Politics
RANDOM SHAKEDOWN
Some people still foolishly insist that the UK isn't a police state. They should pop along to Samizdata and watch this video (I tried putting the video on my blog, but the code didn't work for some reason). A peaceful citizen going about his lawful business is stopped and searched by two coppers, even though they admit that they don't have any reason to suspect him of any wrongdoing. I respect the cool way in which Citizen Eden handled the situation. Lucky he had one of those fancy newfangled mobile phones that can put video onto the internet. In his position, I probably would have been turning the air blue to no effect. By what right do these scumbags think they can pick on peaceful travelers at random?
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COUNCILLOR CATCHES FLACK FOR TALKING SENSE ON KNIVES
For the last few months on and off, I've been reading the blog of the recently elected Councillor for Pontefract Northt, Philip Thomas. Philip's a pretty sound guy, a libertarian in all but name, but for some reason he's a member of the Conservative Party (we all make mistakes). Not long ago, Philip wrote a very sensible post on the subject of knives and knife crime (to summarise: knives aren't the problem, violent scumbags are, so let's find ways to deal with the scumbags). Anyone of good sense will agree with this - naturally the statist borderline illiterates at the Daily Mirror don't, and they have printed a typical tabloid smear piece slagging off Philip for his common sense post. The whole thing seems to have escalated, with the local press and radio getting involved and calls for Philip's resignation/sacking coming from Labourites and "Lib" Dems. On the other hand, quite a few real people seem to be supporting him, including Yours Truly. I hope Philip doesn't end up being pressurised into issuing some kind of apology - my impression of his character based on his writing is that he probably won't, although I'm sure he'll get some grief from some in his own party. Personally I think we need more politicians like Philip - politicians who don't mind thinking outside the statist box and talking sense, and who regard the voters as responsible adults, not sheep to be herded about. If you feel the same way, why don't you pop along to Philip's blog and leave a message of support? Hat tip to the Lib Dem Lib "geo-mutualist" blogger Jock Coats for bringing this one to my attention, by the way.
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THE CARDBOARD BIKE - A CAPITALIST SOLUTION TO TRAFFIC CONGESTION AND BICYCLE THEFT!
The commuter vehicle of tomorrow? Rush hour traffic congestion is a problem in major cities. Statists try to solve this problem through coercive means such as bus lanes and congestion charges.
Bicycle theft is also a problem. A bike is stolen every 71 seconds in the UK, the main reason probably being that they're expensive enough to be worth stealing to sell on. Statist "solutions" to theft and crime generally include such things as CCTV cameras, ASBOs and ID cards, all of which are of questionable value at best.
What statists fail to realise is that - if left to themselves - individuals are quite able to come up with their own solutions to problems, utilising their native intelligence and the free market. Good old capitalism, in other words.
A degree student by the name of Phil Bridge, studying at Sheffield Hallam University, has come up with what could turn out to be the neatest invention of the year - the cardboard bicycle! The frame is made of Hexacomb board, which is form of industrial-strength cardboard with a honeycomb structure - strong enough to be used in partitions, housing and advertising hoardings. Apparently, it's inherently waterproof too, so it won't go soggy in the rain. Things like the tires and the chain are regular components, of course, but the bike as a whole is expected to sell for about £15. The average commuter would save that in petrol within a week. So it's too cheap to be worth nicking, costs nothing to run and takes up a hell of a lot less space on the road than a bus or a car. Brilliant! Of course, not being made of metal, the frame wouldn't last forever. Mr Bridge reckons it would take about six months using the bike to commute before the frame gets worn out - but then the idea is that you would take it back to the shop, they take the frame, tyres, handles and whatnot off and put them on a new cardboard frame - so you recycle your cycle!
This guy's a genius! For £15 I'd give one of these things a go, and I never learned how to ride a bike! I always thought in the 21st Century we'd be using personal jet back packs to commute to work, but until they come onto the market (at a price I can afford) this'll do the job - cheap to buy and cheap to run.
If you want to read more, there's a transcript of a BBC Radio Sheffield interview with him here. I wish him well, it's the best new business idea I've heard for ages - and it beats taxing people off the roads. Genius!
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HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, GORDON!
A year after his glorious rise to supreme power in the land, Gordon Brown seems to be having a rough time of it, all of a sudden. The Labour Party has just had a really good kicking in the Henley by-election. Not only did they come fifth - behind the Green Slime and the BNP scum, they lost their deposit into the bargain! Anyone feel sorry for Cyclops? Me neither. OK, that's the gloating finished with. More generally, I'm wondering if this election result is a sign that people are starting to get fed up with the LibLabConsensus. Although the Tories won outright, election turnout was only just over 50% - in 2005 it was 67.9%. The relatively good showing of the Greens and the BNP might indicate that there's an increased willingness by people to switch their votes to minority parties, at least as a protest vote. If this is the case, it's a pity that the protest vote is going to a couple of statist nut groups, instead of someone fairly sensible. It'll be interesting to see what happens when the Libertarian Party starts fielding candidates.
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NHS - THE NO HOPE SERVICE
The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust covers the general area of Bury, Oldham, Rochdale and North Manchester. Their contact centre for outpatients wanting to make appointments is located at Fairfield General Hospital, in Bury. Like just about everything else these days, the contact centre depends for its smooth functioning on a computer system. The computer system is stuffed. It has been since last week. They're not expecting it to be fixed until next week. In the meantime, the poor staff in the call centre (many of whom have been drafted in from other departments) are having to advise people who phone up to call back at a later date. If something actually needs dealing with, they write it down on a callback form - these are collected, sorted into time order, and then... hopefully in a day or two they'll be dealt with. In the meantime, the system still seems to be generating new appointments. Yesterday, something like a couple of dozen - maybe more - letters were sent out to people informing them of appointments today and tomorrow. Posting them wouldn't have done any good, they never would have arrived on time, so the letters were delivered by taxi. Because the letters were going to different areas, at least four or five different taxi drivers were employed to do this, sometimes carrying only three or four letters each.
How much is all this costing the taxpayer? I can't imagine a privately-owned hospital, or even one run by a charity or health co-operative putting up with an IT glitch that puts a key system out of action for a fortnight. They couldn't afford to take the loss. Only the fact that the NHS is a nationalised industry allows the Trust (which covers 800,000 people) to put up with such a chaotic - not to mention expensive - situation. Things like car manufacturing used to be nationalised industries until it was realised that nationalised industries were chronically inefficient and produced substandard products - so they privatised the car industry, not to mention gas, electricity etc. Does it make any sense to you that they left healthcare in the hands of such a badly-discredited business model? Yes, the Torys brought in a few moderate reforms, internal markets etc, but they either didn't have the guts or didn't have the imagination to go to the heart of the problem - the problem being that governments - and quangos - are no good at running things.
The NHS was set up with good intentions, but it's turned out to be a tragic mistake - it's expensive, bureaucratic and inefficient. We need to start to move forward to a system based on private hospitals, insurance, charities and co-operatives, to get the expense down, cut waste and provide choice for the public. It won't be easy, but it needs doing.
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OFFER TO GUN GRABBERS, FROM A GUN OWNER.
This is your chance to take one of these "off the streets"... ... as well as one of these. I've noticed that people who want to ban guns never seem to have a reasoned argument - they just advocate the State using force to disarm other people, because they don't like guns, or they don't trust people or whatever other psychological flaw gun grabbers suffer from. I've never once had a gun grabber present me with a coherent argument as to why I should be disarmed. And it does get a bit boring trying to debate with people who just go off on a rant.
So here's an offer to anyone who is anti-gun and wants to take two of those horrible, evil, nasty guns "off the streets". I currently own a .357 Winchester Legacy lever action rifle and a .22 SAM180 semi-automatic rifle. If anyone can persuade me, using logical argument, that it is somehow in my interests to be disarmed, I give you my word of honour that I will drive up to Loch Ness at the earliest opportunity and dump both my guns in the loch while making a video of the event. If I can find a copper to witness the event, so much the better, and I will post the video on the internet.
So there you are, gun grabbers, you have the opportunity to disarm me without having to lobby to change the law or spend a single penny of taxpayers' money. No initiation of force needed to disarm me, I'll do the job myself as soon as you've persuaded me to do it through logical argument - that is, of course, assuming you have a logical argument.
Over to you, statists. I'm sitting here waiting to be persuaded.
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IT'S MAGNA CARTA DAY!
Today is the 793rd anniversary of the day a coalition of concerned citizens "persuaded" Bad King John to put his seal to Magna Carta. He probably would have signed the Great Charter instead of putting his seal to it, but apparently the old tyrant couldn't read and write. Nonetheless, Magna Carta became one of the foundations of parliamentary democracy, establishing the principle that the even head of state is not above the rule of law and is required to respect the rights of the citizenry. Magna Carta is still law, but unfortunately our current crop of tyrants in business suits seem to think that its only use is as toilet paper. It's not just Gordon Brown and his immediate circle that are the problem, but the intellectual pygmies lower down in the political system who support them no matter how extreme their actions. One such intellectual pygmy is a tosspot by the name of Luke Akehurst (Labour councilor and Chief Whip of the Hackney Council Labour grouping). Not only does this evil little scumsucker support 42 days imprisonment without trial, but he openly laughs at Magna Carta. Here's Akehurst expressing a wish to indulge in a bit of Dunblane-style shroud-waving: 'Maybe instead of Labour fielding a candidate in Haltemprice & Howden we should find a Martin Bell type candidate - preferably a recently retired senior police officer, or a survivor or relative of a victim of a terrorist attack, to run under the following 5 word candidate description: “Independent - for detaining terrorism suspects”.' Or maybe you could try persuading the voters through reasoned argument that locking people up without trial is somehow going to make them safer. Here's another quote from Akehurst expressing his respect for the document that forms the foundation of all that's good about the British political system: 'I had forgotten that Tories were so quaintly amusing when they get excited. Boundaries of the state… blah … ancient liberties … blah… Magna Carta … blah … more than the Whigs … blah …' Liberty and the rule of law, yes, a laugh a minute. I wonder where this screwball thinks his legitimacy as a politician comes from? I'm a bit late blogging about this (I was in Yorkshire yesterday) and he's already drawn attention from better writers than me. Just scanning the comments on his blog is quite entertaining, not to mention encouraging to those of us who still believe in freedom. The best blog entry I've read about the vile statist cretin Akehurst so far is by my fellow Libertarian Party member Dan Vevers . I suggest you go and read it. Over at the Libertarian Party's new official blog , there was naturally a bit of comment about Akehurst, to which he replied 'Oh, **** you lot.' Clearly a towering intellect. Of course the statist running dog Akehurst will be forgotten shortly - I doubt that he'll ever be anything more than a petty official - and it seems to me that the mood in this country is finally starting to turn against the wholesale trashing of our liberties that's been going on for over a decade. Every sunrise takes us a day closer to the day when the British police state will be tossed into the rubbish bin of history and the principles behind Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights will be re-asserted. So tonight raise your glass in honour of Magna Carta - and resolve to do whatever you can to see freedom restored in our country.
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