Last Tuesday night I had supper at the recently established Tim and Helen Evans home, the occasion being one of the trips to London made by the guys from the University of St. Andrews (in Scotland) Liberty Club, this time represented by Alex Singleton (who is English), Conyers Davis (Yank), and Marian Tupy (from Slovakia – unnervingly perfect English – reminded me of the actor Oscar Werner (Spy Who Came In From The Cold, Fahrenheit 451)). Great night. The combination of a real kitchen table in a real kitchen and bought-in food worked perfectly, what with Tim and Helen being very hardworking people themselves.
St. Andrews Liberty Club has, of course, a fine website (www.libertyclub.org.uk), and before doing this I took a look at their “quotes” section for the first time.
My favourite one, I think, because I hadn’t heard it before and because it’s quick, is: “An economy breathes through its tax loopholes.” – Dr. Barry Bracewell-Milnes. Dr. BBM is everything someone with a name like that should be. Elderly. Often bow tie. Posh voice. Knows everything to be known about the British tax system and the harm it does. (His latest publication, Euthanasia for Death Duties, is published by the Institute of Economic Affairs and is about the case for abolishing the British version of inheritance tax.) My favourite other Dr. BBM quote was said by him to me some years ago, about a piece called “Taxation is theft” (now Libertarian Alliance Political Notes No 44) by Libertarian Alliance Director Chris Tame. Said BBM, after a judicious pause: “This is one of the best pieces entitled ‘Taxation is Theft’ that I have ever read.”
Tim and I showed the St. Andrews trio how blogging works, of course using this as an example. They were impressed, and started to talk about maybe doing something similar themselves. With luck then, the world may soon be able to eavesdrop on all their rowing with their Vice Chancellor and with their local feminists, on their profound thoughts, their lives, their universe and their everything, even more easily than it can already via their website.
St. Andrews University is a big deal for the cause of liberty, because this is where the founders of the Adam Smith Institute met up and first got thinking around the late 1960s. (Alex Singleton has himself worked for the Adam Smith Institute.) Could something as big as that be emerging from the same place, again?
Something will surely come of it. One effect of blogging, the Internet, etc., seems to be to enable social networks, which got established and firmed up when the members of them were in daily physical contact, to remain in creative touch when their members disperse – a solution to the “How can we carry on doing this without stunting the rest of our lives?” problem common to all good times at University.
To recycle another Liberty Club Quote, this time from Edmund Burke: “When bad men combine, the good must associate.”
