We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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I was quite overjoyed to see the BBC news report that two thirds of the entire population of Gibraltar turned out in a demonstration, led by the mayor (or whatever the head of government there is called) in defense of their right to decide their own fate.
That the United Kingdom could even consider negotiating with Spain over the transfer of Gibraltar to them is appalling. Not because of anything they are doing in the negotiation specifically, but because of the entire concept that underlies their talks.
It is like Feudalism.
In Feudalism, the peasants and their land are traded about between rulers like poker chips in Las Vegas. The thought people who live in a place might actually prefer one situation over another is foreign, or at least not as important as Raison’s d’Etat to the Feudal Lord.
This is not a UK party issue. The Conservaties sold the Hong Kong peasants to China; now Labour wishes to sell the Gibraltar peasants to Spain. At least in Northern Ireland we’ll get to vote about it. Repeatedly if we want.
I would imagine the Falklands peasantry will be the next to be sold off. After all, it’s bloody expensive defending them. Then perhaps we can sell the Channel Islands slave… er peasants… er subjects… to France! Yeah, that’s the ticket!
I would suggest to Gibraltarians they begin to arm and prepare defensive positions. The government of the United Kingdom wants to sell them, so perhaps a slave revolt is in order.
At the very least they could make it very messy for Spain. I’ll bet there are loads and loads of hardened tunnels and caves in those rocks.
Inside Europe: Iberian Notes on 11:00 CET, March. 22, 2002 (no link to individual articles) does a pretty good job of comprehensively trashing the Spanish claims on Gibraltar and pointing out the weird logic involved.
Margaret Thatcher‘s remarks are hardly surprising to anyone who has read what she has said over the years but it was a surprise to me as an outsider looking in to read the negative response from so many British Conservatives.
For years Perry has been telling me that they are ‘The Stupid Party’ and are not committed to resisting EU envelopment and super-statism. I see now that he is quite correct. [Ed: like I said about the Libertarian Party in the USA, there are some good people in the Tory Party, but they are not the ones running it]
It seems that the only argument between the much of the Tory party and their political enemies in Britain is the rate at which British is to be enveloped by Euro-statism. The British Army was once said to be ‘Lions lead by Donkeys’. It would seem the Tory Party are ‘Donkeys once lead by a Lioness’. As the contrast between the more dynamic economy of the USA and Euro-sclerosis grows harder to miss by even the most willfully blind, how can the party which actually started the privatising ball rolling that shattered the seemingly unstoppable advance of ‘democratic’ socialism in the 1980’s have come to being in step with histories obvious losers? The Stupid Party indeed.
Thieves tried to grab a diamond necklace from U.S. entertainer Liza Minnelli while she was honeymooning with her new husband David Gest. The Oscar-winning star was the victim of an attempted robbery when the car in which she was a passenger stopped at traffic lights in Holland Park, west London.
That should boost the British tourist trade – not!
This is the first time I have noticed one of the 2001 pattern two pound coins (£2 = US $3). I think the tails side is far nicer than the messy modern art confusion of the previous pattern, which looked like a circuit board that had been stamped on by an elephant.
 
 Taking the tube (London’s underground rapid transit system) last night was a nightmare. A delay on one line meant no trains at a rush-hour period for more than 20 minutes. Chaos. Angry crowds. A scene sticks in my mind. A young London Underground staffer, dressed in usual garb of garish blue jacket and hat, was shouting at a vexed young man in a suit, telling him to wait at a certain point. She was using the manner of a particularly authortarian school-marm. Ask yourselves, gentle reader, could such a thing occur in a privately run business, like a food store? I think I know the answer to that one.
 London Underground’s new slogan?
Lagwolf witnesses the Sith Parliament at work abridging civil liberties
I was involved in the pro-hunt protest outside of the Houses of Parliament today. It was a well behaved and good humoured protest which occupied the road outside the building. At 3pm sharp the protestors left the road and gathered in the protest area on Parliament Square or the nearest pub. Alas our efforts were rather less than effective and the parliamentarians voted to ban hunting. It is now up to the Lords to protect this quintessential English freedom.
The fact there are Conservative MPs who voted for the full ban is most distressing and deserve all the derision decent people can muster. That Ann Widdecombe MP voted to ban is telling of how the Tory party has members who do not believe is anyone else’s freedom besides their own. Her own dubious sexuality makes this more offensive. Her “do as I say not as I do,” mentality is most galling. I hope that any Tory MP who voted for this ban is deselected at the earliest opportunity. You either believe in freedom or your don’t. Anyone who voted for a ban on fox-hunting does not believe in freedom…full stop.
Lagwolf
Do politicians really say what they think? Or is their language forever circumscribed by the weight of office, the delicacy of diplomacy and the sensitivities of a fickle public?
If that is true, then maybe ex-politicians find they are invested with a freedom of thought and action denied to them during their careers. Vide the loud and clear message from Baroness Thatcher in her latest book ‘Statecraft’.
“The preliminary step, I believe, should be for an incoming Conservative government to declare publicly that it seeks fundamental renegotiation of Britain’s terms of EU membership.”
We all know what she said and we all equally know what she means. ‘Fundamental renegotiation’ is a polite term for ‘withdrawal’. I say this not because I am in the business of second guessing Baroness Thatcher but because there is no way to ‘fundamentally renegotiate’ the rigid terms of EU membership without excusing yourself from the club. Can we exclude ourselves from the ‘Acquis Communitaire’? If so, we are out and that’s that.
She is not the first person in Britain to suggest full withdrawal from the EU but, to my memory, she is the most high profile. Despite possessing nothing now except an honourary title, Thatcher’s legacy and image loom large over the British psyche for both those who loved and those who hated her. This book will not herald any change in current government policy but it is still important because there is a certain power in simply saying the unsayable. It is like prising open a rusty, bolted door so that others can all begin heaving against it in unison. Up until now, debate in Britain has revolved around whether or not we should adopt the Euro. Now the debate can legitimately move on to our entire place in the EU. Thatcher has said it, so others can say it too.
It may not be the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end but the cracks are starting to show, as evidenced by all the urgent scurrying (deliberate use of metaphor) around by various media, government and political poobahs to condemn, deny, rebut and dismiss her remarks.
So get your crowbars out, boys and girls, we’ve got some cracks to work on.
I do not often post about specific bits of government legislation as it makes for awfully dry subject matter but I am unable to resist publishing this example of incandescent lunacy.
A year ago or so I wrote an extensive piece for the Libertarian Alliance about the nature, scope and effects of the UK Money Laundering laws (soon to be codified in the Proceeds of Crime Act).
One of the offences specified is that of ‘Tipping-Off’. If a banker/lawyer/ financial adviser suspects a client of money laundering then he is obliged to report the matter to a responsible officer within the firm who must then decide whether or not to make a report to the National Criminal Intelligence Service. All this must be done in secret because the client must not be told that he is under suspicion (in case he flees the jurisdiction). To spill the beans is to commit the offence of ‘Tipping-Off’ (maximum sentence 2 years in prison).
Well, as if destroying the principle of client confidentiality and trust is not bad enough we all now have to contend with Section 29 of the Data Protection Act 1998 which requires all companies to disclose all internal memoranda to their clients upon demand, even those voicing suspicions of money laundering and, hence, tipping them off!!
One law now forces lawyers/bankers/accountants to break another law!! How long can it be before one is liable for prosecution just for turning up at work in the morning?
Do we have a Government or do we just have a Random Regulation Generating Machine up there?
Take a look at a fine article defending the ancient British sport of foxhunting by former Labour MP Brian Walden in today’s Daily Telegraph titled Ban on foxhunting would be a triumph for the mob. I cannot do better than Walden in laying out the case as to why a proposed ban on hunting with hounds is a monstrous attack on liberty, which libertarians, be they meat-eaters or hard-core vegans, should reject.
Dr. Tim Evans has some interesting views regarding the reality of what many people ostensibly on the ‘left’ really think about healthcare
On 11 September 2001, Daniel Kruger, of the Centre for Policy Studies wrote a major feature article in the Daily Telegraph entitled Why half the members of trade unions have private health care. Kruger correctly pointed out whilst many members of the Trades Union Congress (T.U.C) continue to publicly attack Tony Blair’s efforts to establish an ever closer relationship between the National Health Service and British and French private hospitals, the trade union movement are themselves massively involved in a range of private healthcare schemes. Today, more than 3.5 million trade unionists have various forms of private health cover – which is more than half the T.U.C’s 6.8 million membership.
In his article, Kruger points to a trade union web site that spills all the beans called Trade Unions and Not-For-Profit Private Healthcare. It makes for remarkable reading and exposes the hypocrisy of many trade union leaders when it comes to private healthcare. This site quite rightly points out that the history of British independent health and social care is deeply rooted in the not-for-profit traditions of the friendly societies, mutuals, co-operatives and charities from whence the trade unions originally came in the early part of the nineteenth century. Today, for instance, BUPA is a mutual, Nuffield Hospitals are a charity, and people like the Salvation Army, Methodist Care Homes and Jewish Care all provide high quality health and social care services on a not-for-profit basis. There are literally dozens of other organisations underlining this deeply libertarian tradition.
Today, 7 million people have private medical insurance. Another 7 million people have private health cash plans such as H.S.A. (Hospital Saving Association), health cash schemes – as separate from private medical insurance invariably offer cash towards a range of services that were once covered by the NHS. For example, dentistry, ophthalmology, physiotherapy, chiropody, maternity services, allergy testing, hospital in-patient stays, convalescence, home help, and in some cases the use of an ambulance.
Another 1.2 million people have private dental insurance, whilst more than 20 million people pay directly for private dentistry with no insurance at all. 1.4 million people now have critical illness and permanent health insurance whilst 8.5 million will go private in 2002 for complimentary medicines such as osteopathy and chiropractics. Millions of these people will be trade unionists.
Perhaps, as the political scientist Dr. Nigel Ashford pointed out in 1997, it is under the historic and voluntaristic rubrics of mutuality and co-operation that Tony Blair might just continue with his Plan to Privatise UK Health and Welfare(1)
Come to think of it, perhaps that is why Labour’s ministers are beginning to talk about giving the best “three star” NHS hospitals “Independent Foundation Hospital” status and are endlessly obsessing about giving them “earned autonomy”. Strange bedfellows – funny old world!
(1)= (link requires Adobe Acrobat Reader which can be downloaded for free)
Patrick Crozier has a good article On Corporate Manslaughter. He notes that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) will be prosecuting Railtrack (the company which ‘owns’ the actual railroad infrastructure in Britain, recently in effect re-nationalised by the State). Thus one part of the state is trying to make another part of the state pay fines to yet another part of the state.
Patrick makes several excellent points and avoids the usual stale perspectives on these sort of issues.
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