Labour and "me me me"

Various people "of the left" routinely criticise Libertarians as being selfish and "me me me", yet I have again heard a Labour MP on Radio 4 today talk about their future and the impact of the coalition in terms of frightening people about what would happen to "their" job - in one example being perplexed why Policemen and women were not voting Labour - and in terms of welfare/pension/services and such. It is all about direct benefits to that person, making that person think in terms of "me me me".

Libertarians are concerned about what property the State might TAKE from individuals, whereas we can see that Labour are preoccupied with scaring people or tempting them with what might no longer be handed over.

"those of the left" again engaging in psychological projection and logical inversion.

They relate to the electorate in terms of "me me me", corrupting them, encouraging dependence and a sense of entitlement that only a Welfarist setup would dare promise, knowing or not knowing the bankruptcy that is almost certain to follow.

They are still thinking in this way, even as defeat is handed to them.

Still, in pure tactical terms it is not a crazy approach, just outrageously cynical and manipulative. Many people will find the consequences of the last 60 years of Welfarism, and the last 13 in particular, come crashing into them like an Atlantic storm. Labour will be there, mark my words, whispering lies into their ears, blaming others, offering false hope, fake rewards and other mischiefs. It will be a second bite at the "Thatcher's fault" nonsense that had supposedly had Mrs T personally responsible for shutting down factories incapable of making things people wanted or were prepared to pay the price for, which, had it not been for Her, would have continued to perform their SOLE function, naturally, of providing employment for the Union masses.

If Labour is concerned about certain provisions and believes "everyone" wants to see it provided, what is stopping them organising it? I would welcome this, for Labour in opposition must operate by consent, not coercion. People will soon let Labour know what they feel is important enough to deserve funding it via the Labour Party or other organisations.

This is precisely what could happen under a Libertarian administration - if people feel something needs to be provided, then go out and organise it. Collect voluntary contributions. I see no reason why Labour could not create an umbrella charity to be a point for people to donate to and Labour in their wisdom then decides where the money goes. This means putting down the "gun" of State compulsion, of the threat of imprisonment that comes with funding via taxation. It could mean setting up Friendly Societies and other mutual organisations.

Anyone with sincere intent, anyone who truly believes that their stance and causes are just and proper should not be afraid of this arrangement. If you think people do not know or understand, TALK TO THEM. Are you so lazy as to rather take by force instead of having the common courtesy to explain yourself and ask, understanding and accepting the fact you may be refused? Or is it you think people so dumb, stupid or selfish that they will never agree with your "higher moral stance" and so should not be given a choice?

I am unsure if those in Labour are ready or able for such introspection, truth and accountability.

Seemingly Disgraceful Police Behaviour: But the Left have no right to claim the highground

via Old Holborn, a video in The Guardian does seem to reveal key evidence in the fate of a middle aged chap in the wrong place at the wrong time.


Problem is, some are saying "The Left" have seized on this and appear to be trying to grab the moral high ground, as if they "own" victimhood from Police brutality. I have seen a comment in another place saying they are "with the Left on this one".

Oh for crying out loud. WHY does anyone think this a "LEFT" thing? Our Government and Home Sec are from the Rancid Left and so the Met takes their queue form them. Lefties are at LEAST as Authoritarian as the Right and certainly partisan.

This issue is about Rule of Law, NOT Left-Right. There was absolutely no reason to trip up/push over the chap AFAICT. Tripping someone up in a situation like that - paved floor - is a risk. Not a big one, but a risk nonetheless, especially if the person is not a youth who is likely to be more resilient and have faster reactions (no, that does not mean that young swampies can be thrown to the ground roughly with abandon, even if they have sad-act metal in their faces).

Of course we need to get all the facts, but right now, with what I have seen, the following terms come to my mind:

Cowardly. Unnecessary. Ugly. Disgraceful. Obscene.


On the question of the Police not knowing about any imminent heart condition before throwing someone to the ground unneccessarliy. Sorry, tough titties, Copper. If you were dealing with a CIP (crime in progress) and the perp had a heart attack, then no case to answer if reasonable force is being applied. Here, this is not a case of reasonable force. If this were a yob on the street tripping up a chap, I would want at least manslaughter charges and unless we get more evidence to the contrary, I want to see this happen here to.

I am fed up with the excuse "I diddern meeeeenn iiiiit/know" when people do things that clearly endanger others. Anyone who kicks a person when down - Attempted murder. Anyone who stabs someone except in say, the hand or buttocks - Attempted Murder. Violent attack on a pensioner - Attempted Murder.

The sooner people realise there are consequences for their unprovoked violent or aggressive acts the better. What you see in that Policeman is CREATED by the Left, by the Fabian undermining of social order and common decency. So please, don't give me no "with the Left" on this one...

MPs in expenses "carousel fraud"

Guido is on a mother lode in his digging up of MP troughing.

He appears to be discovering that MPs have been aquiring buy-to-let properties and renting them out to their staff who they then pay salaries claimed from expenses paid by the taxpayer.

This is almost (but not quite) a form of "carousel" fraud. Ok, not a carousel, lets just call it a plain old gravy train, eh?

I always thought Socialists and Statists lusted to be The National Mill Owner, but this takes it one fraudulent, money-grubbing step further.

Along with the NMO point, I have also been convinced that Socialists hated the "elite" not because they wanted to remove the concept of the "elite" - even though they told that to their "useful idiots" - but because the Socialists themselves wanted to become the elite. They coveted the position and once they get there, they become compulsive ladder-kickers who want a vast lumpen illiteriat kept down and dumb to be patronised at their leisure.

I would not be surprised, as one or two commenters to Guido's post suggest, that the Left are as bad if not worse in this regard. Even if the Tories were equally as bad, the Lefties are more repugnant for all their hypocritical posturing.

If this goes on the main parties will be running out of "clean sheets" to change the constituency beds and so an opportunity for untainted parties to come forward, like the LPUK.

Resisting Resistance is Futile! IPJ's "Window".

Re the previous post about the Database State trying to snoop on all our traffic, presuming guilt before innocence.

Ian Parker-Jospeh, Leader of the Libertarian Party has put forward a simple, neat, novel campaign to swamp the monitoring systems in regard to email. The basic idea is to attach a boiler-plate footer to each and every email containing various hot keywords. This will mean all traffic needs to be read and inspected, something that will be increasingly impossible to do as more and more people attach the footer, rendering the attempt at surveillance for naught. It is the internet equivalent of "Window".

NOTE: THIS WILL ONLY WORK IF PEOPLE INVENT THEIR OWN FOOTERS!!!! - copy Ian's and it will be simple to filter your attempts out, as it will be one note and not noise!

The Government wants to live by the Database, so it will DIE by the Database!

As a parallel, I propose the introduction of an off-shore proxy server that you connect to via a 256-bit AES IP Tunnel, rendering snooping an expensive hobby in terms of CPU resources, which is now under serious consideration.

Just admit it, you bunch of prod-nosed bureaucrats - resisting our resistance is futile!

Presumed Guilty: Personal Web Data to be Stored for a Year

Now the noose tightens.

We have had attempts by the EU to build a "Great Firewall of Europe" to somehow control what we see.

Now we see a more "effective" and altogether insidious move which has been on the cards for some time - the storage of our web movements and email relationships for a year. Mark my words, one year will soon become longer then become eternal. Content, not movement or relationships will soon be stored. Motive will be determined by the State observer and not the observed. Think of the absurd concept from the Macpherson Report (1999) on the death of Stephen Lawrence, stating that:

A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.

This is utter hogwash, but that has not prevented it from being widely adopted by ricebowlers, self-loathers, sufferers of victimhood, Fabians and others. A terrorist incident, I suspect will be one determined by the "any other person". The motive and thoughts of the accused will be of no concern.

So, storing such information is an outrage that is unconstitutional for the following reasons IMHO:

1. It is an invasion of privacy.

2. No individual warrant has been issued for the collection of individuals' data

3. It presumes the guilt of all and not innocence

4. In relation to the above, it puts the burden of proof upon the individual to "explain" actions without due process or probable cause being presented by the authorities.

5. It has the potential to suppress the freedoms of all by making people think twice about otherwise perfectly legal activity in case it should be highlighted.

6. The pool of data is not, will not and could never be made adequately secure, allowing for individuals to be subject to blackmail, slander, innuendo, further contributing to the effect of 5., above.

7. The State is almost certain to begin "fishing" expeditions. Data mining is almost an addiction to some. Human curiosity and the need by many to systematise, pigeonhole and find out is unlimited and this database will feed and expand on that craving.

This project, I hear, is part of EU directives. I suspect our Authoritarian Gaulieters have been gold-plating it.

The argument that it is to fight "terrorism" or is "for the chiiiiiildren" is absurd. Anyone involved in such areas will make other arrangements immediately. No, I withdraw that - it is likely that such people and groups are ALREADY making arrangements. They would be pretty stupid not to have by now and with this news they will most certainly do so.

Therefore almost NO terrorists and almost NO kiddie fiddlers that might be caught will be caught by this. However, EVERYONE will feel the Panopticon breathing down their necks, the constant surveil of Big Brother behind the Telescreen.

Anyone pretending to suggest this measure will achieve the stated goals is either

a) Lying

b) A useful idiot parroting inanities

c) An imbecile

d) All the above.

As is so often with this New Labour Authoritarian administration, bureaucratic convenience trumps our freedoms in their eyes.

Again we see the mentality to "protect". This is to suggest that one proactively remove all possible threats and does not take into account freedom of the individual, personal responsibility and assessment of risk depending on circumstances by an adult or others under the supervision of adults.

We need "defence". We need a ready, willing and capable response to when something or someone transgresses. You know, like THE LAW does? Well, the Common Law, at least. And that is part of our problem.

I think it is the duty of all people in the UK to perform civil disobedience or forms of obfuscation to render their plans for naught. Maybe it will be the inclusion of tags and keywords to make ALL communications require manual checking, so bogging down their systems, or to implement highly encrypted channels and tunnels out of EU jurisdiction so as to prevent intercept or raise the cost of intercept to an unacceptable level.

On the other hand I might just learn gibberish.

Machine-wrapped with butter!

The US Taxpayer being shafted: What about the UK?

I was notified of this story over at Zero Hedge by a mate of mine on the Asia Desk of a well-respected Newswire.

It involves AIG and shows, basically, that the Banks were gifted fat margins at the expense of the US Taxpayer when AIG offloaded positions to the effect that each bank made something like USD1bln-2bln each. EACH:

AIG, knowing it would need to ask for much more capital from the Treasury imminently, decided to throw in the towel, and gifted major bank counter-parties with trades which were egregiously profitable to the banks, and even more egregiously money losing to the U.S. taxpayers, who had to dump more and more cash into AIG, without having the U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner disclose the real extent of this, for lack of a better word, fraudulent scam.

And it got worse, as the ISDA ammeded the rules so that the trades could occur (as in not be seen as failing best execution) as long as a rather weak criteria was met:

So - in simple terms, ISDA, which is the only effective supervisor of the Over The Counter CDS market, is giving its blessing for trades to occur (cross) below where there is a realistic market bid, or higher than the offer. In traditional equity markets this is a highly illegal practice. ISDA is allowing retrospective arbitrary trades to have occurred at whatever price any two parties agree on, so long as the very vague necessary and sufficient condition of "market quotations may be difficult to obtain" is met. As anyone who follows CDS trading knows, this can be extrapolated to virtually any specific single-name, index or structured product easily. In essence ISDA gave its blessing for below the radar fund transfers of questionable legality. The curious timing of this decision and the alleged abuse of CDS transaction marks by and among AIG and the big banks, is striking to say the least.

As Zero Hedge rightly points out:

This wholesale manipulation of markets, investors and taxpayers has gone on long enough.

But I doubt it will end there. Prepare for an even greater shift of wealth from the many to the few without consent and under the counter. Prepare, too, for such "deals" to occur in the UK, ripping off the Taxpayer, rewarding failure and distorting the markets.

Ayn Rand was so right when she said:

"One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary."—Ayn Rand, 1975

And Statists we have. I just wonder how and when we will be AIG'd.

Putting the Collective First

A crypto-grass-roots organisation has emerged to agitate and manipulate - "putting the collective people first".

Putting the obvious comments about the faux-edgy, with-it, urban, retina-busting website aside for a moment, lets just look at what they are saying on the surface, with Thornhill translation for the hard of spinning:

What are we demanding with menaces calling for?

The platform is united by three linked calls: Decent subsidised jobs and public services for the many all paid for by the enemy, end poverty by redefining it and inequality by pulling everyone down to the same level, build a green economy based on subsidy. More specific demands on the UK government are to:

• Create a ‘Green New Deal’ to create jobs in the environmental sector - Translation: Create a Econazi Charter to synthesize fake jobs and thus create costs in the rent-seeking, could-not-sell-otherwise sector.
• Invest in essential services including social housing - Translation: spend other people's money in areas we want to that give us and our mates salaried unemployment and provide subsidised housing for those we decide are worthy while those who work to pay for it live in cramped conditions unable to afford anything larger.
• Provide emergency funding to countries that need it to protect jobs and provide social protection - Translation: distort the economies of other countries to prolong the agony and delay the recovery.
• Tackle tax havens - especially those linked to the UK - Translation: make the globe subject to the same onerous, wealth-destroying, innovation-suppressing parasitical tax regimes, with self-loathing guilt thrown in.
• Insist on democratic reform of the World Bank and IMF - Translation: Force our form of Tyranny of the Majority on Supra-National organisations.
• Make all financial institutions and multinational corporations transparent and accountable - Translation: De facto nationalisation of financial institutions and multinational corporations, making them tools for our ends, thereby riding roughshod over property rights.
• Ensure that poorer states are allowed to take responsibility for managing their own economies rather than having liberalisation measures forced upon them - Translation: support protectionist, corrupt and totalitarian regimes around the world.
• Introduce robust regulatory requirements and financial incentives at national level and push for them at international level to stop climate chaos - Translation: Install a global mechanism for rent-seeking in pursuit of an unproven dogma while denying Mankind the wealth and means to mitigate natural cycles in climate change.
• Commit to substantial new resource transfer from North to South to support low carbon development - Translation: Commit to trying to salve guilt and self-loathing by making the rich poorer and the poor no richer.

Unfortunately, examination of proposed government solutions to date are either piecemeal, or advocate yet more ‘free’ trade policies, likely to only to make the crisis worse for moonbat policies.

Go on, believe it, you know it doesn't makes sense.

Harriet Harman: Perverting the Course of Justice?

Further to Gordon Brown's intention to undermine or bypass the Rule of Law the other day, we now have Harriet Harman QC MP saying this on the Andrew Mmmmmaaaaarr* Show:

"Sir Fred should not be counting on being £650,000 a year better off as a result of this because it is not going to happen," she said.

"The Prime Minister has said it is not acceptable and therefore it will not be accepted.

"It might be enforceable in a court of law this contract, but it's not enforceable in the court of public opinion and that's where the Government steps in."

So, we have a person who is a Lawyer, an MP, a Queen's Council, Leader of the House of Commons and Lord Privy Seal who is openly and brazenly pushing for subverting the Rule of Law in exchange for the Rule of the Mob.**

Harriet Harman should not only be stripped of her QC, Leader of the House and Lord Privy Seal position, but should be, in my opinion, indicted for attempting to pervert the course of Justice.

If the "Court of Public Opinion" had any force, Harriet, Gordon Brown and the entire pestilential pustule that is the Parliamentary Labour Party would have been dragged out into the street and shot like the dogs they are - and that would be the humane option for them, as I suspect many would like to see a Spandau Ballet.

However, I believe in the Rule of Law, so that is not a move I endorse. Rule of Law is more important than "voting". Democracy serves two purposes, as the least bad way to preserve and protect the Rule of Law and as a means to remove bad government. It is not very good at installing good government as we have seen for decades. 

With Rule of Law upheld, the Government becomes far less important, for if it is obeying the Rule of Law it will busy itself with issues of Law and Order and National Defence and be doing all it can to keep it and other people's hands off our property, mouths, ears and bodies.

Some hope that the Guardianistas and other sorts have now seen how New Labour (and indeed Old Labour given half a chance) is Authoritarian and most certainly no friend of Civil Liberties, let alone the Economic Liberties which most never agreed with in the first place - except for themselves and their own children, natch. I am not sure if they have had a deep enough realisation. I do wonder if they will remain in denial despite the now constant dissonance all around them. I bet they will protest that this is not "real" or "proper" Social Democracy or even Socialism. They will remain in denial that while the State is seen as "the answer" or in any way as a "good", it will grow and grow, taking over more and more of our lives. It is in its DNA. To deny it is to deny fungus. 

The State needs to be considered a necessary evil that needs constant re-justification in what it does. Unless it is restrained by our constitutional DNA and the constant vigilance of the population and our institutions of Law, it will cease to be a useful organ of life and turn into a tumour that will drain our resources, cause untold pain and eventually kill us all.

The only party that clearly understands this about the State and recognises the true value and supremacy of the Rule of Law and its best articulation and realisation in the form of English Common Law, is the Libertarian Party, UK.

* Interviewer for the Sheeple.

** I also consider the move as a means for Harriet to appear to support Gordon Brown. It is of zero cost to HH, though, as I am quite sure she already wanted to do this or worse. One can even see it as a triple win - she gets to kick and humiliate Jacqui "Jackboot" Smith, the Second Home Secretary.

Dept of the Bleeding Obvious: Good Heads = good results.

It seems that Ofsted actually had to do a study to "find out" what common factors led to the turn-around in a number of previously "sink" schools.

Anyone with two braincells to rub together would, without a study or any form of Educationalist mumb0-jumbo, probably come up with the same answer.

A strong Head who kicked out sloppy and ill-disciplined teachers and disruptive kids.

What is certain is that, if left unchecked, the Satanic Embrace of the LEA and Teaching Unions would stop Heads and as likely as not hound them into early retirement or worse.

At one school the benchmark - for what it is - of 5GCSEs rose from 18% to 80%. And no, they did not expel 3/4 of the kids*.

The Fabian entropic model has held sway too long - excuses for poor performance because the area is  "deprived", which is, frankly, poppycock. These people WANT a dependent underclass. Ignorant, sloppy and lazy. Damn them all.

Kids are, almost always, a blank sheet. They can all become responsible, thinking, caring individuals. If the area they grow up in a rough area, now called "disadvantaged with a multi-faceted nexus of urban ills", and their parents, for whatever reason, do not provide structure, routine, discipline and aspiration, it is all the more important for the school to provide it. I am not saying schools MUST by central fiat, but if you leave things alone enough parents and professional teachers will create those environments. Yes, society, not the State, will create the environment so that the disadvantaged can climb the ladder. The School can be an oasis of safety, stimulation, order, fun and reinforcement in such areas. Right now, far too many just reflect the degenerating, violent, turd- and litter-strewn streets around them.

This is not rocket science. Schools run as a tight ship need not be brutal dungeons that conceal paedophiles and sado-masochists. If you ask me the real S&M fiends are those who both meddle and stand aside in turn while year after year of children are condemned to a bleak, narrow and grey life where highlights are Celeb Trivia and a Bargain Bucket O'Wings (plus sides). To what end? Oh, I forgot, an endless stream of new "customers" for the Social Services and Educationalists to pick over.

LEAs. Close them all down. NOW.

* 5 marks if you show your working out.

Jacqui Smith: Bare Faced Parasitism.

There is really no other word for it.

Jacqui Smith stays with her sister in South London and pays her rent for a room which she now calls her primary residence. 

Her husband - paid £40,000p.a. by us, the taxpayer - sits at what is claimed as the second home. 

The Homes Secretary can claim council tax (IIRC), fit out, repair and cover mortgage interest payments for such a residence.

Anyone with an ounce of self-respect, honour, integrity and professionalism would class the room she rents at her sister's house as the second home.

It is not good enough to say that the claims conformed to the letter of the law. It is just as, if not more important to obey the spirit of the law. 

For such acts and attitude from any public servant is appalling. For it to be held by the Home Secretary is an outrage. She had the bare-faced cheek to demand that only one question be asked on the matter. Pure and simple she cannot cope with reality and wishes to avoid being held to account, to avoid freedom of speech and to manipulate the message. This, our "Home Secretary".

Jacqui Smith should be sacked, let alone be permitted to step down. However, we are talking about an administration that has not a Tesla, not a Weber in regards to the magnetic polarity of their so-called "moral compass". 

New Labour is morally, economically, ideologically and spiritually bankrupt.

And now they track more of our movements

We hear there is a plan to build a database of all our travel movements. 

Of course, they say it is to fight illegal immigration...so why do they need to know if, when, how and with whom I, a citizen, travel?

Phil Woolas, the immigration minister, defended the plans. “The UK has one of the toughest borders in the world and we are determined to ensure it stays that way. Our high-tech electronic borders system will allow us to count all passengers in and out and targets those who aren’t willing to play by our rules.”

Now, I think everyone will agree that Phil Woolas is probably one of the most odious lickspittles known even to the Labour Party. A nasty, spiteful piece of work with a voice suited to the role of Lord High Prod Nose.

How, Phil, is it "high tech" to keep a list on a disk drive, eh? Maybe it is "high tech" to the bunch of half-wits you keep hiring from "the usual suspects". If you are just keeping the records, then that is all it is to do, right? 

Well, it becomes a little "high tech" when the data is scanned proactively to see if there are any potential patterns. If a pattern is seen how soon with those involved be asked to "explain themselves" or become subject to covert surveillance or other investigations with or without warrant? How soon before presumption of guilt over innocence? How soon, Phil, you bureaucrat? How soon before this information is cross-referenced to other information? Very soon a department of proactive snoopers will grow, mark my words. It will. Anyone who says it won't is ignorant of the DNA of a State. A State wants to control, monitor, seek out, manage. It is what it does. "If only we had more or better information" they say. This is why the terrorist angle is so convenient, for then it gives a veneer of justification to demand people say who they really are and put a credible punishment to it - for if nobody is being defrauded, no punishment evaded by travelling under another name, then there is no crime. There still is no crime in law, but now we have "legislation" to make it so.

An administration run by the Libertarian Party would not even bother with the "non dom" issue, for Income Tax would be abolished so there would be no need to track chattel citizens. If you ever failed to "get" why abolishing Income Tax is so much better for freedom than, say, abolishing VAT, surely this now shows you why Income Tax makes you chattel, a cow to be milked, owned by the farmer. Surely this now shows you why the Libertarian Party is right to abolish a tax that gives the State first call on your earnings and in so doing makes them believe they own you and you owe them.

This is why the only people trusted to run a State are those who think it is an evil thing that is necessary if and only if it is the least bad way of doing things.

My movements should only be disclosed once a warrant has been issued. The State does not "own" me. I do not belong to the State, the State is there for my benefit, not for me to be some tax or vote farm for ITS benefit, so it can employ more like-minded parasites. 

The best way to achieve stronger borders isis to have a plurality of non government entities recording citizens data - private, mutual, listed, non-profit. The government wants to know about us? Go ask a Judge and prove you have probable cause to suspect a crime has or is being committed.

I am not one of the State's Gollywogs - as in rag doll toy representing a subservient human chattel, for colour is NOT the offence in relation to the doll - a black doll is not offensive per se. The perceived notions of slavery, subordination, cowed, whipped and oppressed soul enslaved and forced to dance to their master's tune is the issue with the Gollywog. Under a government such as this we all become Gollywogs - black, white, brown and yellow. That is how Socialist "equality" works. 

The colour of your face does not matter as long as the State boot is stamping on  it.

Follow-up to Polly Fetishising

I really have to say a bit more about Polly's statements in her latest article. My goodness, what a mess she is in.

Before I touch on specifics, Polly is irrational. We know this, yes, but what I am saying is Polly is YET AGAIN irrational and here is another example. 

When is she going to realise that the Middle Class is basically the Working Class who have entered the professions or made money or, dare I say the term "bettered themselves" which is what most want to do or did want to do before the entropic influences of the Welfare State and the inverted snobbery leeched into them by the Champagne Socialists and Fabian Fifth Column to "keep them in their place". 

It is Sisyphean task, for as soon as you have moved "working class" people in, they cease to be "working class". Seeing as there are more working class than middle class and very few jobs in the professions overall, you will end up pushing OUT those who have made it before they retire to make way for the next batch of "working class" based on utterly bankrupt, dysfunctional, wrong-headed but oh-so-predictable quota targets beloved of this administration.

This is before we get to the crux that the State cannot "give" opportunities. Opportunities, by definition, are not "given" but "seized". Scholarships are an example of an opportunity seized. The poor-but-bright kid has solid proof of their worth vs. their richer peers who might have got in more by inertia than talent, though to generalise is to also be moronic - many children of Middle Class families are exceptional human beings and have every right to be at the top.

Just as the State cannot "give" opportunities, it cannot "empower" by positive action. Empowerment is, basically, NOT oppressing, micro-managing, second-guessing or interfering. Not controlling, in fact. The State is UESLESS at not controlling areas it is involved in. It is usless at stopping itself controlling more things as it is, let alone being sensible about areas it IS involved in! It is about letting the individual have authority and responsibility over their own future. That is empowerment. That is something the State can only hope to grow by LEAVING PEOPLE ALONE and GETTING THE HELL OUT OF THEIR WAY. It would be appreciated.

Not sure if I want to pick apart Polly's blatherings now, but I will just touch on a few points, one or two of jaw-dropping inanity. And she is PAID to write this? Oh, forgot - The Guardian is subsidised by all those Public Sector jobs...and this policy by Harman is likely to spawn a whole rash of new "equality advisors" and "empowerment czars". "'Polly publishes puff piece' - probe".

First, she says: 

Harman's law is Labour's biggest idea for 11 years

Which basically says the last 11 years were filled with something worse than total hogwash, spite, second-rate class-war obsession and disingenuous blather. Polly has said a truth.

Next, Polly goes on to say: 

A public-sector duty to close the gap between rich and poor will tackle the class divide in a way that no other policy has

Er, dismally? Since when is the Public Sector a tool of social engineering? Oh, yes, we are discussing Socialists here, where EVERYTHING is a "legitimate" tool of social engineering. The public sector is paid to do a specific functional job, not push ideology. The duty of the Public Sector is to deliver the services to the taxpayer, not spend time internally faffing about trying to bend reality into unreality.

Inequality is the root cause of social immobility.

Utter claptrap. Social immobility is caused by many things. With no inequality, social immobility would be universal. Without a difference, mobility is not possible! Inequality is the starting point FOR mobility. How can you rise if you are prevented from being above anyone else? In this is the basis for the utter unreason at the centre of Socialism and why it ends up levelling down and not levelling up. Social immobility occurs when it is not a meritocracy. Period. Race, gender, religion, politics, geography, perceived extant income can all stifle social mobility and this occurs in both directions, as discrimination is what we are talking about here. By preventing someone from the South East getting on even if they have the ability because the quota for the NE has not been reached is a hindrance to Social Mobility. Quotas will NOT help. "Positive" discrimination is still discrimination.

However, politicians of all parties are happiest talking about "opportunity", pulling the ablest up the ladders - without too many questions asked about why the ladders are so steep, and why the distance is so great from bottom to top. It is a great deal less controversial than talk of narrowing the gap itself.

Well, the first sentence is nonsense as I have said above. The issue is to not police the ladders, but let those who can climb them, climb them. The ladders need to be as steep and as long as necessary so those who reach the top are capable for the roles that exist there. They are that long for a reason. Now, some suggest that some can join the ladder half way up because of good education and family environment. Do you think it is better to not try and fix the education and family environment and somehow guess who would have made it up the lower section? How can that possibly be determined. The best way is to remove negative influences on the family environment - Welfarism being one massive example - and fix the educational system by, you guessed it, getting the dead hand of the State out of the way. No, it is not "perfect" by a long way, but it is the least bad way of doing things and the most sustainable. It is also the simplest and cheapest. Fix the causes, not try and mitigate the symptoms.

Labour gets round this by promising to increase the demand for top jobs

I include this as an example of the dysfunctional control-freakery and delusion of Socialists that they can actually sustainably change things in this way. Companies will increase demand for top jobs. The only way the State can is to create non-jobs in the Bureaucracy and QANGOcracy. Note they will then have to "do" something, which will be to interfere in the lives of the population. Pure Fabianism. Ghastly. Damnable. Authoritarianism on the road to Totalitarianism.

The entire premise is wrong-headed. It is stupid in the extreme. It is typical of Harriet Harman, who cannot see beyond her own prejudices and addled thinking. You cannot have the working class making up an equal ratio of the top jobs unless you constantly churn people into and out of the Middle Classes, and thrust those in already down again. It is just a reality. Frankly, I can see this as being a nice way to make sure people only remain in post if they "behave" and are "good little Fabians". It makes everyone beholden to the fickle whim of the State. It is a Fencepost. A way to ensure people can be removed not because they are bad - they can be very good - but because they do not behave. The White Paper provides an easily justified but centrally managed excuse - "make way for the poor".

So let us outline the Fencepost. It is to implant a totally unrealistic and unachievable target/metric that is centrally controlled as an arbiter to the right of employment. First the public sector, then spreading to the entire economy. Of course the system will not work in the public sector, but the excuse will be that it is "just" the public sector and so "must" be widened as all those nasty private sector companies are undermining the "good work". This fencepost will be lined up neatly with another which covers the right to the Public Sector to only give out contracts to companies who conform to their employment or other criteria, which is either in place or on the way as I blog. This other Fencepost lines up with the moves for the State to get involved in more and more aspects of the commercial sector or be an arbiter on greater an greater areas of commercial activity because of its distorting influence and asymmetrical legal power. It is, basically, the new generation of Enclosures, the State being, in effect, Nationalised Feudalism. The Harman plans are like a Feudal Lord dispossessing Yeoman to make way for landless peasants just because the Yeoman has grown from a landless peasant. It is, indeed, "Socialism in one clause" - it is entropic, levelling down...unless you are a good little lickspittle, for the decision criteria is made by the party, not by a huge plurality of independent companies.

It is another Fabian wet dream.

What will the Tories or Lib Dems do with this turd if they got into power? Tinker, I suspect.

The Libertarian Party will repeal this legislation at the first opportunity. 

More Econazism: Incandescent Light Bulbs

As many of you may know, the EU had previously slapped an import tariff on CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs). Anti dumping? Well, protecting German manufacturer Osram, more like.

So, they, the EU, are now banning the manufacture and sale of incandescent, i.e. "trad" lightbulbs at or above 100W, they say because of "green issues".

This is wrong on so many levels.

1) Alternatives are far from mature. 

CFLs:

take time to come on (when I turn a light on...I want it ON)

flicker, causing headaches

give off an ugly light

are often just not powerful enough.

they contain highly toxic mercury, so MUST be recycled. 

Apart from the above, if one shatters or breaks, you have to reach for your NBC suit...

The Government advice is:

• Vacate the room and ventilate it for at least 15 minutes.
• Do not use a vacuum cleaner.
• Clean up using rubber gloves and aim to avoid breathing in any dust.
• Sweep up all glass fragments and place in a plastic bag.
• Wipe the area with a damp cloth, add that to the bag and seal it.
• Don't put the bag in the bin. Take it a council amenity site or recycling centre where it can be handled as hazardous waste.

Nice. Just what I want around my home. 

LEDs:

Very expensive

Not powerful enough

Not dimmable in normal conditions*

2) The "replacement" is subject to protectionism, which means we, the consumer, have to pay more than the market rate to keep Osram execs in Mercedes Benz.

3) Traditional light bulbs give off heat. This is only a "waste" when outdoors and in summertime. Considering the ratio of lightbulb use in summer vs winter and the fact that most traditional bulbs are in domestic, interior settings, the "waste heat" is far less than people would initially deduce from a direct bulb-to-bulb comparisons.

4) The issue over CO2 is rapidly becoming a canard.

Damn them and damn the EU for forcing me to buy such hazardous products. Note the concept of force here. I am not being advised or encouraged via lower purchase prices and lower running costs - quite the reverse as the high up-front price of Corporate Welfare - but forced due to "legislation" (again, I will not tarnish the term "law" by using it here). The term "enviro-mental" rings ever more true.

I do believe that LEDs are the way, so it is half-cocked to go off banning the only viable alternative for human beings (unless your brain runs so slowly the 50Hz flicker is ok for you) until they are bright and cheap enough to take over.

This is another example of Authoritarianism, protectionism, Corporate Welfare and Eco Fascism from the EU.

It is not a case of "can we leave yet". I've never joined, so how do I make it legal so they stop pestering me?

* unlike EU ministers, who seem to come pre-dimmed.

The Mask slips still futher

At times the Government puts up a little effort to pretend to be our elected representatives.

I now hear that the UK Police will be asked/allowed/enabled/directed to enter your property, vis your computer hard drive without your permission, without notification, nor with a warrant. They will do so if the active agent is a "foreign" Police force, i.e. another EU force.

Therefore, "our"* Government is happy to see our Police be a proxy for an EU Member State force, bypassing our Courts and English Common Law.

The EU is not one for Rule of Law and the EU is the source of this outrage. I doubt the EU will see it as an outrage, for it probably makes it "easier" for them to perform their activities -NEVER a sufficient justification for reducing the rights of the individual.

This Labour Administration has shown it is now no more than an EU Gaulieter. The UK Police is clearly considered no more superior with regards to our liberties than any other EU force. We have seen how foreign courts can demand the UK Police jump and arrest someone, but again, I do believe that the UK Government no longer considers them "foreign", just as they do not appear to consider other EU forces as "foreign".

This is how it now appears - that the Labour Administration does not consider EU Member States as "foreign", nor the EU Parliament, nor the EU Commission, but views the UK as just a collection of Regions with no more or less sovereignty over us as any other EU Region.

Come on, you bunch of Fabian Fifth Columnist lickspittles. Admit it. Have the stones. Then we can begin your trial for Treason.

BTW, forget the Tory Administration, they are Centrists who are part of the problem. The LibDems are a nest of Fabians for sure. Any Libertarians therein have got to realise this now, especially after the horsetrading that is going on over some so-called "National Unity" Government. Anyone who thinks this will do anything other than swallow up and spit out the Lib Dems is naive. Not forgetting that UKIP has an historic membership of albatrosses who are united by one thing only - a hatred of all things EU, so the true Libertarians therein are also up the swanee.

Nope, the one party that stands for Rule of Law, yet sees the EU and a bloated State as a threat to it, is the Libertarian Party. The Libertarian Party is the one party that will not stand in the way** of you to live your own private life as Tory or as Socialist as you want to be, as long as you do not try and coerce others to be also, or make them pay for it against their will. Set up your voluntary workers collective or go it alone and set yourself moral standards...for yourself, we will not stop you. Try and impose your dogma on others and you have another thing coming, mind.

* "our" as in a cockroach found in one's kitchen could be considered "one's cockroach".

** note the term "not stand in the way", as opposed to the language of the others, which talks of "allowing". Allow - who do they think they are!

Fencepost No.11: Proposed Website Classifications

Most of you know now that the Government is promoting the idea of a "voluntary code" for website rating.

Many have soundly fisked Andy Burnham's blatherings already, so I will just look into my crystal ball, because for me this is just a Fencepost...

1. Voluntary Code for website ratings (Andy Burnham's latest)
   
2. "free"* filtering software provided
   
3. "demands"** for universal website ratings
   
4. "free* internet" accounts to operate via above filtering only, centrally imposed
   
5. State-funded rating agency "for free*" put out to (fat) tender to Google or such (to neuter commercial sector opposition)
   
6. All page views harvested to "permit rapid detection of other dangerous content using surfing patterns" - bootstrapping, in other words.
   
7. Delays in ratings for personal sites and blogs appear (corporate sites can afford the "fast track" service introduced)
8. New Blog services appear that allow instant posting, but are utterly under the thumb of government and will filter or pull pages without murmur.***
   
9. Ratings extended so kids "protected" from "subversive political comment", e.g. opposition to the EU.
   
10. State ratings agency begins to refuse certification or pretends to delay due to obscenity, political or other reasons to protect "the children"
    
11. Adults complain over limits to material
12. ID-based log on is required to gain access to uncensored internet.
13. The end of free speech and the total monitoring of all traffic.
    

* Noting, NOTHING the State does is "free", it is all taxpayer funded.

** from beholden State funded, subsidised or otherwise poodle bodies.

*** Typical Socialist/Statist trick. Break something, then "fix" it to suit them. They put you neck high in ordure then offer to only put you in it up to your waist - most people are thankful...

Break it to "Fix" It: Single Mothers to be forced to provide Father's Name

Via Timmy,

We see His Smugness, Pretty-boy Purnell coming out with this Authoritarian piece of codswallop. Jim'll Fix it, indeed.

The excuse is about providing support to the Mother.

Another example of Socialists screwing things up so they can "fix it" to their own dastardly advantage. 

Lets see how this works.

1. Fabians begin to undermine traditional marriage.

2. State begins to fund single mums

3. Need for sexual partners to be stable and reliable males reduces significantly

4. Further funding and support for single mums.

5. Explosion in number of single mums  (as in those who were never a couple)

6. Explosion in cost of Welfare

7. Gordon breaks Country's finances.

8. Coffers are empty.

9. State demands that the Father is identified to plug the gap*

10. Outrageous authoritarianism to achieve 9, requiring mother, child and father DNA from everybody.

How convenient.

What if we were not forced to subsidise all these births? Then the need to force fathers would not be of interest to the State, but it would be the responsibility of the woman in question to yield only to a man of good character that they judged for themselves to be someone who would support her. Far too trad, of course.

The woman would know the man. They could pursue claims for breach of contract via the courts. What contract? Well, some can get married, others can form whatsoever a contract they wish. If women and men want to be free and easy, then fine, it is their responsibility. Caveat conjugator.

* bit late, and the wrong gap, methinks.

Labour's Biggest Fear

Prosperity.

The foundations for the Welfare State were laid in 1908~11 and it took the Parliament Act to force this through, and even then they dropped much of the land reform acts.

What I am going to say is radical and not something I think can be achieved, but is a thought experiment to assist us in how to think about this issue and put it into focus.

We have the idea of the "Chiltern Hundreds", where an MP must resign if they take the State's/Crown's coin, for they have been, effectively, "bought".

In 1908 laws were tabled allowing people who earn their living from the State to vote. This is where the problems started. Once you allow vote buying, for that is what it is, the Welfare State as we know it is almost certainly going to happen and far worse will happen thereafter.

Allowing those on benefits or paid by the State to continue to vote is to support vote buying. We can remove many people from State employ, such as Nurses and Teachers if we get a Libertarian Party that will dismantle the State-run monopolies. We will be left with Police, Army, Prisons and some other people such as those in Mental Health and elderly care.

The question is what is the greater wrong? To make as a clause of employment the lack of a vote OR to allow the taxpayer to end up as a form of indentured servant? Democracy is not our end goal, Ladies and Gentlemen, but Rule of Law.

"Unwarranted Interference" - Harriet Harman

Harriet Harman said that "MP's should be able to get on with their job without unwarranted interference" (Newsnight, 3.12.2008).

Let us see that again:

"unwarranted interference".

The Police DID conduct unwarranted interference because they entered, searched and removed WITHOUT a warrant - they were UNWARRANTED!

It was amazing that Harriet did not appear to notice the very language she was using.

"Social Justice" addling the mind of IDS

Oh dear, we see the idea of "social justice" infesting the Tory Party. Well meaning people begin to pave the road to hell while Collectivists look on and smile at the "good work" of their "useful idiots".

Ian Duncan Smith has begun to push the idea by saying on the Today programme today that Council tenants be given equity as a "reward" for good behaviour and paying their rent on time...

Before I continue, let us refresh ourselves about the idea of "social justice".

Social Justice is an odious term. It is built upon the concept of "social rights" upon which I would not need to improve upon the words of J.S. Mill:

So monstrous a principle is far more dangerous than any single interference with liberty; there is no violation of liberty which it would not justify.

Wrongheaded.

The "reward" for behaving and paying your rent is, surely, to continue to be provided with subsidised housing! Once you begin to get a "right" - and you can bet your bottom dollar (if you still have it) that these people will make it "law" - to equity just for upholding a contract, then it will become the obligation of the State to PROVE that people are not able to gain their "entitlements". It will be a ratchet, as is anything that has the ghastly phrase "social justice" pinned to it.

Guido seems to like it. I cannot see why. Anyone thinking this through without rose tints will see where this will lead us. 

If you translate IDS's words it can be said thus:

Taxpayers are forced to subsidise housing that people could end up gaining equity in for free just because those people have paid a subsidised rent on time and not misbehaved.

Apart from the fact that it is another example of "prizes for all" and heaping praise on people for just behaving like a civilised human being, it is, in effect, a forced equity transfer from the taxpayer to those in "social housing". 

It is, in a word, extortion.

Labour, Tories, Lib Dems: In the same hole and still digging

At PMQs we had all the big three turds leaders pontificating as to how they could convince the banks to lend as the politicians see fit. They are deluding themselves. The banks have their money now, so unless it was written in ink on the deal, the politicians can go hang. Banks need cash to maintain their reserves and repay obligations to other entities that are coming out of the woodwork, so they thumb their noses.

We now have a case of the Great Protector's New Clothes. Gordon struts around in his new weave and the crowd of politicians who all bought into it have to keep up the pretence. They cannot bring themselves to cry foul as it would explode their own position and the conceit that their bailout would not have these unintended consequences. They are like a home owner who has paid a builder for a new extension up front, only to find the builder has dug the foundations, knocked out the back wall and buggered off to another site to begin a new job. The rain is falling, the wind is blowing and the garden is a useless quagmire.

But this suits Gordon right down to the ground. He has his consensus and he will now get all party support for yet more control and nationalisation. More regulation. This closet Marxist is utterly unreformed. Guardianistas are all squirming, moist with anticipation at the prospect of a capitalist meltdown that can bring forward their Fabian dreams of an oppressed, emasculated and dispossessed lumpenproletariat dependent on the State run by themselves, the new elite.

The LibDems we always knew were "a gone case" to use the vernacular. The Tories have shown themselves to be lacking in their true convictions. They should have spoken up to let the bad debts work themselves out. We would have had one or two bank failures. Northern Rock and HBoS, likely. Maybe not even HBoS, as the Northern Rock collapse may have prompted HBoS to have got its house in order months before. That is the point. Gordon blinked first, so the banks knew he was a loser.

That would not be a problem if it were not for the fact that Gordon can use the force of law to ensure we are all losers too.

How Anatole Kaletsky can say the following in the Times today:

The good news for the world economy is that Mr Brown has become a leader of global stature, filling the policy vacuum created by the clueless dithering of the Bush Administration and the surprising failure of Barack Obama to step into the breach.

is beyond me. Brown is a disaster. A dysfunctional. Cameron has power as his goal but not backed up by principle. Power comes first, so he sacrificed principle and was swept along. Only a few weeks later and he has been painted into a corner and Gordon Brown is holding the brush.

Oh how we cried.

The Libertarian Party would not have intervened. Northern Rock would have gone to the wall and the Board would have had their comeuppance. The lesson would have been stark. The other banks would have either adjusted and dug defences or gone to the wall. The result would have been short sharp and over with.

We now have 4+ years of recession, the prospect of a 1 term Tory government. Can the Libertarian Party be ready by 2016/7? I hope so, but given the behaviour of the Tories, the EU might well have outlawed any party that does not swear allegiance to the EU and placed almost all policy and legislation beyond the remit of Westminster.

Something tells me that if the Tories try that, it will be they who experience that Romanian feeling...