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Continue reading →: Charlie’s death must have some meaning. We need to decide carefully what it will be.Such is the power of social media that I learned of the shooting of Charlie Kirk almost immediately. My feed blew up. I saw a live feed of him shot and bleeding that I will find hard to forget. Then my feed blew up again with leftists celebrating his death.…
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Continue reading →: The Left’s Reign challenged: Can Trump and Farage Defeat Entrenched Ideologies?A friend send me a photo of yet another paywalled article from The Times. It’s written by Gerard Baker and entitled:- A lefty in the White House? That’ll be Trump The thesis is that President Trump is as statist as the American Left. Sure, he’s vastly superior on personal liberty…
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Continue reading →: Are you right there, Father Ted?Father Ted is one of my favourite comedy shows. It’s eccentric, mild-mannered and gently satirical – a wonderful piece of work. It was written by two Irishmen and performed by a selection of others. It’s a jewel of Irish culture. This is no small claim. However, it was made by…
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Continue reading →: Beware the “dank right”The post critiques the influence of identity politics on rational debate, warning against hypocrisy and extremism from both sides. It highlights concerns about the MAGA movement’s conspiracy theories and the regression to status-based rights in academia. Emphasizing the importance of adherence to Reason and Dr. Martin Luther King’s values, it…
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Continue reading →: Why I Value My Blog: Lessons from 20 Years of WritingTypepad Support has just supplied a full set of export files. For now the old site still works, but this link will break on September 30th. With archives in hand, I no longer need worry about the imminent demise of their servers. I respect their professionalism. If I had a…
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Continue reading →: Welcome to the new home of The Last DitchThe Last Ditch has been hosted on Typepad.com since forever but the company just suddenly announced it’s closing down on September 30th. I’ve moved my domain thelastditch.org to WordPress. Until Typepad closes you can access all the old content at https://lastditch.typepad.com/lastditch/ I will be attempting to migrate all the old…
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Continue reading →: To what, precisely, are we woke?The late Mrs P.'s contribution to this blog used to be to prevent me overstating my case. I used to write it from our bed at home in Moscow, hours ahead of my target audience. I would then pass it to her and go make coffee. When I hit "send,"…
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Continue reading →: Credo 2
The most-read post in the history of this little blog was this one. Written almost twenty years ago, it began with the words I regret that I have no religious faith. To my surprise that regret has gone. Not because I have resigned myself, but because I am, once more,…
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Continue reading →: The Endarkenment Continues
There are some grounds for optimism. They are: The Supreme Court (how I hate that stupid Tony Blair name for the highest court in a country where the constitution consists of three words – "Parliament is supreme") has thrown the entire public sector into turmoil by answering a question so…
THE LAST DITCH
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Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.
Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.
He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that
“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”
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My cars are just tools although I do get attached to them and have fond memories of a couple of…
I did get to ride in her and she did add cachet for me with my neighbours by being in…
It would have been easy to fulfil an open desire so why keep it secret? Surely the whole advantage of…
My secret desire was to be taken for a spin in her. Alas!
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The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
I’m going to go millennial and rent what I need when I need it. If that doesn’t work for me,…