Everyone said “You can’t unseat the Political EnemyClass by voting them out. Well, I say: “it has never been tried before, and we shall have to see.”

David Davis

Clown or fruitcake?

(from Matt at the DT)

Today, for the first time a rather historically large number of British voters get to be able to elect, if they like, candidates for “Council Seats” (this to say in honest countries – “socialist Soviets”) from the United Kingdom Independence Party. Now, the Libertarian Alliance goes out of its way to be perennially nasty to all the parties extant in the UK, from time to time, and sometimes all at once. But it’s natural that a little more of our ire and frustration is reserved for those which are more truly socialist than others: for I at least can’t figure out how it might be possible to be what some people call themselves, which is “libertarian socialists” (yes I have heard that one) or even “left libertarians”, although that might just be possible.

This round of elections for regional soviets councils is notable for the frantic and public attempts by other parties, particularly the Tories, to make direct and sometimes ad-hominem attacks on the reputations and backgrounds of rather a lot of UKIP candidates. I’ve been watching British elections since 1959, more or less, and haven’t noticed any such thing on this scale ever before. If they occurred, such assaults tended to come from the socialist left.

The entire British political-class, ably egged on by the BBC, appears to have taken fright at the idea that, for once, letting people vote for who they’d like might actually change things, and not to that class’s liking. As I type, there are no results yet from vote-counting, but the morning may be interesting.

I want to continue by offering a libertarian-based policy position document for a party such as UKIP, were it to, let us say, win a majority in a regional soviet, or even a general election. But as rheumatoid arthritis is making my elbows increasingly non-functional tonight, typing is a little strenuous and exciting. So I’ll save that for a post in the next couple of days or so when the painkillers have kicked in.  Meanwhile, commenters might like to add their own suggestions.

 

(Incidentally, the headline owes a little credit to Air Marshall Arthur “Bomber” Harris”, who used a similar expression when someone suggested that “you can’t win a war by bombing the enemy alone”.)

The good is oft-interr-ed with their bones

David Davis

Since Margaret Thatcher is to be in-terr-ed tomorrow, I just thought we’d throw one last punch at her enemies and ours. I found this wonderful piece on The Last Ditch the other day, and one para deserves to be highlighted in our usual way:-

“If you want to know who freedom’s enemies are, mention her with approval. Mad eyes will light up all around you and foul sentiments will fill the air. Note their names and never leave them alone with anything you value; material, spiritual or ethical.”

Yes of course, I _know_ that we object to her having

(a) made the British State more efficient – as a recipe for disaster one would recommend this since the British-Political-Enemyclass is efficient already at making a powerful tyrannical state, and

(b) because she failed to absolutely destroy socialism at home and in the world, before members of that same EnemyClass destroyed her.

But I think that Tom Paine’s paragraph sums up who we are up against, whatever we as classical liberals think of Thatcher herself. I think we can lay her to rest now. May The Iron Lady Rust In Peace.

The Baron’s ‘B’ and the Beeb.

by Anna Raccoon
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AnnaRaccoon/~3/szcsS1eI3e8/

Note: The BBC should be shut down. Its people should be sacked without severance pay, and their pensions should be cancelled. The archives should be destroyed and its copyrights disclaimed. To have worked for it should become as great a badge of shame as having been an East German border guard. SIG

Seven Myths About the Iraq War: How BBC Newsnight failed journalism on the 10 year anniversary of the invasion

by Nafeez Ahmed
http://nafeez.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/seven-myths-about-iraq-war-how-bbc.html

As a participant in BBC Newsnight special, “Iraq – 10 Years On”, I found myself feeling slightly miffed at the lack of real debate on the crucial issues.

On the one hand, Newsnight presented a number of narratives of the war and its aftermath as ‘fact’, which are deeply questionable. On the other, there were no serious, factually-grounded criticisms of the war, despite a diverse panel which included people who did not support it.

As author of a major book on the war and its historical context, Behind the War on Terror: Western Secret Strategy and the Struggle for Iraq, as well as co-author of a new report, Executive Decisions: How British Intelligence was Hijacked for the Iraq War, I consider myself to be reasonably informed. Yet BBC Newsnight failed almost entirely to bring any of these issues to light.

What follows is my Newsnight-inspired Iraq War Myth-Busting exercise, based on what was, and wasn’t, discussed on the show.

Should David Cameron Apologise for Amritsar? by Sean Gabb

Should David Cameron Apologise for Amritsar?
By Sean Gabb

http://www.libertarian.co.uk/multimedia/2013-02-20-apology-sig.mp3

On Wednesday the 20th February 2013, I was asked by the BBC to comment on David Cameron’s “apology” to the Indians for the events at Amritsar in April 1919. A few hours later, I found myself on air with Keith Vaz MP, who was a Minister in the Blair Government. Without transcribing my words from the recording, here is what I said:

“I do not expect the Prime Minister to apologise for what happened at Amritsar. No more do I expect the Indians to apologise for the Black Hole of Calcutta, or for the bestial atrocities committed by the sepoys against British woman and children during the Mutiny.

“However, while there are doubtless Indians who get a thrill from watching the grandchildren of the white sahib grovel in the dust, this apology or semi-apology is really about British politics. Whether Conservative or Liberal or Labour, we are ruled by a cartel of cultural Marxists. Part of what they are about involves rewriting British history as a catalogue of shame. That alone explains why our leaders keep going about the world, apologising to every group of foreigners who may think they have a grudge against us. I am proud of my country and of its history. I want no part of this.”

To put it mildly, this is not an opinion heard very often on the BBC. But I was then asked about the principle of historic apologies. Instead of discussing the principle more than in passing, I took the opportunity to say this:

I think we need to say things about these fellows

David Davis

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/p480x480/554557_10151488913732518_711477817_n.jpg

A Mote in Brussels’ Eye

JUST PUBLISHED

A Mote in Brussels’ Eye
By Ashley Mote

The diary of a Member of the European Parliament

A full, frank and controversial account of five years fighting the EU from within the castle walls.

Nigel Lawson Puts the Boot into the Greenslime Beeb

LETTER TO LORD HALL FROM GWPF TRUSTEES (The Global Warming Policy Foundation)

The Global Warming Policy Foundation – 14 December 2012

Dear Lord Hall,

As Trustees of the all-Party and non-Party Global Warming Policy Foundation, we would like to wish you every success in your new and important post of Director General of the BBC. It is clear that you have a number of urgent matters to attend to in your post. But when you have done that, we hope you will find time to turn your attention to a matter which, although not urgent, is of considerable importance: the BBC’s treatment of global warming and climate change issues.

State-Regulation of the British Press: So What?

State-Regulation of the British Press: So What?
By Sean Gabb
Published in The Libertarian Enterprise
25th November 2012

At the moment in England, our masters and their clients are discussing censorship of the newspaper press. After months of submissions, a government inquiry into newspaper conduct has finished, and its report will almost certainly call for what is called “a rule-based framework of regulation.” The surface argument is between those who want controls backed by the law, and those who want “voluntary self-regulation.” No one who matters, though, disputes that something must be done.

Letter to Roger Harrabin of the BBC

Dear Roger Harrabin,

Re-reading your memo below reminds me that there is now a considerable debate as to whether the BBC have been even handed, or not, regarding the all important issue of Climate Change, or more accurately the extent that CO2 emissions have on any such change.

In the interests of the impartiality that the BBC desperately wish to show, so as to be conforming with the Royal Charter that guarantees your independence, would you please give publicity to the following:-

It’s the Demographics, Stupid.

by Anna Raccoon
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AnnaRaccoon/~3/_ehg31luzVo/
It’s the Demographics, Stupid.

It has been an interesting week for the Establishment. And a bad one for the Republicans.

The Republicans lost an election because there are too many Hispanic, black and female voters and too few white, working and lower middle class men. The so called Rainbow coalition will continue to grow. That is the nature of “the American Demographic” and it is irreversible. This is the nature of history.

BBC news – Jimmy Savile, George Entwistle and the balance of probabilities

by Robert Henderson

http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/jimmy-savile-george-entwistle-and-the-balance-of-probabilities/

Jimmy Savile, George Entwistle and the balance of probabilities

Robert Henderson

George Entwistle gave as an abject a performance by a media experienced bigwig before the Culture, Media and Sport select committee(( http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2221520/Jimmy-Savile-Panorama-documentary-reveals-BBC-suspected-DJ-sexual-abuse-40-years-ago.html ) as you will ever see. He adopted the BBC equivalent of giving nothing but his name, rank and number. (How on Earth did this timid personality with all the authority of a jellyfish become Director-General?)

BBC = ‘Bad Boys Club’ – a lamentation

by the Reverend Dr Alan C. Clifford
HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN!

The BBC is now exposed as a decadent institution. As both a victim and promoter of anarchic, sex-perverted secularism, it is the official media face of a corrupt culture.

In Defence of English Civilisation, by Sean Gabb

http://www.libertarian.co.uk/multimedia/2012-10-20-qrtb-sig.mp3

On the 20th October 2012, the Traditional Britain Group- a traditional conservative organisation – in conjunction with The Quarterly Review- an historic Tory journal – hosted an all day conference at the East India Club in central London titled, “Another Country – is there a future for Tradition?”

The format involved a number of 30 to 40 minute talks, followed by questions and discussion. Speakers Included: Derek Turner, Lord Sudely, Richard Spencer, Andrew Fear, Pete Myers, Stephen Bush, Peter King, and Theodore Dalrymple.

Sean Gabb, Director of the Libertarian Alliance, spoke last. The title of his speech was “In Defence of English Civilisation.” Here is a summary of his speech. The speech was not written in advance, and was given without notes, and this summary is, in some respects, an amplification on and a clarification of what was said. It also incorporates into the main speech points that were raised in the questions and answers session. This text, however, can be checked against the recording, and can be seen to give a fair account of what was said.

The recording was made with a Samsung Galaxy S2 mobile telephone, and the quality is acceptable, though not outstanding.

What is “Wireless tele-Vision” for? Discuss.

David Davis

[late edit...] [ I have suddenly wondered to myself what it's for, given that the global % penetration of small handheld (or not much larger) devices that can access news, comment, blogs and the opinions of millions, is approaching a majority. ]

One the one hand, the British Political EnemyClass has created what it seems to be admitting is a monster - this says “ban television for the under-threes” (or words to that effect.) Yet on the other hand a modern repressive police state would be a more difficult one in which to manage thought-control, regulate the opinions of, and generally farm for eliciting the “correct public responses” without this machinery. I have drafted a few of my own thoughts, rather fast this morning, in response to a typical Daily Mail mob-hysteria-inducing breakfast-article.

Of course, an invented device can’t be uninvented. The Wireless Tele-vision [WT] (and quickly also with post-receive injected sound subcarrier) was a marvellous development of the pure Sound-wireless, but like all technologies it’s been stolen and corrupted, Morgoth-style, by governments for their own purposes.

In the British State’s case,  WT’s purpose was to anaesthatize and render uncurious “The Masses”, over decades so nobody would notice except

Well, at least there wasn’t a six-foot dancing penis

Well,  at least there wasn’t a six-foot dancing penis
Robert Henderson

Prior to the  opening ceremony of the  London Olympics,  the last time Britain put on a taxpayer-funded  entertainment that was  meant  to project the country to the world was on 31 January 1999.  The event was broadcast   from the  Dome (now the O2 Arena)  to mark the new millennium.  True to the politically correct  dicta of the time, the Millennium show  said precisely nothing about British history or culture and was an exceptionally  trite mishmash of  the “we are all one happy global family” variety of painfully right on exhortation and posturing  (see http://wwp.millennium-dome.com/news/news-dome-990916show.htm).  The lowlight of the show was a six-foot dancing penis. Tawdry is the word which comes to mind.

How states set bad examples of behaviour

David Davis

I don’t follow foot ball, and I have had to be told who John Terry is. But this keeps on cropping up on my screen.

It is not for a State to decide what people can or cannot say, or think. Even I, who’d like to muzzle GramscoFabiaNazis – because they are _objectively_ wrong, not just misguided – cannot justify doing it, even under the auspices of the War Secretariat.

People ought to be free to think or say, things that might be offensive to others. There are Natural Rights: but there is no right to not be offended if someone says or thinks something that offends you – or worse – “may offend” third parties not even present at the time. This is utterly ridiculous.

Oh, and YOU MUST NEVER use the phrase “political correctness gone mad”. Doing that legitimises “political correctness” as a credible way of dictating the terms of public discourse in a liberal civilisation. You must not do it. Ever. (I know that no readers of the Libertarian Alliance would ever do such a thing, but you must tell others. We’re wasting our breath and time otherwise.)

The poor bugger will probably go down for £2,500, and then we will be forced to watch the

Any Questions: A View from the Studio

by Bill & Ann Woodhouse

Now we know it is set up! We had Any Questions in Sturminster Newton last night and it was interesting the ‘nuts and bolts’ of how they handle it. We had to book in well in advance and were given a postcard sized ticket, perforated in the middle, half of which had space for name and address and question to be asked.

I wonder if they did it on purpose

David Davis

[Subsequent edit by author] Further to receiving one-star ( = very poor) I should just rectify my omission, which was clearly observed by the respondent. I forgot to mention the requirement, that will encumber any incoming Libertarian or Revolutionary-Liberalist administration, whether in England, or the UK, or elsewhere, to criminalize and proscribe the existence of any bodies calling themselves “Trade Unions”, which behave in ways shown by the 19th- , 20th-  and 21st-Century British models of same. These outfits have proved themselves, through the deliberate policies and actions of their “officers”, to be far far more insidiously dangerous to life and liberty than any “terrorist” organisation, even the IRA and “Al-Quaeda” (whatever that might be), both of whom might be thought responsible for the deaths of up to 10,000 people each. The deaths probably attributable to the prevalence of “Trade” “Union” and “Workers’ Council” actions within the past 120-odd years probably run into the millions, aside from the planned and avoidable destruction of the UK’s heavy industries, docks, mining industries, railways and shipyards. (None of this needed to happen: the ability to fire all redundant labour upon the advent of better technology, thus keeping wage rates and hours to JapoChindoBraMexican levels, was prevented.)

Roll on the custard pies and rotting tomatoes….but Libertarians ought to begin speaking for real people, not just metropolitan political intellectuals like ourselves.

The coagulation-government is getting stick and rotting-cabbages from various quarters, for seeming to allow Francis Maude (who is, I admit, a bit of a slimy toad at times) to suggest that people should stock up on motor fuels before any putative strike by tanker drivers.

But I wonder…there could be a subtext here. Perhaps some clever Tory strategist thought that by artificially creating a fuel shortage at the pumps before any strike took place, the mass of inchoate but not negligible public opinion could be turned angrily against “UNITE”, whatever sort of GramscoStaliNazi front-organization that might be. I mean to say, it describes itself as a “Trade Union”, although it’s f**k-all to do with trade, and isn’t a union in any meaningful sense with regard to its members’ welfare – only its “officers’ ” wefare, power and prosperity.

Some of this unfocussed but very public mob ire might then rub off against the “Labour Party”, which predictably has failed to come out condemning the “union” – only mouthed platitudes about “the way to solve the crisis is by the negotiations”, as if there was anything meaningful for the drivers’ employers to talk about.

I just wonder if it’s a “cunning plan”. Of course, the predictable mainstream-media-response has been to toast the coagulation for its incompetence and “dangerous advice” (I mean to say! We used to keep old Duckhams 1-gallon oil cans and keep petrol in them for year after year – I always had 6 gallons in the house at any time, when in London years ago – about two-thirds of a tankful). But them the MSM is not on the side of any administration that is not overtly and aggressively GramscoStaliNazi. Perhaps because it thinks that most people viscerally are that, inand to their very bones….and they may sadly be right. Hitler got in, after all, by not misreading the mood of the German general public.

Interview with Sean Gabb

Attack the System: Interview with Sean Gabb

February 9, 2012

Keith Preston interviews Dr. Sean Gabb.Topics include: