Sometimes talented, sometimes monumentally untalented assailants of one’s ears: yes, the phenomenon of the public “busker” seems to be alive and well on the London Underground. A guy at Chancery Lane station this evening was dressed in what must have been a hot and thick red jacket, with a sort of Elvis haircut and was belting out Sinatra hits. (Not bad, actually). The sound of Old Blue Eyes followed me down the Stygian depths of the platform until the racket of the train overwhelmed it. A strange evening. The station was full of police with their yellow jackets on on high alert four Thursdays on from the mass murders of July 7. Cops and Sinatra on a Thursday night. A rum combination.
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UK authorities may be faced with a bit of a struggle in extraditing a man, now in Rome, for his alleged involvement in the failed July 21 terrorist attacks on the London transport system, according to this report. So could some nice person remind me what the EU-wide arrest warrant is suppose to achieve, exactly? Oh, er, wait a minute… August 1st, 2005 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
 The oldest “mini-aircraft carrier” used by Britain’s Royal Navy, HMS Invincible, is being retired from service. The vessel, from which Sea Harrier jets can operate – as well as helicopters – is more than 20 years old and was used in the Falklands War, among other theatres of operation. As I said a while back, I have no ideological issue one way or the other about the exact composition of our armed forces, which must change with the times and respond to different threats to this country. Coming from a bit of a navy family myself and being an enthusiast over our island’s naval history, I am nevertheless the first to realise that sentiment must not trump hard calculation when it comes to manning our defences. But it bothers me that our navy has been reduced to a level that makes independent military action by this country a logistical impossibility. It is probably quite unlikely that we could mount a Falklands-style operation on our own again. The present government wants, so it is reported, to build two new massive carriers but as is usually the case in these matters, the likely date of construction seems to stretch into the horizon, rather like the prospect of England beating Australia at cricket. In an age when we fret about islamofascist psychos letting off bombs on the Tube, it may be tempting to think that the Senior Service’s role is little more than to patrol the coasts and put on commemorations about the Battle of Trafalgar. How complacent that would be. Given that we are an island nation, still reliant on shipping for a huge amount of our economic and physical wellbeing, such an attitude is fraught with danger. We could run the risk of cutting the fleet so hard that we lose the inner core of skilled men and women needed for the service. With the exception of anarcho-capitalists, even the most hardcore classical liberal realises that defence is a baseline requirement for a proper state. And for an island nation like Britain with a long coastline, that means having a workable navy. August 1st, 2005 | 40 comments - (Comments are closed)
Unsurprisingly, there is a lot of comment out there in dead-tree media and the electronic versions about religion and its relation vis a vis the state at the moment. (Full disclosure: I am a lapsed Anglican Christian who read a lot of David Hume, much to the annoyance of my old vicar, no doubt). There is a bracing essay in the Spectator this week about the nonsense spouted in the usual places about “moderate” Islam. The blog Positive Liberty, which has become a group blog like this one – has an excellent piece looking at the religious, or in some cases, decidely lukewarm religious, views of the U.S. Founding Fathers. These men, to varying degrees, were acutely conscious of the dangers of religious fundamentalism, having seen within their lifetimes the human price of it. As we think about the dangers posed by Islam in our own time, the insights of Madison, Adams, Jefferson et al are needed more than ever. The linked-to article is fairly long but worth sitting back and sipping on a coffee for a good read, I think. It is in my view essential for the west’s future that the benefits of separating what is God’s from what is Cesear’s is made as loudly and as often as possible. Muslims must be made abundantly aware of this point for if they do not, the consequences could be dire. Maybe because of the role played by the Church of England in our post-Reformation history, we don’t have the tradition, as in the States, of keeping a beady eye on the blurring of the edges of temporal and spiritual. Cynics have of course argued that nationalising Christianity via the CoE has helped the cause of fuzzy agnosticism and atheism more than the complete works of the Englightenment. Well, maybe. It may have as much to do with the relative openness of British society, our ironical sense of humour (religious enthusiasm has often struck the Brits as slightly silly or unhinged, ripe for Monty Python treatment) and desire not to give offence. I fear that sense of humour is going to be tested for the remainder of my lifetime. July 29th, 2005 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
Yes, yes, I know, his girlfriend is Sheryl Crowe, he is supported by John “doh” Kerry, which may suggest he is in need of ideological help, but can anyone doubt, after winning the Tour de France for 7 times in a row, that Lance Armstrong is one of the greatest athletes to have ever lived? And he comes from Texas. If I was a Frenchman, that has to hurt. July 26th, 2005 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
I have just returned from just over two of the funniest hours spent at the cinema for quite a while. Wedding Crashers, starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, is an outrageous, politically incorrect, deplorable romp of a movie, the perfect tonic for these unpleasant times. Vaughn is also refreshingly free of the political posturing that tends to colour my views of Hollywood these days. July 24th, 2005 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
It is easy, with all the terrible events going on in London at the moment, to let other significant stories slip under the radar. However, last week the UK senior finance minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, tweaked the rules of UK budget policy in an offhand manner that takes the breath away for sheer barefaced cheek. Brown has a so-called “Golden Rule” that stipulates that the government’s books must be in balance over the course of the economic cycle. The books are currently seriously in the red at the moment, which would appear alarming given that we have had a relatively decent period of economic growth recently. So what does the gloomy Scot do? He shifts the year in which a key part of the economic cycle is supposed to have started by two years, the effect of which is supposed to show that the Golden Rule has not been broken. This sleight of hand produced fairly scant coverage outside the business sections, but in its own little way illustrates the utter contempt this government has for the financial markets, or the general public. Brown has done this sort of thing before. And it makes one wonder just how long Brown can go on before the economy, supposedly Labour’s strongest card in the last election, turns south. I never bought the argument that Brown was a great Chancellor, as, with all his faults, was Nigel Lawson, for example. Brown has been enormously lucky to inherit an economy left in fine fettle by the previous Conservative government, and apart from his wise move of making the Bank of England independent, has done precious little right since. He is an ardent meddler and micro-manager, making the tax code into a hideously complex morass that does precious little for growth apart from make lots of jobs for tax accountants. How the world changes. A few weeks ago the political trainspotters were wondering how soon Brown would take over from Blair. I suspect the likelihood of that happening has been pushed away by quite a distance. July 23rd, 2005 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
“It is our obsession with avoiding any occasion for embarrassment which has rendered us virtually incapable of expressing any national feeling without apologising first. In a supposed age of uninhibited self-expression, this is the one emotion that dare not speak its name. And this repression, I think, bears hardest on those who have fewer other consolations in their lives. The snobbish refusal of the bourgeoisie to share in the patriotism of the lower classes is one more estranging element – and not the least important – in the growing gulf between them.” Mind the Gap, page 306, by Ferdinand Mount. A quote which I cannot help but feel applies in particular to our current concerns about alienated young men turned on by the nihilist posturings of radical Islam. July 21st, 2005 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
It could have been so much worse. Another sunny day in London and another series of attacks. Mercifully, as far as I know, no-one has been killed. My fellow Pimlico friend, Andrew Ian Dodge has a good take on the details. Tim Worstall has views here, including ideas on what the motivation of the attacks were in this case. It appears that at least one person involved in the attacks has been arrested. Perhaps CCTV recordings of the attacks could yield more evidence. What this latest incident suggests is that CCTV, long bemoaned by us libertarians, can certainly record valuable evidence after a crime has been committed but that is not much consolation to the victims. The outrages are certainly going to give further ammunition to the police in arguing that every cubic metre of London needs to have a camera in it. I think that in public spaces that are paid for by the public and clearly key potential targets for terror groups, CCTV has its uses and it is pretty silly to get oxidised about it. But, and it is a big but, such things are clearly no deterrent. (Thanks to U.S. libertarian blogger Jim Henley for prodding me to write about this). I was in the Aldwych area of London – near the London School of Economics, when the attacks happened. I first heard by a mobile call from my fiancee. Walking back to the office, it was remarkable how relaxed everyone was. In fact, the strained looks on some people’s faces had more to do with the English batting implosion against Australia at the cricket. Meanwhile, in reflecting on the cultural issues prompted by the current mayhem, go read this fine and no-holds-barred article in the Spectator. July 21st, 2005 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)
A figure from the youth wing of the Tory Party, no less, claims that the powers that be need to talk to Muslim extremists in order to bring them into the mainstream political process, otherwise the poor diddums, obviously so sensitive about their plight, might go beserk again and start interrupting our peaceful existence as happened on July 7. You have got to hand it to the Conservatives. We tend to think of the party as being the party of Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and Robert Peel. It is also, as this moron demonstrates, the party of Neville Chamberlain. As I said in a rather angry comment the other day: Britain is a country, not a hotel. July 19th, 2005 | 37 comments - (Comments are closed)
Sales of the sixth Harry Potter adventure by J.K. Rowling have reached 6.9 million copies in the first 24 hours. Repeat slowly: 6.9 million copies. That puts this novel – and I am not a great fan, it has to be admitted – up in the sort of league that used to be associated with sales of Beatles albums or Michael Jackson tunes. 6.9 million copies sold in 24 hours. Egads. Those who decry Potter as lowbrow nonsense can spare their rage. (Yes, that includes you, Stephen Pollard). This is a cultural phenomenon we have not seen from these islands for years. As Brian Micklethwait pointed out not so long ago, Rowling has created a character to rival an earlier, very British-but-also-transferable-character – James Bond (I am an unashamed Ian Fleming fan). I mentioned Michael Jackson a bit earlier. Strange to relate, but has anyone noticed that Johnny Depp, starring as Willy Wonka in the new version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, directed by Tim Burton, looks just like the Faded One? I presume this has to be some sort of Hollywood in-joke. Update: latest figures put Harry Potter sales at 8.9 million. July 18th, 2005 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)
Fine editorial in the Sunday Telegraph here pointing out that the proposed law designed to regulate comments about religion (conceived cynically by NuLab to buy votes in Muslim-dominated electoral districts) will actually make it harder for the authorities to crack down on radical mullahs intent on brainwashing impressionable young minds. The law of unintended consequences in work again. I have come to the conclusion that this law should be taught in school, like Newton’s laws of gravity. July 17th, 2005 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
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