crime. British doctors and nurses are now to report their patients to the authorities if they believe they have been engaged in under-age sex. No doubt this duty will be extended in future. The effect in both cases is the same. People who need help and advice will be afraid to seek it. The message is clear; the relationship with the State takes priority over relationships of trust between professionals and those they serve.

Another characteristic of a police state is that the State takes priority over the family. One of the most chilling actions of the Soviet State was to make a Communist saint of Pavlik Morozov, a little boy who supposedly denounced his own father to the authorities. Every day a youngster went home wearing a Young Pioneers badge bearing Morozov's image, he was delivering a threat from the government to his parents. It is therefore interesting to note that Doctors are to be required not to inform the parents, who could then take their own decision in the interests of their child, but the authorities. If, God forbid, I had ever been in that position, I can imagine that I might have taken other steps to protect my child than involving the police.

Every day, little by little, Britain assumes more and more of the characteristics of a police state. A tipping point will be reached - perhaps it already has - when there is no going back.

Doctors 'to report underage sex' | the Daily Mail

Funny Feet

This is not just a very funny article. It is very clever indeed. Well done, Mr. Leith, and welcome to the campaign against predatory victimhood.

Telegraph | Opinion | Commentary

Matthew Parris Times Online

This is a brilliant article. It explains precisely why any attempt to defer to the super-sensitive in society is dangerous for us all. Freedom of speech is not a bourgeois indulgence or luxury, but a necessity.

I think the article also supports my view that all our attempts to defer politely to Islamic opinion is building up hidden resentments which will lead, one day, to violence. By avoiding a confrontation now, we are causing a much worse one later.

Opinion - Matthew Parris Times Online

Dangerous Times

I am very concerned about the BNP. I share none of its wicked ideas, but I can see it is intelligently led and positioning itself well to take advantage of a number of factors in its favour.

The Crown Prosecution Service is making a mistake in pursuing a retrial of the BNP's leader. There is little prospect of a conviction. The further prosecution only seems vindictive and will increase public sympathy for this odious man.

Few native Englishmen bred in our liberal traditions really feel, at an instinctive level, that it is right for the criminal law to interfere in political speech or thought. Many may feel that what Griffin said about Islam is, essentially, correct - or at least worthy of debate. They may not sympathise with his racism or anti-semitism, but they live in daily fear of Islam.

I am certain that no English jury will convict Griffin for saying that Islam is "a vicious, wicked faith", after seeing Islamists marching through London yesterday with such banners as "massacre those who insult the Prophet and "to hell with free speech". The marchers chanted threats of new terrorist attacks. Jury members will have seen a leader of the march calling through a megaphone for those who insult the prophet to be killed.

Incitement to murder seems more serious to most of us than incitement to religious or racial hatred.

The conditions are ripe for the growth of the Far Right in Britain and I fear that. There is a growing sense that Muslims are not held to the same standards of conduct as the rest of us, in Britain and abroad. Griffin says Islam is wicked and vicious. He is prosecuted. British Muslims call for "massacres". They are not. A barman fails to notice a black customer waiting to be served and he will be called a racist. The Muslims of the Janjaweed militia slaughter 300,000 black Africans in the Sudan and racism is not mentioned. European papers publish cartoons of Mohammed and Jack Straw condemns them. The press in the Muslim world routinely publishes viciously anti-semitic cartoons, without a word of comment.

I can imagine a scenario in which the BNP becomes a vehicle for popular protest against double standards which condemn almost everything the white population of Britain does, while excusing everything the Muslim population does. Nick Griffin may be elevated to the status of popular hero. The Crown Prosecution Service, staffed as it is by the weakest products of our law schools, may by its lack of judgement, set him well on the way.

Angry Muslims Stage London Protests

Look at the banners on the picture of Muslims protesting in London. "Massacre those who insult Islam" is legitimate freedom of speech apparently. I am prepared to buy that, but it seems a trifle hypocitical.

Angry Muslims Stage London Protests

Muhammad cartoon row intensifies

Have we not one newspaper editor with the testes to stand with our brave European friends? While we pass stupid laws to protect the delicate sensibilities of primitive fundamentalists, Continental editors are standing up for Western Civilisation.

Speak for England, Murdoch's gutless rabble! Publish and be damned!

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Muhammad cartoon row intensifies

Burning our money: Home Office Whelk Stall Fiasco

As Wat Tyler says, you couldn't make this stuff up. The public servant responsible for misplacing the best part of a billion pounds of taxpayers' money at the Home Office is sent to the Bank of England to be in charge of "financial stability".

If a great Department of State's accounts are "qualified", it seems to me that the least the Minister in question could do is resign. Not in this Government, it seems.

Burning our money: Home Office Whelk Stall Fiasco

Polly Toynbee: What's at stake is the right to insult and cause offence

I never thought I would say this, but Polly Toynbee is right.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Polly Toynbee: What's at stake is the right to insult and cause offence

Religious hate bill changes urged

A man arrives in Heaven and is given the orientation tour by Saint Peter. Muslims mix happily with Jews, Buddhists with Christians. The newcomer is most impressed. One thing puzzles him. A great wall runs the whole length of the place. "What's that for?" he asks. "Ah" says Saint Peter, "behind there are the Catholics. They like to think they are here on their own".

This is a classic Dave Allen joke. Does it insult or abuse Catholics? I doubt many of them would think so. As the popularity of Father Ted showed, most Catholics have a sense of humour. But if you changed the religions around and put the Muslims behind the wall? Would they take offence? Very probably. They certainly objected to a Danish cartoon showing Mohammed waving back suicide bombers from Heaven with the words "Stop, stop! We have run out of virgins".

My Dave Allen joke is a mild example. Modern humour tends to be more aggressive. I am thinking of an Emo Phillips gag with the punchline "Die, heretic, die!" for example. The point of that joke was to mock sectarian divisions and it is quite politically-correct, but other versions could certainly be seen as insulting or abusive.

The fact that such a discussion is even necessary ought to scare the Hell (no offence to Satanists intended) out of all of us. If the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 was the end of habeas corpus in Britain, then the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill may prove to be the end of free speech. The bill is the result of a manifesto pledge designed to appease Muslim opinion.

Many British Muslims have historically voted Labour, but were thought likely not to do so because of Tony Blair's role in the Iraq War. So Labour promised them this little piece of Sharia Law to win back their support. You may say that's an unfair characterisation, because the law "protects" all religions, not just Islam. The fact is that other religions didn't want or need such "protection" and will be very unlikely to use it. British Muslims will have no hesitation in doing so. Every person who uses it will, in effect, reveal that he does not subscribe to the British way of life.

This bill, if passed, will make wicked, divisive law. It will alienate non-Muslims and increase racial tensions. It is the duty of every decent parliamentarian to vote against it tomorrow.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Religious hate bill changes urged

Tolerance vs. Victimhood.

Recent political events in Britain have made me think about the notion of "tolerance." Most Brits, asked to define "Britishness" would mention this quality. Having lived in other countries, I am not so sure we are entitled to lay claim to it. Most attempts to create a more tolerant society in Britain seem to lead to new forms of intolerance. I am beginning to think that puritanism is the real defining quality of Britishness.

Take sexuality. When I was a student politician, gay rights were a major issue. But they were an issue on which then twenty-somethings (now forty-somethings) were, and are, completely united. Gay people could no more choose to be straight than straights could choose to be gay. They were entitled to equal respect for their orientation. Society would be healthier if they were allowed to be open about their sexuality. All fine and tolerant. Two decades on, however, "homophobia" is an allegation made far more frequently than it was then. The bar has been raised. To be tolerant, one must now accept that primary school children should be taught about homosexuality. My wife recently met a young teacher who was emigrating to New Zealand because she didn't feel she should have to do that - and was being accused of "homophobia". To be tolerant one must denounce or even try to repress the ancient religions which - understandably - are not able to adapt what they believe to be the word of God, Allah or Whomever to current thinking. We have moved from tolerance to puritanical repression. We have just changed the target. Perhaps it is time to suggest that homosexuals will only truly become equal members of our society when they cease to see themselves as victims.

Take race. The recent unfortunate remarks of Sir Ian Blair have caused a debate. I visited, as I often do, the BBC's "Have your Say" pages on its news website to get a feel for the range of opinion. The comments posted by the public appeared to divide (as far as one can tell from the scant information about people posting comments) on racial lines. White Britain believes that it is discriminated against; that any black person who is attacked is the victim of racist violence, whereas any white victim is merely an unfortunate statistic. Person after person commented that, when an assailant was being hunted, the public could only tell if he was from an ethnic minority if his colour was not mentioned. Black and Asian posters, however, are convinced of entirely the opposite. Whatever else this means, it proves the races are not moving closer together. They are in separate social "silos" holding opinions which cannot be reconciled. Significantly, people of all races now seem to crave the all-important status of victim. Is that surprising? Government spending is systematically skewed, is it not, towards "the most vulnerable members of society?" That is clearly the team to be on.

Take education. My generation was and is, Right and Left, universally hostile to discrimination against the socially-disadvantaged. Those not lucky enough to afford private education should have the opportunity to attend the best universities. We still believe that, but - again - the envelope is being pushed. Truth to tell, there were more State school pupils at Oxbridge in the bad old days of grammar schools, because they gave access to a good education for talented members of the working class. Thatcher's cabinet had more State-educated members than Blair's for the same reason. Nothing has inhibited social mobility in Britain more than Comprehensive Schools. Nothing. Yet they have become, with the NHS, the second sacred cow of British politics. Before speaking about education every politician, from Right or Left, must begin with a ritual denunciation of "academic selection." As educational standards plummet, so politicians seek to force the universities to lower entry standards selectively so that my privately-educated daughters are openly required to achieve higher standards than pupils who went to the sink Comprehensive my wife and I attended. We have moved from being against discrimination to being in favour of discrimination - against someone else. We have moved, again, to reward "victims" so that victimhood becomes a desired status.

This cannot surely be right? If vulnerability is the new aristocracy, how likely is that to promote social and economic progress?

ITN Journalist arrested

Leaving aside for the moment the question of how "Black Information" differs from information, thanks to the "Black Information Network" for this story about Jean Charles de Menezes.

It seems three people are on police bail awaiting news of charges to be brought against them in connection with the case. Not those police officers, you understand, who held the defenceless and innocent Jean Charles down on a London Underground train and fired seven bullets into his head. Nor the two Blairs and a Clarke who ordered the illegal "shoot to kill" policy which was the ultimate cause of his death. Nor those whose negligence in commanding the police death squad was arguably the proximate cause. No-one actually involved in the killing has yet been charged. £100 says no-one ever will be.

No, those facing "justice" are a secretary, a journalist and a television producer. They are the people alleged to have brought to our screens a picture of Jean Charles lying on the train floor in his own blood. The picture was genuine and gave the lie to most of what we had been told about Jean-Charles' death. More than anything so far, it told the truth about the killing of an innocent man for which there was not even the merest scrap of an excuse. So, in effect, the three are on police bail for exposing official untruths.

What are we supposed to infer from this as to the priorities of our police and the Crown Prosecution Service?

Black information Link:

'Sting' on middle-class drug use

Having moved in the course of my life from working-class ("educated" at a bog standard comprehensive; the first member of my family with a university degree) to, I suppose, middle class (member of a learned profession, send my offspring to a major public school) I am not much impressed with politics based on class. I saw no reason to despise me when I was a member of the working class. I see no reason to despise me now. I didn't think I should be discriminated against as a prole; I don't see why my children should be discriminated against now (as they undoubtedly are, on university admissions criteria - for example).

On average I thought the members of the working-classes I grew up with were more sensible and less likely to get carried away with daft ideas than the middle-class people I know now. But I can't work up an ideology from that generalisation. Both sets of people seem equally vulnerable to State pressure to modify their thinking - which is rather scary. Yeomen of England types who are resistant to such pressure seem to be in short supply.

Sir Ian Blair's class-based approach to policing therefore doesn't impress me any more than his race-based approach propounded earlier this week. I don't think either is heartfelt. I think he's just an appalling, unprincipled careerist, truffling for favours from his political masters; those well-known providers of drug money to the "most vulnerable" members of society.

There is, however, one member of the white, Oxbridge-educated, upper middle classes that I would like to see targetted by the Metropolitan Police. He is a man who issued illegal orders to his employees to "shoot to kill" in circumstances where those employees would have no defence to a charge of murder. He is a man who, when his employees killed an innocent man in execution of his orders, set about denigrating that innocent man in an attempt to justify his illegal actions. He is a man who, caught out in these actions, has not even had the decency to resign, let alone to turn himself in.

Unfortunately, any hope that this man may face justice is utterly vain. For, as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, he is the man who would have to give the order.

BBC NEWS | UK | 'Sting' on middle-class drug use

Met chief: Why the fuss over Soham murders?

Is there any chance that Sir Ian Blair might actually get around to some policing? We have enough politicians, surely?

Telegraph | News | Met chief: Why the fuss over Soham murders?

Hamas sweeps to election victory

The Palestinian people have spoken. No more can we fool ourselves that the brutal murderers of "Hamas" are untypical extremists. They speak for the Palestinians and the world must adapt its view on the Palestinian question to that fact. There is a widespread view in the Arab world that Iran is further along the path to a nuclear bomb than even the West fears. I suspect that has emboldened the Palestinians to spit on the peace process.

Israel, leaderless, faces dark choices and the world is a more dangerous place than before.

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Hamas sweeps to election victory

Google move 'black day' for China

What Google do in China is a matter for the Chinese. What worries me is what would they do if the British or US Governments asked them "for anti-terrorism reasons" (or whatever) to manipulate search results.

I guess I already know the answer. Lenin said that a capitalist would sell you the rope with which to hang him. It seems that in this respect, if no other, he was right.

For a company with the motto "do no evil", this is not a good day. Anyone know how to fix Safari so that the search window takes me somewhere other than Google - somewhere not involved in keeping the truth from a quarter of mankind?

BBC NEWS | Technology | Google move 'black day' for China

The Celtic canary in the UK's coal mine

The Telegraph's opinion piece on Scotland this morning might make beleaguered English taxpayers smile, but it shouldn't. Scotland's population is declining. Its Socialist paradise needs immigrants. The Telegraph explains that its demographic time bomb is at the point where Bond film directors make the countdown timer a key part of the action and asks:

"Where are the immigrants going to come from? The birth rate is falling everywhere but the pre-modern world, ie, Africa and large swaths of Islam. Assuming that a talented Indian wished to leave his own land, which has the fastest-growing middle class in the world, why would he eschew America or Australia in order to go to Aberdeen and spend his working life supporting the elderly unsackable hordes of superfluous primary-school teachers?"

If the leader writer assumes the Scots care, he is wrong. The English will support those people for them. Failing that, they expect the Germans and Austrians to do so, via the EU. The one nation they don't plan to support them is Scotland.

Telegraph | Opinion | The Celtic canary in the UK's coal mine

Death to the Scottish Raj

As long as the Act of Union remains in force, we have no basis to complain about being ruled by Scots, as illustrated here (hat tip to Drinking from Home).

Scotland is now a voter farm for Socialism. Some estimate that half its population are clients of the Welfare State; whether living on benefits, dishing them out or administering other State organs of the British Peoples' Republic. Is it any wonder that the Scots are more political? Most of them are more likely to catch a glimpse of the Loch Ness monster than they are of private sector production. For most countrymen of Adam Smith the wealth of their nation is now more likely to come from the British Treasury than the invisible hand of the market.

The English naively focus on wealth generation only to watch the fruits of their labours baked into ever more unsavoury Socialist pies by Scottish chefs. More than half of mankind lived under Socialism in the 20th Century. Everywhere it was tried it failed. Where men are not led by the invisible hand, they must eventually be coerced by State power. The growth of such power in Britain is no accident, but the necessary consequence of the Socialism imposed and led by the Celtic fringe.

It is time to accept that the Act of Union has failed. Let England quit the United Kingdom (and with it the EU of which the UK is a member). Let the English people drive their oppressors north of Hadrian's Wall. Let the Scottish people teach us Socialism by making it work within their own boundaries - and good luck to them.

Drinking From Home: The Scottish Raj

Oaten resigns over rent boy claim

It seems that God has a sense of humour after all. The po-faced puritans of the Liberal Democrats knifed cheerful Charlie in the back over his drinking, only to have the Party's Homo Home Affairs spokesman resign from the leadership race over a sex scandal. Brilliant!

BBC NEWS | Politics | Oaten resigns over rent boy claim

Fate of 'stressed' whale lies in the balance

Watching the British satellite coverage of this whale story from Russia has been almost as weird as watching the aftermath of Princess Diana's death. Whatever happened to the stiff upper lip and rational detachment for which the English were once known around the world?

It was obvious this whale was sick and disoriented. Non-English experts were saying yesterday that it should be left in peace to die. The British popular media, however, were crying out for the whale to be "saved". So to appease the ignorant, the poor creature was tormented in its final hours.

This contemptible semi-educated sentimentality is what passes for compassion in "caring" post-Thatcher Britain; it's about as genuine as a politician's conscience.

Telegraph | News | Fate of 'stressed' whale lies in the balance

Something smells very fishy about the 'Leo kidnap plot'

As I said earlier. This is a very good piece by Tom Utley, making a serious point in a light-hearted way. Manipulation of (or conspiracy with) the news media is not the hallmark of good democratic government.

Telegraph | Opinion | Something smells very fishy about the 'Leo kidnap plot'

Kelly announces tighter controls on sex offenders

Our government is entirely without principles or backbone. The witch hunt over paedophiles has uncovered what, exactly? One middle-aged man who fell in love a with a 15 year 25 years ago, married her when she was of age and stayed with her for 19 years, raising three children. This hapless, perhaps misguided, soul was the origin of the foul tabloid hue and cry.

Now the Minister announced that there are precisely 10 further people on the sex offenders register cleared to teach. None of them are currently working in schools. So no story then. Just emotional claptrap. Yet did the Minister stand by what seemed to be perfectly rational procedures? No, she caved in to tabloid pressure.

Meanwhile, having had their pictures and names published, some sad specimens of humanity who constitute precisely no threat to anyone are in need of police protection from a baying mob of ignorant and emotional chavs.

One of the names published was that of a former colleague of my wife. We know his sad story. He is no threat to children and was an excellent teacher. Falsely accused, he had no backing from an employer and a trade union anxious not to be thought to defend a supposed pervert. He accepted a caution, rather than be dragged through the courts to the distress of his family. That was supposed to be the end of it. Not now. His life may be in danger. Where is the justice in that?

Last June the papers carried the story of an exuberant and perhaps drunken young man accused of patting a girl's behind in a nightclub. She objected and the police were called. Anxious to bring an embarrassing (and frankly entirely unnecessary) incident to an end, he accepted a caution - only to find that meant being placed on the sex offenders' register.

One thing is clear. No innocent person should ever submit to a caution for anything. Faced with a police officer who tells you that will be the end of it, tell him to "prosecute and be damned."

Telegraph | News | Kelly announces tighter controls on sex offenders

Menezes shooting probe completed | the Daily Mail

One wonders how the IPCC can have properly investigated this case without interviewing the Metropoliitan Police Commissioner, the Home Secretary or the Prime Minister. It seems that the "shoot to kill" policy (which could only have been legalised by Parliament enacting, in effect, a new defence to murder) was endorsed by all three.

Government does not make the laws; Parliament does. True, it has pretty much done what it was told in recent years, but this time it was not even asked for its rubber stamp.

If the policemen who killed Jean Charles de Menezes are to be charged, then they should not stand in the dock alone. They killed him on standing orders from above. Orders from a gang boss are no excuse for the actions of a hit man, but the gang boss is responsible too.

Menezes shooting probe completed | the Daily Mail

Pair face death penalty over student's murder

Personally, as long as all defendants have a right to representation and a fair trial, I have no problem with the death penalty in suitably serious cases. So much for libertarians being soft on crime.

However, this Thai case smells badly.

The outcome is far too convenient for the Thai government and tourist industry, it seems to turn on a confession, albeit then supported by (untested by the defence) DNA evidence. The trial lasted less than a day.

The defendants pleaded guilty (which almost never happens in murder trials) and the only logical reason for them to do so was the prospect of clemency. Now they are to be executed. As Tony Soprano would say, what the ****?

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Pair face death penalty over student's murder

Police aware of 'Leo kidnap plot'

I don't believe a word of this story. It breaks in the still-New Labour Murdoch media; presents opportunities for "our glorious leader" to be shown repeatedly on news bulletins with his much-exploited children, and conveniently trashes the name of a protest group which has repeatedly embarrassed the Government.

It is all just too convenient. What on earth was the anti-terrorist squad doing investigating men who dress up in silly costumes to protest being denied access to their children? What next? The Women's Institute? The Church of England?

Why is our press so damned gullible?

BBC NEWS | UK | Police aware of 'Leo kidnap plot'

Thieves no longer have to appear in court

If sentencing is put into the hands of police and prosecutors, plea bargaining will begin on arrest. "Do you want to put your hands up for [lesser crime], in which case I can offer you [sentence A], or shall we prosecute you for [greater crime] and risk [sentence B]?" will become a more common question in Britain than "What would you like to drink?"

If the policeman arresting you can influence your sentence, the temptation for him to take bribes will become even greater too. This is an undemocratic, illiberal and potentially corrupt proposal.

Telegraph | News | Thieves no longer have to appear in court

Comprehensively wrong

In explaining so clearly that academic selection helps social mobility, the Telegraph misses the point. I believe Labour loves comprehensive schools - which by any rational measure are a failure - precisely because they inhibit social mobility.

As a class-based socialist party, Labour needs intelligent working-class people to be prevented from advancing. It needs such people to be embittered, frustrated and open to left-wing ideology. It wants them to fail, because Labour is the losers' party.

Telegraph | Opinion | Comprehensively wrong

UKIP seeks out Conservative voters with domestic agenda

This is interesting. I am the certainly the kind of person UKIP is setting out to target. As well as being libertarian, I don't believe that Britain belongs in the European Union (although as a cosmopolitan expatriate whose friends are mainly continentals, I wish all the other member nations the best of luck with it).

I confess I was briefly a UKIP member, after resigning from the Conservative Party in the wake of its shameful betrayal of Margaret Thatcher. Although I think it's unfair that the left-wing media lump it together with the BNP, I let my membership lapse because its internal publications suggested I was in, to put it mildly, some rather eccentric company. Like all single issue fanatics, UKIP members seemed to blame everything on their chosen focus of hate; in their case, the EU.

I am fairly sure UKIP will benefit from Cameron's apparent lurch to the left. It will be obvious to any reader that he is making me very uncomfortable and I am sure many liberal-minded, "small State", Conservatives feel the same. However, while we must argue our corner, I think we must also give him the benefit of the doubt. Tony Blair was so successful in convincing people that he was "Thatcher's true heir" that there are left-wingers in Labour who still hate him for it. This, despite the fact that his actions in government have been as Socialist as they could reasonably have hoped for. He has built the British State to unprecedented levels and criminalised class enemies to what should have been their heart's content.

There is a chance that, in a similar way, Cameron is "waving the Red Flag to oppose the Red Flag". I will reserve judgement until the New Tories come up with real policies. And while I will follow the Campbell-Bannerman policy review with interest, UKIP can whistle for my vote.

UKIP seeks out Conservative voters with domestic agenda
>> .:thebusinessonline.com:.

Who is this man?

Our NHS

It is very disappointing that David Cameron will not speak the truth about the National Health Service, Britain's centrally-planned Socialist medical system. There is no reason to suppose that Socialism works for health care any more than it does for any other productive endeavour. As someone who has experienced the tail end of socialised health care in Poland and Russia, I am certain it does not.

Two stories in my own recent experience, affecting a family member and a colleague, illustrate the point. The family member was called in for a knee operation this Christmas, having had problems for some time from a work-related injury. When opened up, the NHS surgeon decided it was more serious than he thought and did not proceed. As the patient came round, he was told by a nurse that the surgeon would come to explain. He then saw the surgeon walk by. The nurse stopped him and reminded him of the patient waiting. The surgeon, coat and backpack on, said impatiently "tomorrow". The patient was kept in pointlessly overnight (further ruining his Christmas) to be told that he needed an artificial knee joint; that these lasted only 10 years and that the NHS rationing policy was not to fit them to younger people as they would only need replacing. He could come back when he was 60. Asked about 15 years of pain and disability, he was told "we will give you painkillers." Naturally, my family member has decided to "go private" and we are looking into the possibility of flying him to Poland to get it done more cheaply.

The second story is in course of happening now. A colleague presented to hospital in Britain while on Christmas holiday, having injured a rib. She was in serious pain and concerned that somehow the injury might have affected her lung, having suffered last year from pneumonia. She asked for an x-ray and was curtly told - "That's for us to decide, not you". She was given painkillers and went home. Determined to return to work and encouraged by my comment that she would get better healthcare in Russia, she flew back. Presenting to a clinic today, having run out of painkillers and finding herself still in serious trouble, she was immediately x-rayed and told she has water on her lung and is in danger. The private clinic here is arranging urgent treatment. I have my fingers crossed for her. In one sense she should never have travelled to Russia in such a condition. On the other hand, had she relied on the NHS, I don't like to think what trouble she might have been in.

Socialism sucks. It has caused nothing but chaos, political opression and economic degeneration wherever it has been tried. No Conservative leader should be advocating it, in whatever circumstances, however limited. Far from being the "envy of the world", as Britons are brought up to believe, the NHS is a filthy Socialist shambles which is costing many British lives and impairing many more.

Cameron's defence of "our" NHS and promise to adhere to its founding principles is a farce.

Backpacker murder trial ends

Am I alone in finding this story strange? In Britain no-one pleads guilty to murder. The life sentence is mandatory, so there is no deal to be done. Even a one in a thousand chance of an acquittal is worth a try.

Not only did these defendants plead guilty, they seem to have been remarkably willing to tell the police the full story without hesitation. No evidence was presented in their defence, or even in mitigation. What kind of pressure would it take for someone meekly to submit in this way? The speedy arrest and conviction is suspiciously convenient for a Thai government keen to protect its damaged tourist industry.

In Thailand, maybe a defendant can escape the death sentence by pleading guilty? If so, and if the two convicted fishermen are not sentenced to death next Wednesday, then maybe the story makes sense. Otherwise, one has to wonder at the level of remorse required for these men to act against their survival instincts. Not to mention the impressive friendship required for each of them not, as any British chav would have done, to accuse the other of commiting rape and murder while he looked on in horror.

Telegraph | News | Backpacker murder trial ends

Telegraph | News | Unruly home owners face eviction

Whatever happened to "an Englishman's home is his castle?"

Once again, the ladies and gentlemen of the press are missing the point. They may think "who cares if a yob is punished?" but they fail to understand what it means that these punishments are summary - i.e. without trial. This means a policeman or social worker can expel you from your house or send you for parenting classes because he or she *says* you are a yob. It will be up to you to prove otherwise, if you dare to make something of it.

There is always a danger that police and social workers will concentrate their fire on respectable people. Why? Because such people have something to lose and are therefore prepared to cooperate. The members of the underclass are too much like hard work and, often, too dangerous.

With the burden of proof turned against the accused, many innocent people will have to take the parenting classes or suffer the punishment rather than incur the expense of going to court - just as many now reluctantly submit to driver re-education to save points on their licence. Our society loses because the more respectable we are, the more we must fear offending a policeman or social worker. The less respectable we are, the more we can spit in their eye. That situation, whatever headlines Blair is winning today, is unlikely to lead to more "respect" in British society.

Two fellow-solicitors of my acquaintance suffered the stress and indignity of fighting for months to win back custody of their children because they were falsely accused of child abuse. The social workers were all over them precisely because they were white, middle class, highly-paid members of a respectable profession. They were clean, polite and pleasant to deal with. Everyone wanted that job. Compare and contrast with the case of Victoria Climbie. No-one in Social Services wanted to handle that case, for fear of being accused of harassing "vulnerable members of society".

All the new powers being given to the authorities have already led to a situation where I would be afraid to tell a policeman that he was out of order. If I annoy him, he has summary powers he can use against me which can make my life difficult and cost me money to deal with. 25 years ago, I asked for the badge number of a belligerent Yorkshire traffic cop with a bad attitude and a serious case of car envy. I threatened to call his Chief Constable. He backed down. I wouldn't dare do it now.

A society in which the people are afraid of their "public servants" is a police state. It is a smaller step than we all want to believe from where Tony Blair has brought us in the last decade, to the streets of Moscow in the days of Beria and his "flower game".

My advice to you is don't upset any policemen or social workers. If you live near one, move away. And don't be surprised when giving public servants these powers leads to corruption.

Telegraph | News | Unruly home owners face eviction

Tories to rule out new grammars

If Cameron's Conservatives win, how exactly will Britain be different?

As a victim of comprehensive education, I am inclined to see attitudes to selection in education as a key "sanity test" for politicians. In no other country in which I have lived can anyone comprehend Britain's Marxist approach to the issue. No policy is more damaging, both to individuals and to the nation's competitive position. The sheer waste of talent is incredible. No nation can hope to compete as a high wage economy if most of its intelligent young people have no access to decent education.

If education is to be tailored to academic ability, ability must be tested. If you disagree with this proposition, you are an ideologue not an educator.

BBC NEWS | Education | Tories to rule out new grammars

Telegraph | News | No identity card? You could be fined £2,500

One might ask, given the supposed benefits to citizens of the new ID Card/National Database system, why large fines are needed to enforce them. If the system will be as wonderful as Ministers say, perhaps the Government should pay compensation of £2,500 to those not lucky enough to enjoy the benefits?

Telegraph | News | No identity card? You could be fined £2,500

ABD

The Russian holidays are coming to an end and I have been luxuriating in my leisure. Browsing the web for things that interest me, I came across this little satirical piece on the Association of British Drivers website. Enjoy.

ABD

Melanie Phillips's Diary

Melanie Phillips is not my kind of person. She is not libertarian, or even liberal, by nature. Like most British journalists, she cannot usually distinguish between having and mandating an opinion.

On this occasion however, she makes a telling point. We all know people like the Burtons. It's ironic they should be criticised on this occasion by the representatives of a Government which is riddled with them.

For a time, I was like them. At Kate Burton's age, I would have refused to cooperate with the authorities too. Come to that, there are many ways in which I would refuse to cooperate now. After all, giving information to intelligence services with a black record of twisting it for political ends is not an obvious thing for an intelligent Briton to do.

At Kate's age, I sympathised with the Palestinians. I was suspended from school for selling "Free Palestine" (the Al Fatah newspaper) on school grounds. I remember the worst thing about being a supporter of the Palestinians was the company one kept. Fascists, anti-semites, primitive Middle Eastern rulers, communists - those of every foul persuasion were to be found lined up behind them. It made me feel increasingly uneasy. But I was too young to understand the importance of such feelings.

I retained some sympathy for the Palestinian cause until 9/11 when they made perfectly clear on the streets that they have lost because they are lost. Injustice is not a licence to be foul. It is a test of humanity. The Palestinians failed.

While we can debate the rights and wrongs of the foundation of Israel, it is a better nation than the Palestinians or their black band of supporters would ever have built. Israel exists, it is democratic, it is friendly and its people are instinctively on the right side of every international debate. Two wrongs do not make a right, but neither do three.

Melanie Phillips's Diary

Political Correctness kills

My blog is subtitled "the death of liberty", but it could just as easily read "the death of truth". Here is a good example.

Stephen Pollard %u2022 PC kills

Sex for visas: the Brazilian girls only had to smile and lean forward

No-one with experience of the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe (or memories of pre-Thatcher Britain) will be surprised by these stories. If valuable privileges can be given or witheld by officials, corruption is inevitable.

In 1970's London, developers could wait months for telephone connections to their new office buildings, or they could pay off the Post Office engineers. The choice was to lose hundreds of thousands in rent, or tens of thousands in bribes.

When we lived in Poland, the police threatened to strike for higher pay. The government chose instead to give them discretion over the amount of fines, depending on the value of the car. Stopped for speeding in your Mercedes you were inevitably offered the choice of being fined as a FIAT, if you would just dispense with the receipt.

In today's Moscow every time-saving illegal turn in a city jammed with traffic has a price. Wind the window down, hold the banknote out for the policeman and he will deftly snatch it; you don't even need to stop. I am told you can buy "season tickets", priced according to the laws you want to break.

I predict there will be more and more such stories in Britain as Blair's New Labour and now, sadly, Cameron's New New Labour, take us further down the path of an over-mighty State. Every time we assume the moral superiority of the State; every time we propose new regulation so that its guardians can prevent this or that abuse, we need to ask Juvenal's ancient question, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

Telegraph | News | Sex for visas: the Brazilian girls only had to smile and lean forward

World dispatch | A failure of purpose

This little article expresses gently, in Guardian-speak, what I have thought for years about aid to Africa. Bob Geldof and Bono get off on their sense of saintliness, but they - and the 40,000 western agencies now condescending to Africans with funds garnered from the well-meaning and guilt-ridden - are doing active damage. All the money spent has not improved the situation at all - except for the thieving dictators.

Guardian Unlimited | World dispatch | A failure of purpose

THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2006

John Brockman, the New York-based literary agent and publisher of The Edge website posed the question: what is your dangerous idea? The essays submitted in response by academics and thinkers make fascinating reading. My favourite is from Daniel Gilbert, a psychologist at Harvard University, who said that it is a dangerous idea that ideas can be dangerous;

"Dangerous does not mean exciting or bold. It means likely to cause great harm. The most dangerous idea is the only dangerous idea: The idea that ideas can be dangerous. We live in a world in which people are beheaded, imprisoned, demoted, and censured simply because they have opened their mouths, flapped their lips, and vibrated some air. Yes, those vibrations can make us feel sad or stupid or alienated. Tough shit. That's the price of admission to the marketplace of ideas. Hateful, blasphemous, prejudiced, vulgar, rude, or ignorant remarks are the music of a free society, and the relentless patter of idiots is how we know we're in one. When all the words in our public conversation are fair, good, and true, it's time to make a run for the fence."

I wish I had said that.