However sympathetic you are to the populist cause, however “realist” on Ukraine, it is impossible to defend the head of the world’s most powerful nation putting out reckless semi-literate screeds like this.
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The prosecution of speech crimes will erode public trust in the police and is taking us to anarcho-tyranny: the police will come after easy targets, and leave persistent criminals to run rampant. There is no British equivalent to the “thin blue line” movement in the United States, a segment of the population which will support the police come what may, and they may find themselves without a dependable public support base. While it is for politicians to repeal the laws which have killed free speech in Britain, the police must do their part too to revive Robert Peel’s founding principles and protect the safety, order and indeed liberties of the British people, instead of enforcing the political creed of multiculturalism over freedom, as many do today. February 18th, 2025 | 18 comments
 Competition has utterly transformed telecommunications after the state Post Office monopoly was ended. The same happened with deliveries when Amazon came along with an innovative service. Uber and Airbnb have each transformed their markets. That is how competition works. It is Schumpeter’s creative destruction. Like evolution, it works by a selective death rate. It is not who owns the production, it is how easy it is for potential competitors to gain access to the market. Growth, productivity and innovation are driven by competition. Producers vie to satisfy the consumers, and those who do so survive, for a time, over those who do not. One thing that competition ensures is change. It leads to a dynamic economy, just as its absence leads to a static one. February 17th, 2025 | 7 comments
I say “ourselves” because I fundamentally believe that we are on the same team. We must do more than talk about democratic values; we must live them. Within living memory of many in this room, the Cold War positioned defenders of democracy against much more tyrannical forces on this continent. Consider the side in that fight that censored dissidents, that closed churches, that cancelled elections—were they the good guys? Certainly not. And thank God they lost. They lost because they neither valued nor respected the extraordinary blessings of liberty: the freedom to surprise, to make mistakes, to invent, to build. As it turns out, you can’t mandate innovation or creativity, just as you can’t force people what to think, what to feel, or what to believe. Unfortunately, when I look at Europe today, it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War’s winners. I look to Brussels, where EU commissars warned citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest the moment they spot what they’ve judged to be “hateful content.” Or to this very country, where police have carried out raids against citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online as part of “combating misogyny on the internet,” a so-called Day of Action. I look to Sweden, where two weeks ago the government convicted a Christian activist for participating in Quran burnings that resulted in his friend’s murder. As the judge in his case chillingly noted, Sweden’s laws to supposedly protect free expression do not, in fact, grant (and I’m quoting) “a free pass to do or say anything without risking offending the group that holds that belief.” Perhaps most concerningly, I look to our very dear friends, the United Kingdom, where the backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious Britons, in particular, in the crosshairs. A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith-Connor, a 51-year-old physiotherapist and an army veteran, with the heinous crime of standing 50 meters from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes—not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own. After British law enforcement spotted him and demanded to know what he was praying for, Adam replied simply that it was on behalf of the unborn son he and his former girlfriend had aborted years before. The officers were not moved. Adam was found guilty of breaking the government’s new “buffer zones” law, which criminalizes silent prayer and other actions that could influence a person’s decision within 200 meters of an abortion facility. He was sentenced to pay thousands of pounds in legal costs to the prosecution. – J.D. Vance speaking at the Munich Security Conference 2025 February 14th, 2025 | 49 comments
“Our problem in the West, I believe, is that we got into a vicious circle of decline. Our victory in the Cold War removed the pressure to remain productive and to constantly demonstrate the superiority of the Western model of free markets and free nations.” – (Lord) David Frost, Daily Telegraph. He refers to a new essay he has out to coincide with the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference that has been going on in London. I think it is a worthwhile read. February 14th, 2025 | 17 comments
“Yes, Mr. Musk and his young team are seeing confidential government data. But he’s also the second most closely observed person on the planet, the exact opposite of the thousands who already have access to government data and stay invisible until they turn out to be Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, Charles Edward Littlejohn or Jack Teixeira. Mr. Musk is said to be causing chaos but government programs are born in chaos—with congressional horse trading and payoffs to appease interest groups.” – Holman Jenkins, Jr. Wall Street Journal February 13th, 2025 | 20 comments
At the request of US president Donald Trump, Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have been through USAID’s books. There they claim to have found an organisation funding myriad dubious campaigns and groups around the world. Among many other activities, it’s been backing drag shows in Ecuador and transgender operas in Colombia. It’s dished out $84million to Chelsea Clinton through the Clinton Foundation. It also gave $54million to the controversial NGO, the EcoHealth Alliance, which collaborated with the notorious Wuhan Institute of Virology in ‘gain of function’ experiments that are alleged to have made Covid-19 more transmissible. February 10th, 2025 | 12 comments
It is notable that the inquiry’s concentration on the work of the Government’s dis- and mis- information operation assumes that anyone questioning the safety and effectiveness of vaccines is spreading such information. In reality the main source of dis- and mis- information is the Government: the manifest failings of the MHRA have been concealed; the safe and effective narrative is a sham. I have yet to see any news report of the meeting but hope one will appear somewhere. I also hope that transcripts of the speakers’ presentations will become available. I note that the Perseus Group has made several witness statements to the Hallett Inquiry; whether these have been put on the inquiry website is a little difficult to determine, as the ‘statements’ tab leads to a list which is 809 pages long. I got through the first five without finding anything sensible buried among the trivia. Maybe the submissions are there somewhere. Somehow I doubt it. February 9th, 2025 | 12 comments
Naturally, the press has echoed the Deep State. “This is a hostile takeover of the federal government by a private citizen of unlimited means with no restrictions and no transparency,” said Kara Swisher of a man presently working for the democratically-elected president of our country, following his orders directly, and who at any moment can be (and ultimately almost certainly will be, let’s be honest) fired. “It’s a coup,” said Lindsay Owens of Groundwork (some kind of tedious, commie, dark money think tank), which was echoed throughout the press. “…what’s going on right now really is a genuine crisis,” said Jesse Singal, “and it should be recognized as such.” But a crisis for who? I don’t share politics with the Deep State, and am not a huge fan of permanent, unelected, unaccountable power in general, so maybe this is hitting me different. In any case, I’ve been wondering: where is this level of “crisis” reporting on the president’s flurry of trans orders? His dismantling of DEI? The trade war (already mostly over, by the way) or Panama (also basically handled now, but I digress). With the exception of Selena Gomez, I haven’t seen many tears for deported violent criminals, something we heard a lot about back before the election. No, panic is almost entirely focused on saving federal bureaucrats. Why? February 5th, 2025 | 66 comments
“Imagine being Keir Starmer’s voice coach. It’s like being David Lammy’s academic advisor or Bridget Phillipson’s charm consultant.” (For those who don’t – wisely perhaps – follow UK domestic politics, David Lammy is Foreign Secretary, and Phillipson is Education minister. Both are dreadful and therefore classic front-bench ministers in this administration.) February 5th, 2025 | 7 comments
The British economy is lying flat on its back in an alleyway with wee dribbling down its leg. – Rod Liddle (£) February 1st, 2025 | 11 comments
This Friday, January 24th, the UK Parliament is due to vote on a Private Member’s Bill that could lead to mass starvation, widespread disease and fatalities and the almost certain collapse of civil liberties and society within a few years. The bill has the support of a third of voting MPs and there is a clear and present danger that it could pass. Many MPs depart for their constituencies on a Friday and 200 remaining zealots could have a chance to swing a vote their way. The bill is a thinly-disguised attempt using meaningless climate and nature crisis verbosity to ration and control almost everything that citizens consume. The obvious attack on civil liberties should serve as a warning to other countries to stand against the Net Zero hysterics that have infiltrated large sections of elite British society. January 21st, 2025 | 13 comments
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