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Once again, the British police risk life and limb to protect us from those who would do us harm:
A father and his son were confronted by armed police after a young boy was seen playing with a toy gun in a car.
Kevin and Jason Price were ordered out of the car and onto their knees after police were told a weapon was seen pointing from the window.
But in fact it was a £15 plastic ball bearing rifle bought for Mr Price’s seven-year-old son Connor, who was sitting in the back.
Police have defended their actions, and say they have to treat reports of firearms seriously.
No, more likely it was another opportunity to put on a public display of virility against a soft, safe and easy target.
Is there no end to this absurd hysteria? Are there no depths to which this official paranoia cannot sink?
Oh no I couldn’t possibly. No, no, no, no. No, never. I don’t need it. I don’t want it. What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand? I wouldn’t, I couldn’t, I shouldn’t. Not me. Not now. I said n………oh, well if you insist:
Hillary Clinton, the darling of the Democratic Party, is under growing pressure to make a late bid for the White House in 2004 from supporters who believe that only she can defeat George W Bush.
There will be no shortage of Americans willing and eager to step up and testify about the depths of loathing this woman incites in ‘fly-over country’. I am sure they would be right. But it would be foolhardy to ignore all those legions of baby-boomers with retirement on their minds. You don’t have to be liked to win elections (see either of Messrs.T.Blair or J.Chirac for details).
As somebody whose inbox was besieged by MSBlast worms (all ‘quarantined’ fortunately), I would just love a quiet word with this gentleman:
Authorities in America have charged an 18-year-old youth with spreading the crippling MSBlast internet virus.
Jeffrey Lee Parson of Hopkins, Minnesota, is accused of “intentionally causing and attempting to cause damage to a protected computer”.
If found guilty, Mr Parson faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Only ten years?
Members and supporters of the Conservative Party who have a delicate disposition might be best advised to look away now. Perhaps move on to the next article. Or the last article. Or spoil yourselves with our tempting and varied blog-roll to the left. But don’t read on because, for you, this is disturbing stuff:
Although the Government’s reputation is far from having sunk to the depths plumbed by John Major’s government in the mid 1990s, parallels between the two administrations begin to suggest themselves.
That said, it is striking that the Conservatives’ lead over Labour – a mere two percentage points – is so small and that, as the figures in the panel also show, Mr Blair is still preferred by a wide margin to Iain Duncan Smith as the person who “would make the best Prime Minister”.
The Tory Party’s efforts to present Mr Duncan Smith as a more relaxed and confident leader than in the past have so far had negligible public impact. His standing is virtually on a par with that of the Liberal Democrats’ Charles Kennedy.
The section of the chart headed “A Conservative Government?” tells a similar story. The proportion of people saying they would be “delighted” if the Conservatives came to power remains unchanged since the last general election and the proportion saying they would be “dismayed” has actually risen slightly.
Tony Blair and New Labour have now been in power for over six years; their policies are widely judged to have been a failure, Blair’s popularity has plummeted and the party over which he presides is riven with in-fighting. Despite all this, the Conservatives cannot even overtake them in the opinion polls and, anyway you care to stack it up, that is grim news for them.
To my reading, something has gone very badly wrong for the Tories that cuts deeper than a mere downturn in fortunes. By any reasonable reckoning the political pendulum should have swung towards them by now or, at least, it should be showing signs of doing so. The fact that it is still doggedly (though marginally) on the Labour side of the divining line suggests a systemic failure that no amount of analytical contortion can disguise.
Which raises the question of whether the Conservative Party is done for. Yes, finished. Washed-up. Dead men walking and all that. Certainly if Labour wins the next election by anything like a respectable margin (and they could well do so), then it is difficult to imagine the Tories surviving as an institution. Such a vista would have been unimaginable a decade ago. But times change as times are wont to do and the fact that the Conservatives ruled Britain for most of the Twentieth Century is of no help to them now. As they say in the investment world, past performance is no guarantee of future success.
Which raises another question of what (if anything) will replace them? I do believe that something will replace them as Labour would then be left as the establishment that is begging to be challenged. But by what and by whom? Perhaps a genuinely classical liberal party? Perhaps the BNP? The opening paragraph of the linked article hints at all manner of intriguing possibilities:
Signs are emerging that Dr David Kelly’s death and the revelations of the Hutton Inquiry are inflicting substantial damage not just on Tony Blair’s government but on Britain’s entire political class – journalists as well as politicians.
That sound to me like a vacuum. Eventually it will be filled. But by what?
Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets.
Seeking out fiskable material in the Guardian is altogether too much like spearing fish in a barrel. It’s almost unfair. Callous, even. In fact, spoilt for choice, I generally elect to leave the tiddlers and save my energies for the succulent, fat ones that drift serene and oblivious to my cravings for their ample and oily flesh.
Dinner is served, courtesy of one Brian Wilson who takes his readers on a moist-eyed trip down memory lane:
Twenty-five years ago this month, I visited Cuba for the first time. The occasion was the World Festival of Youth and Students, which drew 20,000 to Havana from 150 countries – probably, to this day, the country’s biggest display to the world of its revolutionary wares.
Come on over, Mama, whole lot of schtoopidity goin’ on.
Yet, for our Brian, these were the salad days:
But for me, that visit was the start of a life-long love affair.
Ah yes, the romantic boulevards of gay Havana, where Brian strolled arm-in-arm with the Revolutionary Vanguard of the Hoopty-Squat Dirtbag 25th of November People’s Liberation Front Army (or something).
There is no need to confuse that statement with uncritical acclaim for everything about the place. But criticism should never ignore the fact that Cuba’s primary service to the world has been to provide living proof that it is possible to conquer poverty, disease and illiteracy in a country that was grossly over-familiar with all three.
Where’s the ‘living proof’, O Besotted One? Why isn’t every Cuban Embassy on the planet besieged with sick, starving, illiterate people all clamouring for passage to Havana and salvation? → Continue reading: In Cuba, no-one can hear you scream
Our good friend Dr.Sean Gabb is currently in Sweden where he is exercising his estimable talents (by invitation, I hasten to add) in support of the campaign against the Euro.
Like Britain, Sweden is actually a member of the European Union (remember, it’s a process not a club) but has yet to ditch its currency (the Crown) in favour of adopting the Euro currency. That could all change next month as a result of a national referendum on the issue and which has divided opinion in the country along by-now familiar lines; most of the political, managerial and media elite are strongly in favour but are battling against widespread grassroots scepticism.
It is into this confrontation that Sean (as well as Dr.Madsen Pirie of the Adam Smith Institute) have stepped and from where Sean has written this report:
Adlon Hotel, Stockholm, Monday 25th August 2003
With Mrs Gabb, I am in Sweden for two reasons. The first is to address the summer conference of one of the main libertarian movements in Scandinavia. The second is to help strengthen the no campaign in the closing stages of the Swedish referendum on the Euro. It was my intention to write a long account of the things seen and done during this past week, together with observations on the Swedish people and their architecture and language. But I am presently short of time, and the glare of the television lights has dimmed all else but the events they illuminated. I will write at more length when back in England. For the moment, though, I will concentrate on the second reason for my visit.
→ Continue reading: Fighting the Euro in Sweden
There can be few afflictions more tragic and debilitating than blindness.
So I sincerely hope that this qualifies as some sort of breakthrough:
A blind man can see again after being given a stem cell transplant.
Mike May, of California, had been blind for 40 years since an accident at the age of three where he lost one eye and was blinded in the other.
The operation transplanted corneal and limbal stem cells into his right eye.
My very best wishes to Mr.May and to medical team who restored his sight. The possibility that this technique can be used to help blind people everywhere is something that is worth hoping and praying for.
I cannot recall hearing of such a petulant outburst from the normally stately and dignified BBC:
The controller of BBC1 launched an unprecedented attack on Rupert Murdoch yesterday, calling the media billionaire a “capital imperialist” who wants to destabilise the corporation because he “is against everything the BBC stands for”.
Sounds like my kind of guy.
Lorraine Heggessey said Mr Murdoch’s continued attacks on the BBC stemmed from a dislike of the public sector. But he did not understand that the British people “have a National Health Service, a public education system” and trust organisations that are there for the benefit of society and not driven by profit.
Methinks the executives of the BBC sense that they are in trouble. They realise that ‘Auntie’ no longer enjoys an exalted status as a national treasure and, hence, is vulnerable.
The time-honoured and global reputation for fairness, accuracy and objectivity is something they have dined out on, abused and terminally tarnished. And, even if this were not the case, in an era when the market provides so many choices, it is impossible to stem the growing discontent with the arcane and punitive television tax that funds the BBC.
But it’s all the fault of Rupert Murdoch and his band of evil capitalists. (Oh, and George Bush of course).
From the manner in which our governing elites regulate, restrict, control, prohibit and monitor every jot and tittle of our lives, it is probably reasonable to infer that they imagine themselves to be presiding over a motley and sordid collection of cut-throats, gangsters, thieves, perverts, racists, conmen and every other manner of low and untrustworthy creature.
This is the diametric opposite of the truth. On the whole, the British are civil, law-abiding and touchingly decent. Personally, I put this down to our common law heritage.
How strange, then, that there appears to be no public concern whatsoever about an organisation based in this country and whose members clearly feel confident enough to openly publish and distribute such disturbing sentiments:
Two years on then, it seems that during their customary 1 minutes silence in NewYork and elsewhere on September the 11th 2003, Muslims worldwide will again be watching replays of the collapse of the Twin Towers, praying to Allah (SWT) to grant those magnificent 19, Paradise. They will also be praying for the reverberations to continue until the eradication of all man-made law and the implementation of divine law in the form of the Khilafah – carrying the message of Islam to the world and striving for Izhar ud-Deen i.e. the total domination of the world by Islam.
Well, at least they’re not going fox-hunting (I assume).
I remain a passionate advocate of free speech. I think these people should be able to say whatever they want to say. However, and by the same token, other people are free to draw from it whatever conclusions they see fit.
[My thanks to the crew at Gene Expression for the link.]
In more traditional police-states, citizens may be blissfully unaware that they have done wrong until they are woken in the wee small hours by an ominous rapping on their front doors. In modern police-state Britain, the knock on the door is to be replaced by the thud on the doormat.
If this report from the UK Times is accurate (and it is just about creepy enough to be true) then it may be time to think about buying a bicycle:
EVEN George Orwell would have choked. Government officials are drawing up plans to fit all cars in Britain with a personalised microchip so that rule-breaking motorists can be prosecuted by computer.
Dubbed the “Spy in the Dashboard” and “the Informer” the chip will automatically report a wide range of offences including speeding, road tax evasion and illegal parking. The first you will know about it is when a summons or a fine lands on your doormat.
The plan, which is being devised by the government, police and other enforcement agencies, would see all private cars monitored by roadside sensors wherever they travelled.
Who the bloody hell are the ‘other enforcement agencies’? And the very notion of an informer in every vehicle! Saddam Hussein could only dream about that level of control.
Police working on the “car-tagging” scheme say it would also help to slash car theft and even drug smuggling.
The same old, same old. Every accursed and intrusive state abuse is sold to the public as a cure for crime and ‘drug-dealing’. The fact that it still works is proof that we live in the Age of Bovine Stupidity. A media advertising campaign showing seedy drug-dealers and leering child-molesters being rounded up as a result of this technology will have the public begging for a ‘spy in the dashboard’.
Having already expressed my doubts about the viability of new government schemes here I should add that the fact that this relies on technology rather than human agency means it just might.
The next step is an electronic device in your car which will immediately detetct any infringement of any regulation, then lock the doors, drive you to a football stadium and shoot you. HMG is reported to be very interested and is launching a feasibility study.
[This item has been cross-posted on Samizdata.]
In more traditional police-states, citizens may be blissfully unaware that they have done wrong until they are woken in the wee small hours by an ominous rapping on their front doors. In modern police-state Britain, the knock on the door is to be replaced by the thud on the doormat.
If this report from the UK Times is accurate (and it is just about creepy enough to be true) then it may be time to think about buying a bicycle:
EVEN George Orwell would have choked. Government officials are drawing up plans to fit all cars in Britain with a personalised microchip so that rule-breaking motorists can be prosecuted by computer.
Dubbed the “Spy in the Dashboard” and “the Informer” the chip will automatically report a wide range of offences including speeding, road tax evasion and illegal parking. The first you will know about it is when a summons or a fine lands on your doormat.
The plan, which is being devised by the government, police and other enforcement agencies, would see all private cars monitored by roadside sensors wherever they travelled.
Who the bloody hell are the ‘other enforcement agencies’? And the very notion of an informer in every vehicle! Saddam Hussein could only dream about that level of control.
Police working on the “car-tagging” scheme say it would also help to slash car theft and even drug smuggling.
The same old, same old. Every accursed and intrusive state abuse is sold to the public as a cure for crime and ‘drug-dealing’. The fact that it still works is proof that we live in the Age of Bovine Stupidity. A media advertising campaign showing seedy drug-dealers and leering child-molesters being rounded up as a result of this technology will have the public begging for a ‘spy in the dashboard’.
Having already expressed my doubts about the viability of new government schemes (see below) I should just add that the fact that this relies on technology rather than human agency means it just might work.
The next step is an electronic device in your car which will immediately detetct any infringement of any regulation, then lock the doors, drive you to a football stadium and shoot you. HMG is reported to be very interested and is launching a feasibility study.
[This article has been cross-posted to White Rose.]
I wonder how many of our readers went to see the film ‘Minority Report’ and came away thinking, ‘Hey, what a great film’?
Contrast this with one of HMG’s advisers who went to see the film and cam away thinking, ‘Hey, what a great idea!:
Tony Blair is to announce plans to put up to half a million children deemed at risk of becoming criminals or getting into other trouble on a new computer register.
Teachers, family doctors and other professionals working with youngsters will be asked to name potential troublemakers whose personal details will then be placed on the database.
The new “identification, tracking and referral” system will allow the authorities to share information on vulnerable children, including their potential for criminal activity.
Alright, let’s get the obvious question out of the way, such as, exactly what does ‘at risk’ mean? What constitutes a ‘potential troublemaker’? Who decides these things and on what basis? Who guards the guardians?
Oh I daresay that there are answers (or, rather, great globs of state-management gobbledekook that purport to be answers) but they will almost certainly remain occluded behind the volumes of policy documents that filter through the ziggurat of state agencies charged with enforcing it all.
For the record, I denounce this but I do so merely as a matter of form. My stores of furious indignation have all but dried up leaving a residue of doleful resignation. And, to be fair, we’ve always had mechanisms for controlling the poor; this is merely the latest manifestation, albeit dressed up in the fashionable terminology of ‘caring and concern’.
The chink of light (well, a fissure really) is that this grand plan may not get off the ground at all and, even if it does, it will probably be a shambles. HMG already has far more laws, regulations, rules, plans, initiatives, schemes and regimes that it can possible see through or enforce and nothing they announce nowadays is likely to work as intended or at all.
Still, it will keep a few state bureaucrats busy for a few more years and that is probably enough.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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