The Last Ditch

Tell me again how governments differ from gangsters?

The Cyprus bail-out: Unfair, short-sighted and self-defeating | The Economist.

When I compare government to organised crime, people seem to think I am being extreme. But the parallels are exact. They extort protection money (tax) some of which is deployed to punishing lesser criminals, but never very effectively or consistently. Far more is spent on payments to the members of the gang and its "soldiers". They have heavies to enforce their rule. They pretend to be there to preserve order and protect us, but in fact they are parasites upon us. They accept no boundaries to their right to interfere in our lives and do not hesitate to use force to do so. Every so often, they take over our businesses to use them for their own nefarious purposes.

A friend of mine has had money seized from his (perfectly legitimate) Cyprus bank account this morning. It represented some of his (earned and taxed) life savings. Yes, some of the victims of this "one off" tax will be Russian oligarchs and other undesirables, but many will be like my friend and many more will simply be people who chose to retire to Cyprus. For that matter, if oligarch money has been stolen from the Russian people or state, how does that give EU governments the right to steal it in turn?

My friend has instructed his investment advisor to get all of his assets out of "this ****ing continent." He reasons that if the EU can force Cyprus to steal from depositors, they can force other member states and perhaps even countries under EU influence like Monaco and Switzerland to do so. Indeed, if this raid on innocents is tolerated, other governments will probably want to emulate it. Another ethical boundary has been crossed. I wonder how many other investors instructed their advisors to get them out of Europe this morning? 

When I heard his news, I checked my RSS feed of bloggers and other thinkers. Everyone was writing about something else. A "respectable" Western government was behaving like wicked King John in seizing citizens' wealth. No-one thought it important.

Those who are prudent and have savings are despised in Europe. Even "Conservatives" seem to think they are just there to be milked of the proceeds of their life's work in order to cover political arses, prop up failed institutions and protect feckless, reckless individuals from the consequences of their own stupidity. The average European's idea of where wealth comes from is about as accurate as believing that storks deliver babies.

Don't think this is confined to a few high net worth individuals with offshore bank accounts. They said income tax was for the very rich, but now you all pay it. They said inheritance tax would only affect the wealthiest aristocratic estates, but now your children will probably pay it when you die. In demanding ever greater benefits from government at the expense of everyone but themselves, the West's voters have unleashed a beast that will devour them too.

There is nothing Conservative about this Government

Anthony Peto QC: A very un-British Bill – my response to Robert Buckland MP.

Conservatives are supposed to defend ancient rights. In their hands the great principles of English Law such as "innocent until proven guilty" and the rules of Natural Justice should be much safer than with progressives who openly seek to sweep away ancient rights to build a new order.

Yet it was John Major who began the present un-conservative trend when he abolished the right to silence - a key element of the presumption of innocence. If a man is accused, it is for the prosecutors to make the case against him. Nothing should properly be inferred from his refusal to co-operate. So it used to be, but no more.

And now it's Ken Clarke who is sweeping into the trash can of history the principle of open justice. He is seeking to introduce secret courts in circumstances where "national security" is at stake. What does "national security" mean in such a context? Anthony Petro QC tells us in the linked article that evidence about a confession having been extracted by torture

...was successfully suppressed by the government on the grounds that it would damage national security...

Not exactly the most encouraging example.

Clarke tells us that we need secret courts to protect our intelligence sharing relationships with other countries. David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of Terrorist Legislation, has branded that a "scare tactic".

Former DPP Lord Maconald has said that 

Mr Clarke’s comments look like a smokescreen for plans which are aimed not at keeping the British people safe, but at sparing the embarrassment of the security services when they get mixed up in wrongdoing. Instead of promoting this thoroughly un-British legislation, which is designed to make our courts secret as though we were living in Europe in the 1930s, Mr Clarke and his colleagues in government should concentrate on holding the security agencies to account when they break the law.

Lest you think that these are just the voices of lily-livered sympathisers with our enemies, consider the words of the former top legal advisor to the British Army in Iraq, Colonel Nicholas Mercer

The justice and security bill has one principal aim and that is to cover up UK complicity in rendition and torture. The bill is an affront to the open justice on which this country rightly prides itself and, above all, it is an affront to human dignity.

 
The fact that some of those individuals who are complicit in rendition and torture can not only assist in the drafting of the bill but also vote to cover their tracks is a constitutional scandal.

The bill attacks the sacred principle of the Rule of Law that "be you never so high, the law is above you." It removes a citizen's right to bring a civil action against high officials for violations of their personal rights. As Anthony Peto QC says, 

These rights are so fundamental that for centuries they have been called the rules of “natural justice”.  This brand of justice has “Made in England” stamped all over it. It is our proudest and most enduring national product. This Bill would tarnish the brand for ever.

Could there conceivably be anything less "Conservative"?

Why can't our security services, like those in other countries, give evidence in court? If that threatens the secrecy of their activities, they can give evidence from behind a screen and via a voice changer, provided the judge is duly satisfied of their status. Then their evidence could be tested, they could be cross examined and justice could be done. Yet the British State prefers to screen them from scrutiny. It prefers to suppress evidence of their wrong-doing. It is entirely out of its box; a self-regarding beast operating in its own, not the national, interest. 

I have never been more sure that the greatest enemy of my liberty is the British State. Nor more sadly aware that this does not vary according to the politicians in charge. There could be no better evidence than this odious bill in which the state seeks to protects its own at the expense of those who are supposed to own it. It rather suggests it thinks it owns us.

Political priorities

Gay marriage or economic Armageddon: which do you think matters more? – Telegraph Blogs.

Mr Delingpole has a point, but I am surprised he is surprised. Isn't fiddling while the city burns the classical recreation for political arsonists? One of the best practical arguments for libertarianism is that, given fewer things to take care of, politicians could take better care of them. Gay marriage would not be an issue for a libertarian state as it would not concern itself with ANY forms of marriage. After all, can any arrangement more properly be described as private?

Leery about Leveson

It's too soon to react properly to the Leveson Report, as has been graphically illustrated by the meanderings of people trying to do so on TV in the past hour. Two thousand pages of judicial prose are hard to digest. He has played a canny political game. By declaring he will take no further part in the debate to come he has cleverly ensured his reputation for posterity. Any bad things that happen in his wake will be the fault of others. As he said, the ball is back in the politicians' court.

As he was only asked to review the dying, if not yet quite dead, duck of the mainstream media, the main effect of his efforts will be to widen the already hilarious gap between what newspapers publish and what is available on the internet. That will weaken the credibility of the print media, and its demise will be accelerated in consequence. That worries me. The idea that the only professional news-gatherers in the world of journalism will be those in the broadcast media is a dire prospect. Newsnight, anyone?

The BBC is already the most influential news medium in Britain. If its undue influence is further bolstered, then let's at least drop the myth of its impartiality. Let it be set free to be openly the Pravda of British broadcasting and let Murdoch launch Fox News UK. Let a hundred schools of thought contend and let the public be the judge.

The idea that a press Code should be enforced by a regulator independent of both the industry and the state sounds great, but OfCom - the body Leveson suggests should "validate" the regulatory regime is a state agency staffed by well-paid and self-interested bureaucrats. People will angle for such jobs and obtaining the favour of politicians will be far more relevant to them than that of editors. Corruption will creep in, as it must in all bodies funded by force. The "great and the good" will dominate. If OfCom has any scope to "de-validate" the regulator or veto individual appointments to its review panel, directly or indirectly, then it will pretty soon be pulling strings behind the scenes. In a very British way, of course - with a nod and a wink over a G&T.

My only immediate criticism of the specifics of Leveson's report is that I am alarmed by his idea of what might be a meaningful incentive to newspaper owners to sign up for "voluntary" regulation. The only suggestion I have heard from him in this respect is for aggravated or punitive damages in libel cases where the relevant publication had not submitted to the Code. That's a frighteningly subtle suggestion. After all, most of us will be outside the Code. I heard someone from the Huffington Post (I think) on Sky News express total confidence that blogging is safe from all this, because internet publication is, or can be, extra-territorial (like this blog, hosted in the US and protected by the First Amendment). But our defamation law has extra-territorial reach, as witness those men of power who visit our courts specifically to use it to silence their critics. Guido Fawkes' blog is offshore but Paul Staines can be sued for libel in England so long as it can be read here. Foreign courts (including those in the US) will enforce any judgements against him under international treaties, without question.

If aggravated damages for libel by "outlaw" publications become the norm, can anyone seriously imagine that the social media will long remain aloof? Guido's readership, after all, is already far greater than that of all the political journals in Britain combined. It's likely to grow far more as the chilling effect of the new code takes effect. Indeed, I suspect he will be the only real winner from Leveson as fear of big fines further emblandens the mainstream press and as politicians obliged to disclose their every contact with journalists turn to him (as some already do) to publish the leaks and smears that are the tools of their revolting trade.

How politicians act on Leveson's recommendations, given that he has trodden such a delicate political line, is now far more important than the detail of his report. We must be alert to their games. Leveson hasn't killed free speech in Britain, but that's not to say they won't use his magnum opus as cover to do so.

Moral panics vs morality

New BBC row over Newsnight 'paedophile' politician probe - Telegraph.

I was surprised by last night's Newsnight (available here for a while on iPlayer). Not because it delighted (of course it did) in accusing a Conservative politician of the Thatcher era of being a paedophile, but because this was an old story and no new evidence was offered. The BBC knew it couldn't name the accused man for legal reasons (though it never explained that) thus putting under suspicion every male in Mrs Thatcher's government. 

Of course, the BBC itself is at the heart of a paedophilia scandal and an associated moral panic but even I would expect better of Auntie than deliberate distraction tactics. I would even have hoped better of it than to use such a non-story to mitigate the effect of two others on the same programme that cast its beloved Labour in a bad light. Sadly the relish with which it repeated "Conservative," "Tory," "Thatcher" was as evident as the care with which it played down all references to Labour in the other stories.

You may say the new story was that an old accuser (many of whose similar allegations have been challenged by the author of a book on the scandal) has demanded a meeting with David Cameron in a predictable response to the Prime Minister's silly "sweeping statement that abused people need to be believed." Those telling the truth need to be believed. The liars, bandwagon-jumpers, mass hysterics and fraudulent compensation-seekers need something else entirely. The difficult task in these cases, just as in those involving less emotive crimes, is to distinguish truth from lies. That task is not helped by emotionalism.

The middle of a moral panic is a dangerous time to make such a point. The witch-hunters are likely to look in your direction and - as you are not joining in their cries of "witch" - cry "witch" at you. Anna Raccoon has been experiencing a fair bit of that. I have never met her in person. For all I know some of the ad hominem attacks on her contain some grains of truth. Or not. Still her evidence on the subject of the alleged child abuse at the facility where she lived at the relevant time should be heard. In fact the more her enemies play the woman not the ball, the more I think what she has to say is important. Rod Liddle had some sensible observations on the subject in The Spectator (h/t Navigator for pointing me to that article).

The fact is that the middle of a moral panic is exactly when such points need to be made. For example, I am sure the North Wales childrens home affair involved real and serious child abuse. I am convinced that there are people who were rightly convicted of terrible crimes. But in the moral panic that attended the investigation into that case, it is possible (and I fear likely) that innocent people working in those childrens homes were wrongly accused and their lives trashed. We now know how stupid the South Ronalsday satanic ritual abuse story was, not to mention its American equivalents. Given that they were literal witch-hunts, it's hard to believe they were given credence in the modern era. Yet they were. And the reason-crushing cry of "think of the children!" went up against anyone trying to discuss them calmly.

One of the books that had the greatest influence on me as a young man was this one. It was on the reading list from my University before I started to study law and I commend it to you. I freely admit to using many of the debating tricks it mentions in my attempts to persuade people away from the current, morally-corrosive political orthodoxy. My role on this blog is advocacy, not academic study. I hope that I fall into few of the fallacies mentioned, however, and that I would be honest enough to acknowledge them if I did.

To say we need to keep our heads in the middle of the Savile affair and evaluate carefully all accusations arising from it is not to side with him. Still less, as the more rabid "moral entrepreneurs" are prone to allege, does it suggest any "agenda" in support of paedophilia. I would love to see the truth told and justice done, in so far as the guilty are in reach. Those taking part in the moral panic may see their ad hominem attacks as weapons in a crusade for justice, but they are dangerously wrong. Those they scream at as they ask them to consider the truth are not Justice's enemies. They are.

The BBC is a worker's co-operative

I applaud the BBC's decision to allow Panorama to investigate what it knew about Jimmy Savile's misconduct and why the Newsnight story about his alleged paedophilia was pulled. The video is available for a while to UK residents on the BBC iPlayer here:

Any organisation that is not dependent upon its customers, whether a state or private monopoly, will eventually become self-serving. During my career I was party to many conversations about how to maximise profit for the owners of our businesses and provide attractive employment terms for our staff, but they all turned in the end to what our customers would want, or at least accept. We spent much more time worrying how to please customers than please ourselves. Satisfied customers who choose to come back are the only guarantee for owners, managers and workers in the private sector that they can achieve their personal goals.

As will all state enterprises funded by taxation, the BBC has become, in effect, a worker's co-operative. The "customers" have to pay regardless, so they become irrelevant and the focus turns to the interests of its own people. No private business would survive the shit storm that is heading the BBC's way. The share price would now be collapsing as investors tried to get out before the lawsuits begin. I confidently and sadly predict however that the BBC will survive. It has the coercive power of the state behind it and will simply take your money to settle the cases. It is the left establishment's propaganda arm and they will rally to restore its reputation.

We are about to have an instructive, but depressing, demonstration of the realities of modern Britain. We will be able to compare and contrast the BBC news and current affairs teams' handling of this story with their campaign against News International. Just imagine if the phone-hackers had worked for Newsnight and Savile had worked for Sky News!

Predictable though it all was, it was still disturbing to follow Panorama's account of the decision-making process within the Corporation. There was lots of high-falutin' stuff about editorial independence and a clear concern for the BBC's reputation. There was also some po-faced nonsense about depending on the trust of a public that, trusting or not, it will continue to plunder by use of state force. Not one person (apart from those making official statements once the story was out and the lady reporter from Newsnight who will no doubt pay for it when the storm has passed) expressed any convincing concern for their customers-by-force. Some of whom have, it seems, been abused by members of the collective and friends under their protection.

I watched the faces of the people making the allegations and it brought back another memory from the days of watching Jim'll Fix It. I found a girl from my school in a drunken heap at the side of the road on my way home from a date with my girlfriend one night. I tried to help her to go home. It turned out she was in social services care and lived in a nearby childrens' home. When I offered to take her there she begged me not to. She offered sex if I would take her somewhere, anywhere, else. Indeed, "offered" is something of a euphemism. If I had a victim mentality, I would say she attempted rape. I was able to restrain her and decline her offer.

I asked if she had relatives and she told me about an uncle who lived in the area. In retrospect, I worry that she made him up or that her relationship with him was rather different, but I was a naive teenager. I took her to a nearby pub and gave her the money to call him. I left her in the care of the publican, once assured her uncle was on his way.

I later found out that she lived in one of the homes at the centre of a notorious scandal. It rather explained both her reluctance to go there and her use of sex as a currency. I now dread to think what she was going through while I was enjoying a safe and happy childhood. I am ashamed to have ever thought myself hard done to by my strict parents, when I consider what that girl had been put through by the "caring" state professionals paid to look after her.

Here is the fatal flaw in all collectivist thinking; the reason why public service organisations are all more or less corrupt and can never fully be trusted. Here is the reason why Britain's public intellectuals are not merely gullible, idealistic, fools but a serious threat to our welfare.

All organisations funded by force are essentially immoral.

In their detachment from the relentless reality of having to satisfy customers and in their assurance that livelihoods do not depend upon that satisfaction, selfish, abusive behaviours will grow among their staff. Whether in care homes for the elderly, childrens homes, the Parliamentary expenses office, army barracks or police stations bad things will happen not by accident but flawed design. To be clear, I am not saying that public sector workers are all, or even mostly, evil or ill-intentioned. I am just saying that a disproportionate number of the lazy, greedy and wicked in any society will be attracted, as Savile was, to positions they are able to abuse. Nor am I saying there should be no public sector. I am not an anarchist. I accept the need for a state. But here is a strong argument for it to be kept to an absolute minimum.

There is a reason socialist states have always had to resort to prison camps and shootings to maintain discipline and reduce corruption in the ranks. At least, that is, within limits that don't threaten the corrupt gains of their ruling elites. In the absence of Stalinist discipline, what happened at the BBC - the way the collective closed ranks to protect an insider - is not a sad exception to the rule. It is the rule.

Protect your Freedom – Please retweet and respond!

Protect your Freedom – Please retweet and respond! — Anna Raccoon.

I refer my gentle readers to Anna's linked post today. It is important. The state is seeking extended powers to interfere in personal relationships between citizens with legal capacity to make their own decisions. Telling social workers to "get lost" will result, if such powers are granted, in actions incompatible with a free society. Telling self-selected statist busybodies to "get lost" is often, of course, the first duty of a free citizen.

Most responses to the Department of Health's consultation will be, in the natural course of things, from the aforementioned self-selected statist busybodies - either those serving the state or their political cheerleaders.

Please therefore consider following the links in Anna's post or this one to obtain the consultation questions and then file your own responses by email or post. I have reproduced my own responses (submitted in my real name) below but please respond in your own words. You might like to consider not picking up the civil servants' poor use of English, for example, as I failed to resist doing. Your objective is to persuade, after all. Good luck with that.

Question 1: Do you agree that there is a gap in the proposed legislative framework for people with mental capacity, which this power would address?

No

Question 2: What are your views on the proposal that there should be a new power of entry, enabling the local authority to speak to someone with mental capacity who they think could be at risk of abuse and neglect, if a third party prevents them from doing so?

I strenuously object to the creation of any such power. In fact I would welcome the abolition of most existing such powers.

Question 3 (for care and support professionals working in adult safeguarding): How many times in the last 12 months, have you been aware of a situation where, had this power existed, it would have been appropriate to use it? What were the circumstances?

N/A

Question 4: What safeguards would we need to ensure local authorities use such a power effectively and appropriately?

Any such safeguards would merely raise the question "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" There is no appropriate use of such a power. A person with legal capacity should never have his or her choices second-guessed by the state. This is a dangerous, immoral (perhaps even amoral) proposal incapable of being ameliorated by safeguards.

For example, would the following provide adequate safeguards?

• A warrant would be applied for from a Circuit Judge (e.g. a nominated judge of the Court of Protection).

This would only help if the legislation granting the powers was clear (as it could not by definition be) that the state has no right to interfere in the life choices of those with legal capacity. Since the intent of the proposed legislation is precisely to create such a right, the judge would have no ability to restrict such action and the warrant would merely use the judiciary as camouflage, further soiling its reputation for independence in the process.

• The local authority would present the court with evidence of the need for the warrant.

See above.

• The local authority would ensure that there is a process by which the occupiers of the premises understand that they can complain about the way in which a power has been used. The local authority would have to verbally inform the affected persons how they might access that process

See above. There is no point in a right to complain about such a loss of liberty, if it is backed by law. One wonders, by the way, how they would inform anyone other than "verbally". Draw them a picture, perhaps?

Question 5: Do you have any other comments?

The British State is too powerful. After decades of growth to the point where it now consumes the majority of national resources and is strangling to economic death the nation it purports to serve, it is unsurprising that it attracts employees who have no sympathy with personal liberty. In my view, no-one who respects our right to live life as we please would wish to be part of such an aggressive apparatus. Once the state is staffed by substantial numbers of such people, proposals like these are to be expected and it is the job of government, as the people's representative, to oppose not promote them.

No further extension of the state's already-excessive power can possibly be justified. Any government worthy of the names "conservative" or "liberal" or "democrat" would be slashing its powers in order to set the British people free not listening to calls to authorise meddling in the lives of those with legal capacity.

Love the show, troubled by the message

I watched the Olympic Opening Ceremony from start to finish on French channel TF1. It's fair to say that much of it bemused the French commentators, but reading around this morning I see that - as the BBC used sports commentators for a cultural event - it was just as puzzling to the native presenters.

I loved the show. The theme was taken from the greatest Englishman who ever lived, but there was little (apart from several impressive coups de theatre) that would have resonated with our Bill. The glorification of the ordinary is a contradiction in terms, a paradox. Yet Tolkien did it with his noble provincials, the hobbits. And Danny Boyle did it too.

Was it political? Yes. Were the races represented proportionally? No. Did that matter? Not much. Nor are they in sport. If it's racist to observe that black people make better athletes, then I am racist.That sort of stuff doesn't bother me. They were young, enthusiastic and well-drilled. They were a credit to us, so I don't give a damn about their skin pigmentation.

The only real tragedy is that Britain's greatest mistake - the NHS - was given massive prominence. Its hospitals an archipelago of filth, generating new diseases. Its staff forming a producer cooperative on Soviet lines, above all criticism and routinely killing patients without fear of disciplinary action or even much by way of rebuke. Yet, it is a sacred cow. It is supported by all parties, including those that should know better. So it was sort of inevitable. Having lived in other countries where people are mystified by Britain's attachment to so obviously deficient a model of health care, I guess they just smiled at our eccentricity.

All in all I was relieved that we did not disgrace ourselves. My French/Swiss hosts in Mauritius congratulated me and told me to be proud, so I guess we pulled it off. Spent as we are in so many ways, we are still - it seems - a cultural superpower. At least in terms of popular culture. So to carp about the message is, in the end, a waste of time.

As I really don't care about the sport, and as I am safely away from the disruption of London life for the duration, I have nothing more to worry about now the ceremony is over - apart from paying for the costs through my council tax for the rest of my life.

Of butterflies, wheels and the dangers of feeble jokes

Twitter joke trial – timeline | Law | guardian.co.uk.

The Guardian sets out a helpful timeline of the Paul Chambers Twitter joke fiasco; the emblematic story of a butterfly being broken on a wheel by the pompous, humourless and insufferable henchmen and thugs of the British state. Read it and weep.

There is no money to meet the various obligations the state has undertaken in the name of this and future generations, but there are endless funds to pursue this idiotic  prosecution. Or if there aren't, the Bank of England will quantitatively ease some into an approximation of existence adequate to fool the stupid.

More worryingly, it is clear that my inside source in the judiciary is right to tell me that the ranks of judges were stuffed during the Labour years with politically correct socialist placemen to whom there is nothing wrong - not to mention un-English and disgraceful - in deploying the full majesty of the law to punish mere words. A decent judge would have thrown the case out and flayed the police and prosecutors verbally for wasting his or her time.

The lower ranks of our judiciary  are now an embarrassment to the Common Law, to the nation and to the (trust me, not-easily-embarrassed) legal professions. Let's hope the higher ranks put things to rights today.

A Mirror to our times

Anders Breivik trial: Killer makes fascist salute as he arrives to face charges over Norway massacre - Mirror Online.

Just a tiny point of information for the Daily Mirror. Breivik may, or may not, be a fascist but that's not a fascist salute.

Perhaps the error is understandable though. It has, after all, been given before by many others whose attitudes to free speech and other liberties were indistinguishable from those of fascists.

Many of them supported at some level by the Daily Mirror.

Just saying...