The Last Ditch

Tory Zac Goldsmith admits he is a non-dom

Tory Zac Goldsmith admits he is a non-dom - Times Online.

Another headline lusciously loaded with malevolent meaning. An "admission" carries the unspoken connotation of guilt, as in this headline we shall sadly never see;

"Labour Gordon Brown admits whole life warped by envy" 

Labour has not learned from Crewe & Nantwich. How could it? It is a party founded on an ideology of class hatred. "New" Labour's only real political innovation has been to create new classes of people to hate. They have added spice and variety to the embittered vocabulary of Leftist hate speech, but they still relish attacking their traditional foes; the successful, the prudent and their heirs. Unless of course, like Tony Benn in his day and the Milliband brothers in ours, they are Labour too. Their family trusts and tax structuring (not to mention their dynastic tendencies) are perfectly fine, of course.

The quality of political debate in Britain drives me to despair. The blogosphere has not really helped in that respect. Given the regularity with which classical liberals are venomously smeared and ridiculed in the mainstream media, it's perhaps not surprising that, given an outlet by blogging, some sought to give as good as they get. Not surprising, but disappointing. It has escalated the war of insults, which increasingly alienates reasonable people from political life, leaving the field to bruisers and back-stabbers.

Much as I enjoy his blogging and recognise the wit behind his delicate use of foul language, I worry about the election of Chris Mounsey of Devil's Kitchen fame as the new leader of the Libertarian Party. I know, like and respect Chris, but I feel he has queered his political pitch with his blogging. Not only will we, his readers, now lose the original (and best) swearblog, but his past writings (of which he has every reason to be proud) will give his opponents every excuse selectively to lower the tone of debate even further.

A recent casualty of the declining standard of public discourse is Anna Raccoon, who has thrown in the towel at her popular blog. I enjoyed her writing very much, but I also enjoy the writing of the gentlemen who stand accused (not by her, but by some or her readers) of "bullying" her into silence. I always enjoyed (though I often disagreed with) both blogs; while always knowing I would prefer to have lunch with Anna.

In her parting post, she wrote;

It seems to me that the world of blogging is fuelled by petty jealousies, vitriol, feuds, unsubstantiated allegations, apostrophe police, and a whole host of people who in another age would have been happy twitching their curtains and writing letters in green ink. I have watched in horror as several new forums have descended into a cesspool of hatred and nastiness, and you know what? I got up this morning and decided that I just didn’t have the energy any more, or the thick skin, to do it any longer.

Save as to the thinness of her skin, as to which she is best able to judge, she is quite wrong. There are many corners of the political blogosphere where civilised debate is attempted. Her bitter words will help mainstream politicians and journalists build their dismissive stereotype of bloggers. As if the professions that spawned Lord Mandelson and Alistair Campbell had any moral standing to criticise.

A sad week then. One more reasonable voice falls silent, enemies of libertarians are licensed by the party to call us all c***s, and the political charlatans mob the toff de jour as if it were still the 1950s. I have been both poor and prosperous in my life and I can't correlate the contents of my bank account to my wisdom or morality at the time. The only remarkable part of Zac Goldsmith's story is, though even better placed than Anna to kick back and enjoy life, he is prepared to give up his non-dom status to become an MP.

Even those who envy his wealth certainly can't fault the man's enthusiasm.

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers

Carter-Ruck in new move to stop debate in parliament | UK news | The Guardian.

I understand all the concern about injunctions preventing the reporting of Parliament, but why are the lawyers at Carter-Ruck the villains (and partner Adam Tudor in particular?) There have been flash mobs outside their offices and they have been vilified across the British blogosphere.

Why is the headline to the linked article not "Trafigura in new move to stop debate in Parliament?" Lawyers do nothing without instructions. Those instructions come from their clients and whatever actions they take are on their clients' behalf and in their name. If Mr Tudor has been asked to block publication, then that is what he must try to do - whether he personally approves or not. You may say he is liable to criticism for failing to advise his clients that their actions would be counter-productive (as they certainly have been - who had heard of Trafigura before?). However, you don't even know whether the actions were on his advice or against it. He can't tell you without his client's permission, which is hardly likely to be forthcoming.

Perhaps Adam Tudor is the ass or the villain you think he is. A first class degree from Oxford doesn't speak to his morality or his common-sense. You should at least accept that he is the agent of his clients in these matters. If you want to be angry, be angry with them. Except maybe you shouldn't. At least not just yet.

If there is anything to make Adam Tudor smile in the media today, perhaps it's this quote from Prodicus, in the course of roundly criticising him and his partners and calling them asses;

These are the world's smartest legal brains with vast collective experience.

If the partners of Carter-Ruck have a collective sense of humour, they will use that quote on their website, to the irritation of the world's smartest legal brains. After all, they didn't go into defamation work to be loved. As I am sure they are reminding themselves today.

An independent legal profession, free to serve the interests of (popular or unpopular) clients, is a pre-requisite of a free society. You may not like how much some lawyers earn for doing this important work, but if you want the big bucks what's stopping you? There's almost always a shortage of legal talent. Get the qualification, put in 20 years of hard work, and maybe you can nose through the flash mobs in your Porsche too.

Because that's really why the lawyers are the villains here, isn't it? The English Vice: Envy. I can understand "rich bastard" rhetoric from the envious left, but the rest of the blogosphere should really know better.

[I am a partner in a City law firm. I am not, and have never been, a partner or employee of Carter-Ruck]

Political gratitude

BBC NEWS | UK | Porritt parting shot at ministers.

Time and again, outgoing government employees criticise the administration that employed them. Jonathon Porritt has sucked at the public teat for nine years, without ever a word of criticism, but now he has come over all brave. If the government had taken his advice, presumably it would now have a strong record (as it claims) on environmental policies. If it was not taking his advice, why did he continue to take our money from it? Why was he not principled enough, this paragon of the green virtues, to resign?

Porritt is one of those who claims that green issues are of paramount concern; that the end is nigh for the world if they are not addressed. Yet, for taxpayers' money, he was prepared to keep silent for nine precious years when - as he would now have us believe - the government was failing to address them. When he sneers that Britain is a "...world leader in green rhetoric..." and accuses the government of hypocrisy, does he not see the irony of that?

In a mildly indignant tone, a government spokesman is quoted as saying;

Jonathan Porritt last week praised our Low Carbon Transition Plan which is backed by active steps to make sure firms in the UK grab the growth and job opportunities in nuclear, renewable, electric car and other growth industries.

Ah but yes, dear boy, last week you were still paying him with money looted from us. Prime Minister Balladur of France once cynically observed;

In politics there is only gratitude for favours yet to be received

It seems the insufferable, holier-than-thou Greens are more like their political opponents than they pretend.

A coach who wants to win? Fire him!!

Scituate “Green Death” soccer coach resigns - Quincy, MA - The Patriot Ledger.

I would love the guy even more if he had not pretended the original email was meant as "humor". There was humour in it, certainly, but I suspect he meant every word. All coaches should be like him.

h/t Mr Eugenides

Ricky Tomlinson fights to clear his name

TV star Ricky Tomlinson fights to clear his name - The Scotsman.

Oh, the vanity of "celebrity." If he didn't keep bringing it up, I fear no-one would remember the viciousness of the picketing in that long-ago strike. As I understand it, Mr Tomlinson denies the violence occurred, rather than that saying it was perpetrated by someone else. That it occurred, I can testify from personal experience. As to whether the particular ignorant scouse thug leading the pickets on the day the scales fell from my young Marxist eyes was Mr Tomlinson, I sadly could not say. A jury of his peers convicted him, however. I suggest he shuts up and enjoys the success his modest talent as an actor has given him.

A National Mottto

Link: BBC NEWS | Magazine Monitor.

The linked page cheered us up over our breakfast toast. Readers of the BBC Website posted a thousand suggestions in response to El Gordo's suggestion that the United Kingdom needs a national motto like France's Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite or the United States' In God We Trust.

Of course a few are sickeningly right on, featuring such hypnotic triggers as "diversity." Many, however, confirm that our national sense of humour survives. Others confirm that the Paines are not alone in their anger about the state of our nation.

Our personal favourites were;

Come and have a go if you think you're 'ard enough

(a football chat in the spirit of Scotland's national motto, nemo me impune lacessit), and

May contain nuts

For my part, I am quite happy with the UK's existing motto (has Brown never looked at his passport?)

Dieu et mon Droit

but I am quite tempted by Steve of Cambridge's sourly spot on suggestion;

Quidvis

which he translates as "whatever."

Gordon Brown 'admires' Margaret Thatcher

Link: Gordon Brown 'admires' Margaret Thatcher - Telegraph.

Hasn't this triangulation crap gone far enough now? I never heard a worse thing about the Blessed Margaret than this. Margaret was a great leader who went into public life out of a sense of civic duty. She was motivated by firm political convictions and strong belief in her country.

Gordon Brown has never done an honest day's work in his life, having "progressed" from the shenanigans of student politics, via a pretence at political journalism, to what looks like being lifelong parasitism on the taxpayers. He is a shameless careerist, prepared to say any damn thing as long as he gets to lord it over those of his fellow men (pretty much all of them) that he sees as his inferiors. He is petulant, arrogant and (when it comes to other peoples' money) a mad spendthrift who has fruitlessly burned the work of millions to promote his own ambitions.

He is not fit to be mentioned in the same blog post as Margaret Thatcher, let alone to compare himself to her. How galling for Labour voters to be led by a man who admires their most hated adversary. How galling for Conservatives to be led by a man who admires theirs. No wonder party membership is declining on all sides; even more rapidly than voter turnouts. The time is out of joint and the cursed spite is that no-one seems to have been born to set it right.

God damn Dick Morris and the Clintons for their evil political innovation. God damn our benighted voters for falling for it for so long.

Halting Saudi probe 'damaged UK'

Link: 'Halting Saudi probe\'damaged UK\''

No shit, Sherlocks. Gentle readers, you saw it here first.

Don't be smug about V-Tech killings

Link: BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US university killer was S Korean.

Britain's anti-American media were all over the sad story of the V-Tech killings. They tore gleefully into America's "gun culture" and its people in general. Let's get this straight. This horror didn't happen because the killer was American. It didn't happen because he was ethnically Korean. It happened because the poor young man was mad.

"Ah, but he had such easy access to guns." Yes, he did. Unfortunately, since the university authorities had made the campus "gun-free," his victims did not. There was no-one there to return fire. Most of the victims would be alive today if the university had not banned guns.

Some Britons seem to enjoy it when something like this happens in America, but Britain has no moral standing to judge America harshly.  Violent crime is declining in America and rising in Britain. The risk of being violently attacked in England & Wales is already higher than in America and rising. In Scotland, the situation is worse. Many killed or injured with knives or other weapons in Britain, would be alive and unharmed if their assailants had feared they might have a gun.

The main disadvantage of widespread gun ownership in America is that suicide is easier. 58% of America's gun deaths are self-inflicted, which is one reason you have to be careful when gun control advocates choose to compare "gun deaths" rather than homicides. Only 38% of America's "gun deaths" are homicides and some of those are justifiable (e.g. self-defence).

Britain's only statistical advantage in the field of crime is that our homicide rate is lower. America counts all reported offences. We remove homicides from the statistics if all suspects are acquitted (although the victim remains dead). We might not show the V-Tech killings in our statistics at all, if they were found to have been committed by a mentally-disturbed person (see Home Office Statistical Bulletin 02/07). America's statistics more accurately reflect the total number of victims.

It's hard to say what the statistical difference would be if comparable figures were available, but it seems reasonable to suspect that some of Britain's advantage would be lost.

Burglaries are twice as common in Britain as in America and 53% of them (because of improved household security) now take place when the homeowner is present. In America only 13% of burglaries take place while an occupant is home. American burglars do not have the benefit of a government guarantee that all properties are undefended. Would anyone in America have frightened my wife like these guys? I don't think so. They would have been afraid that she or some kindly neighbour  would have shot them. That fear would have neutralised all their advantages of youth, strength and disregard for reputation.

To carry a licensed gun in America, you must - in every State - have a clean criminal record. Am I naive enough to expect American criminals to obey America's gun control laws? No. The naive ones are those who expect British criminals to abide by Britain's. They simply don't. While, by definition, no law-abiding citizen in Britain is armed; one-third of young criminals own or have access to a gun. There may be as many as four million illegal firearms in Britain.

For most of my life, I shared the common British view that America's attitude to gun control was crazy. However, disarming the law-abiding has proved to be disastrous. The British State can't or won't protect us. We were stupid to let it disarm us.

Can we please just shut up about V-Tech? We have no leg to stand on.

Europe must be united in criminalizing racism, EU lawmakers say

Link: Europe must be united in criminalizing racism, EU lawmakers say - Europe.

Assuming that there has been "...a strong increase in racist acts..." (and leaving aside for a moment who is responsible for most of them) what - properly viewed - is the evil to be addressed by law? Is it the racism, or is it the act?

If someone is attacked, their property damaged or their family's graves desecrated then what does it matter why? It is the evil act that should be illegal, not the evil thought behind it. Of course, the evil act already is illegal. So the "EU lawmakers" are indulging in that filthy vice of lawmakers everywhere; perverting the legislative process to make a political point. They are not proposing necessary laws. They are just yelling "Look at us. We are good people. We are not nasty racists."

I should bloody well hope not, so why don't you just shut up and do something useful?