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I spotted this in a Jane’s newsletter:
I feel soooo bad! January 20th, 2006 | 30 comments - (Comments are closed)
 One of the contenders for the leadership of Britain’s Liberal Democrats is Scot, Menzies Campbell, known as “Ming”. I am not sure how he got this moniker. Was it because his friends thought he resembled the villain of the Flash Gordon series, Ming the Merciless? I feel sorry for his supporters. They are destined to be known as a lot of mingers. (That’s enough adolescent humour, Ed). January 20th, 2006 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong January 20th, 2006 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
Only a complete ass would make the cost of ID cards, rather than principle behind them, the main thrust of their opposition to such an imposition. And it would appear that So presumably Cameron, who does nothing not somehow calculated to help return the Tories to power, thinks that such a stance will play well with people who actually care about civil liberties? Well if that really is his objective, does he really think that the NO2ID crew and the LibDems (the two main anti-ID card groups) are really just worried about another small tax? In short, is he really that stupid? And if he is trying to curry favour with ‘Middle England’, is this not the group we are told do not really care one way or the other on the issue? All he needs to do to get the serious civil libertarians to cheer him to the rafters is stand up and say “regardless of what it costs, we oppose them because they are wrong and any government that tries to impose them is not just wrong, it is wicked. And if they are imposed, we will scrap them the moment we take power, again regardless of what was spent to impose them.” There is of course no chance whatsoever he will ever say that because clearly the idea of that ID cards are all about civil liberties does not really resonate with a Blairite like Cameron… but of course I would love to be proven wrong. January 19th, 2006 | 56 comments - (Comments are closed)
Jacques Chirac has suddenly come out with a statement (French version here) that not only is France prepared to use nuclear weapons “against any state which launched a terrorist attack against it”, their nuclear forces had been “configured for such an event”. As clearly this is a direct threat to nuke Iran, I can only wonder what the hell is going on here? Makes me wonder what exactly do they know in the Quai d’Orsay that they are not sharing with the rest of us. January 19th, 2006 | 60 comments - (Comments are closed)
I have been trying to get myself all worked up about how the UK Education Minister, Ruth Kelly, approved the appointment of a convicted sex offender to a job in a state school. All very terrible, she is obviously an ass, blah-blah. But nearly every commentary on this shabby business seems to be missing a wider point. What on earth is a politician doing approving or blocking the appointment of a teacher in the first place? There are tens of thousands of teachers, supply teachers and assistants. How on earth is a politician, or even a reasonably competent personnel manager, expected to keep track of all these folk? The centralisation of our state education system has brought this sort of problem to pass. We need to return to the point where individual schools hire and fire teachers, and where parents have the freedom to put their children into a school or pull them out if they are not satisfied. It is not exactly rocket science. January 19th, 2006 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
The headline of the print Daily Telegraph today trumpeted ‘Mini-brothels get go-ahead to operate on your doorstep’. I immediately took a peek at my doorstep but alas nothing to report yet. To recycle a well known quote: prostitution combines free enterprise with sex. Which one are you against? January 18th, 2006 | 41 comments - (Comments are closed)
There is an article by Simon Heffer with the simple title of Doing nothing in Iran is not an option which seems to be stating the obvious to me. Given the leadership of Iran are self-declared apocalypse enthusiasts, I for one do not regard just waiting until Tel Aviv gets nuked as acceptable and I rather suspect the Israelis heartily concur. The shit is going to hit the fan soon, that much is certain and no amount of risible European diplomacy will change that. As for something that could be done more or less immediately, it was gratifying to see Mark Steyn has come around to my view on how to apply pressure in ways that might really destabilise this regime… do to the Iranians security services exactly what they are doing to British troops in Southern Iraq: fight a proxy war with them, only do it openly and without apology. Fact is, Britain is already at war with Iranian backed forced in Iraq and has been for months. So the government just needs to take this to its logical conclusion and escalate the war so that the Iranian state finds itself at war with British backed Iranian insurgent forces in Iran. It is not like there is any shortage of Iranians who want to be rid of their theocratic nutters. Sounds like a nice convergence of interests to me. January 18th, 2006 | 51 comments - (Comments are closed)
So if the United Kingdom is in the grip of a “Blairite Tyranny“, what is the proper response? After all, few would question the ethics of assassinating Adolf Hitler. The main complaint about the attempt on Hitler’s life is that it took as long as it did to be set in motion. Even today, the ‘Third World’ is full of dodgy dictators whose death by tyrannicide would not be condemned by many, least of all their own victims. However, few would actually argue that Tony Blair’s conduct of government, while authoritarian in operation and intention, merits his actual death by murder. If merit is involved, in my opinion, Blair deserves a sound thrashing from the Headmaster’s office, and ostracism by civilised members of society, and in any case, violence should always be a last resort in political life as in everything else. But this begs the question: at what point does a ruler’s conduct become so vile and repulsive that tyrannicide becomes a morally plausible response? Does the democratic process increase the threshold, or lower it? Tyrannicides were applauded in ancient Greece; should we applaud them in this era? [Editors note: please read this article carefully before commenting. It is NOT suggesting or even discussing whether or not Tony Blair should be assassinated, but rather is a discussion of how to deal with lesser variety tyrants. Comments suggesting Blair et al should be done in will be deleted as both unhelpful and seditious] January 18th, 2006 | 88 comments - (Comments are closed)
To see a term like “Blairite Tyranny” bandied about on a blog like this by people who think things like civil liberties actually matter, is to be expected. However to see those words in print at all in the mainstream media is quite remarkable! More of the same please. January 17th, 2006 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
Commenting in The Register on the Government’s defeats in the Lords on the Identity Cards Bill, John is looking ahead:
It would be a lot funnier, if it weren’t so true. January 17th, 2006 | Comments are closed
It would be fair to say that telling the truth often makes you no friends, and thus the need to protect ‘whistleblowers’ from being penalised for telling what they know is an issue that should be close to the heart of any who value truth above all else. It is often only people on the inside who can reveal the dirty deeds and malfeasance that would otherwise never come to light. Therefore when I read of a person losing their position because not only did they tell the truth, they refused to allow the truth to be forgotten, it just makes me sick as a parrot. January 17th, 2006 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
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