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I snapped this outside the Victoria Street (London SW1) branch of Sainsbury’s on Monday evening. It’s too dark to see much of the bloke actually selling those Evening Standards, but his message is clear.  Sainsbury’s has been taking a bit of a beating at the hands of Tesco just lately. But this is bad news for Tesco. November 16th, 2004 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
 While checking out the special offers that British supermarkets have on at the moment, I found myself at Somerfield‘s website a few minutes ago. Despite all of the nonsense that has come from the British government over the years, and especially in recent months, I was still shocked when I read a link asking Somerfield customers to register their views on the government’s plans to ban buy one get one free offers. Surely even this nanny government would not come up with so ridiculous and controlling a measure, I thought. Well, I thought wrong – they are indeed that mindbogglingly dumb and power-mad, and plan to do exactly that. So, businesses can forget being free to offer their customers bargains on foods the government deems ‘unhealthy’. (The state apparently has no idea that it is possible to consume those evil ‘unhealthy’ foods in moderation and still be a healthy individual. Not that it matters, since the state has already decided that the average citizen is too stupid to choose what to put into his or her own mouth, and that our entire society should be dumbed down in order to compensate it, no matter the effects on commerce and personal liberty.) I am in general an optimist, but when it comes to the government’s fetish for domination of individuals, I am nothing but a pessimist. In the mind of our legislators, the opinion of the average voter (voter, not person) seems all too similar to this parody by frequent Samizdata commenter Chris Goodman:
As Dr Sean Gabb, a guy who says much I disagree with but who hits the nail on the head on this issue, puts it:
At the rate Britain is going, you might think we have a large crop of intellectually and morally passive octogenarians to look forward to in a few decades’ time. Sadly, I have no confidence whatsoever that these restrictions on personal and commercial freedom will produce the results desired by the government – except, of course, for more power in the hands of the state. Woe betide the fools who vote for these people, and those of us who will not but who will suffer at their hands regardless. November 16th, 2004 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
The smoking debate is, to me, too depressing for me to want to go on about it. This Telegraph leader does go on about it approximately as I would if I could force myself, so read that instead. The Scots, in the Gadarene sense, are leading the way towards a total smoking ban. Says the Telegraph:
The problem with that being: what if that “will of the people” is, precisely, to cure a bad habit? Once again, we observe democracy being equated with niceness and sensibleness, something we regularly complain about here. With luck, the same story as has occurred with devolution will play out with smoking. The Scots go crazy, it all blows up in their faces, and the English get the chance to learn from Scottish error. I hope so. David Farrer reports on Scottish devolution disappointments, from which the North of England learned, and on how the Scottish smoking ban is working out. Changing the subject, but to emphasise what a continuingly good read David’s Freedom and Whisky blog is, here are two political maps of North America, both very diverting in their very diverse ways. November 9th, 2004 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
The election victory of George Bush is a hugely significant event in its own right but at least part of the reason why it gets so much coverage here is due to the near-absence of anything good happening in the UK. It has been this way for years. Hence, I am doubly-delighted to note that a small proportion of the British electorate has done something right for a change:
That is not just a ‘no’, it is a big, fat, resounding ‘no’. The ‘new regional assembly’ that HMG was attempting to foist on the public was supposed to be the first of many similar boondoggles designed (allegedly) to facilitate ‘local decision making’. Dressed up in the fuzzy, fashionable, eminantly spinnable language of ‘decentralisation’, these assemblies actually represent nothing more than yet another grossly expensive tier of government, complete with an army of paper-shufflers, ticket-punchers, regulators, office-holders, rubber stampers and form-fillers. Not to mention the heavy battalions of outreach co-ordinators, inclusivity counsellors, gender advisers, diversity directors, real nappy officers and sundry other busybodies and parasites. In short, the whole thing is simply an ‘Enemy Class’ job-creation scheme and I like to think that (at long last) some sections of the British electorate were able to see the truth of this. Perhaps, just maybe, some of the long-suffering British cash cows have decided that they have donated more than enough blood to these Vampires-Who-Walk-By-Day. HMG has promised that, in the event the referendum was lost, they would drop the whole idea. I am not at all confident they will abide by that pledge. The career ambitions of their supporters will not be so easily thwarted. But, for now at least, I am prepared to bask in the moment and declare myself temporarily content. November 5th, 2004 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
 The No2ID campaign has established an e-petition aimed at 10 Downing Street demanding the end to plans for imposing mandatory ID cards and pervasive state databases recording a vast range of what you do in your life. The No2ID campaigners have taken the line of principled objection, given that the government seem to have decided that there is no longer any room for public debate and refuses to engage with serious – and growing – civil liberty and privacy concerns with the scheme. The Home Office have not met once with civil liberties organisations yet say their concerns have been addressed whilst at the same time avoiding public meetings but at the same time having private briefing with technology partners for introducing the schemes. Take a stand and make your voice heard while you still can at www.no2id-petition.net. Time is fast running out. The state is not your friend. November 4th, 2004 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
If you want to read about the truly extraordinary and deeply depressing paroxysm of anti-Americanism that has swept like a firestorm through the British media over the last few days and weeks (having merely smouldered for years), you can read about it here. Of a particularly fatuous TV guide blurb (“Jonathan Dimbleby takes a critical look at the Anglo-US war on terror…”), Mark Holland has this to say:
For me the most depressing British anti-American exhibit of the last few days was a rant by Peter Oborne in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday. Having ignored the Mail, Sunday or of any other sort, for years, I had no idea it was capable of sinking to these depthsm and I only spotted it because I shared some coffee with Michael Jennings in my local Café Nero yesterday. This picture, of the front cover of the Review section, sums it up well:  Click to get it bigger and more legible. If you really want that. This is absolutely not mere anti-Bushism, for Oborne is vitriolically nasty about both Democrats and Republicans. Maybe this piece is available to read on the internet, but I cannot myself find it. I am actually rather pleased about that. → Continue reading: British Anti-Americanism gone mad November 1st, 2004 | 49 comments - (Comments are closed)
Business enterprises are often attacked for selling people ‘junk food’ and not telling them about the health benefits of vegetables. Well recently ASDA (the British arm of Walmart) labelled its vegetables, explaining that people who eat certain types of vegetable have a lower chance of developing certain forms of cancer. ASDA was promptly prosecuted and punished. It seems that ‘making health claims’ is not legal in Britain. Oh well, back to selling junk. The state is not your friend. October 31st, 2004 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
At long last the shooting death by police of a man ‘armed’ with a table leg has been ruled an ‘unlawful killing’. It has been a damning indictment for so many years a couple servants of the state can gun an innocent man down in cold blood with impunity whilst at the same time other British subjects are denied the right to legitimate self-defence in any meaningful sence. We have written before about the killing of Harry Stanley in September 1999 and I can only hope now that not only will the perpetrators of this act face prosecution for murder, the careers of everyone who worked to prevent charges being brought in the first place will will come to an absupt end, as an absolute minimum, and if there is any evidence that there were attempts to pervert the course of justice, then additional charges will be forthcoming higher up the chain of command. It is a national disgrace that it has taken this long for the family of Harry Stanley to see anything even approaching the first glimmer of justice. October 30th, 2004 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
In conversation with a business associate, Alan Moore of SMLXL, yesterday, we got on to the topic of how the UK really is lagging behind when it comes to anticipating and preparing for the seismic shifts that are happening in business. I’m not sure if it was Alan or me who came up with this line, but it is as if they are standing at the foot of the volcano, having a picnic and drinking champagne. Maybe if they pretend everything is going to be okay, they won’t have to change. (See, on this note, SMLXL posts passim, including yesterday’s Another business model under threat.) Yes, we have covered this ground with Alan before. Similarly, the UK market is way behind when it comes to blogging. I met in Paris last week with Guillaume du Gardier of PR Planet, and he was surprised to hear that France is much more developed on the blogging front than Britain. Does that make sense? On the surface, no, it doesn’t. The UK, sharing a common language with the US, should be much more up to speed on these things. I am sure it can be annoying for a Brit to hear it from an American, but I suspect that one of the reasons for the slow uptake of blogging in the UK is that in general it is quite unlike Brits to get overly excited about anything. It is almost something of a sin to be wide-eyed and evangelical about anything, no matter how worthy that thing may be. Brits excel at cynicism and being understated and controlled; they are not entranced by the sort of hype that excites people in the US. (I again emphasise the generality, as I know and work with many Brits for whom the appearance of cynicism is not a concern.) In Britain, it is far more the done thing to be looking the other way when the bandwagon rolls up, and then scoff and roll your eyes when you finally see it, as it goes past…and then run run run to jump right on it, usually about 18 months behind the rest of the developed world. Indeed, I remember as far back as a year ago, observing many conversations in British blog comments and on UK-based blogs, wherein bloggers themselves were turning their noses up at the buzz being whipped up in the US about blogging. Sure, it is good enough for them and they spend hours a day in the blogosphere, but God forbid they appear genuinely enthralled by this ‘phenomenon’! No, it is far easier to seem cool towards blogging. A shrug of the shoulders and a yawn would suffice…and then back to updating the blogroll and commenting on their daily tour of their niche of the blogosphere. And so it goes. In the end, all you can do is shake your head and smile at such people – they can appear as unfussed as they like, and the bandwagon will roll on with or without their enthusiasm. But it is a shame for Britain that it once again is playing catch-up with the rest of the world when it comes to blogging and to the shifts in business that will be necessary for success in the coming decades. At times like these, that usually charming cynicism costs – big-time. This post has been cross-posted to the Big Blog Company blog. October 28th, 2004 | 67 comments - (Comments are closed)
The British government is preparing to launch a further assault on the English Common Law by eroding the presumption of innocence in jury trials involving certain categories of offence. In short, the government wants it to be possible for a defendant’s previous convictions to be made known to a jury unless there are compelling reasons in the eyes of a judge against it. It does not take a lot of imagination to see why prosecutors and even the odd well meaning but deluded politician think this is a grand idea. It must be disheartening for a prosecutor to see a serial rapist, mugger or thief get off on a technicality and for the defendant’s nefarious past to be undisclosed to a jury. But – and it is a very big but – keeping previous convictions a secret except in certain conditions is designed to ensure that juries examine a criminal case on the facts as they are presented, and not by trying to guess the motives of the accused or rushing to a conclusion on the basis of a hunch. Also, by withholding information about previous convictions, police and others are forced to present their evidence as strongly and as competently as possible. The Law of Unintended Consequences applies here. My fear is that prosecutors and others could become lazier and more slapdash in how they present evidence if they think that they can always shove X’s seedy past in front of a jury as part of the case. I must say it is hard to summon up feelings of surprise or even anger any more at what our political classes are doing to the traditional checks and balances of our criminal code. To be fair, much of this process began long before Tony Blair, although this most authortarian of governments has set about destroying our liberties with a zeal not seen in decades. I hold little hope that the Conservative Party or the Liberal Democrats will offer much resistance, given their terror at being thought to be ‘soft on crime’. And so we go on, changing processes of law in ways which will undoubtedly lead to more unsafe convictions. The present government, like all too many before it, is extraordinarily hostile to process and the understanding of the long-run bad consequences of interfering with constraints of law and custom. The likelihood, of course, that all this messing around with the Common Law will reduce crime significantly is, I confidently predict, zero. October 26th, 2004 | 29 comments - (Comments are closed)
So hapless Prince Harry takes a swing at some paparazzo who bashes him in the face with a camera, and the British press have apoplexy tut-tutting over his behaviour. To use internet parlance, WTF? If some pushy bastard negligently clips you in the mouth with a camera whilst in search of a few quid, the correct response is to return the favour with interest. That is not ill-advised or thuggish or incorrect, it is an entirely appropriate means of male-to-male comminication at such a time. I am glad to see that there is a member of the royal family who actually has personality traits that approach those of the Crown’s normal everyday subjects. It seem quite appropriate that not only should he not apologise for his reaction to the incident, he should be advising Christopher Uncle that if there is a next time, there should be some expectations of a royal boot in the bollocks as well. October 23rd, 2004 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
Earlier this week I received a telephone call at work which left me trembling with rage and disgust. Had I been asked to make a donation to Hamas or buy a Michael Moore DVD? Had a born-again Christian harangued me about my evil atheist views? Was I trying to get some data from our Paris office? Had I been told that my soccer team, Ipswich Town Football Club, was about to be merged with Norwich City FC? No, it was none of these things. I had just been lectured about what I should consider paying for a house by a early twentysomething estate agent. Now, like a lot of people, I realise that the process of buying a home can be stressful. I work in the London financial market, which is a pretty stressful place full of aggressive folk and also some of the smartest, nicest folk around, too. In my decade or more of working here, though, I have never encountered such a rancid mix of rudeness, patronising attitude, overlaying a rather obvious desire to grab my money as fast as possible. A very British set of character failings, in fact. During my recent and wonderful trip to the United States, I used to chuckle at some of the real estate advertisements, with expressions such as “We don’t just sell houses, we sell dreams.” Smug Brits may laugh at such cheesy imagery and words, but frankly, I will settle for a bit of American cheesiness and cheery good manners over the British alternative every time. October 23rd, 2004 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
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