It seems to me that the nature of the ultimate revolution with which we are now faced is precisely this: That we are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy who have always existed and presumably will always exist to get people to love their servitude. (Aldous Huxley)
The Government, especially MI5, wish the Justice and Security Bill enabling secret courts to be enacted. A wish now reinforced by the recent trial of Vicky Price and the media furore raised when, in discharging the jury, Mr Justice Sweeney said: “In thirty years of criminal trials I have never come across this at this stage, never.” When enacted, the Justice and Security Bill will remove the last vestige of Magna Carta. Read more of this post
I thought that the first two of the following strip were quite funny, although I had never come across a ‘free beer Friday’. While being aware of the television series Boardwalk Empire I did not understand the ‘Volstead’ connection. Apparently it refers to The National Prohibition Act of 1919 (commonly called the Volstead Act) this was the legislation that lead to the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, establishing National Prohibition of alcoholic beverages. Read more of this post
Historically the United Kingdom developed an ‘uncodified’ constitution – not a written constitution. Civil liberties remain dependent on ad hoc statutory protection or upon judicial protection under common law. The 1998 Human Rights Act (HRA) only invested the judiciary with the power to make a declaration of incompatibility with the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), The judiciary has no power to ‘make new law’. Parliamentary Sovereignty was maintained and a parliament only had a duty to ‘consider the findings of the judiciary’, being only bound by its international obligations through the ECHR. Read more of this post
A 2009 post ‘UK laws and the EU – A myth?’ included claims made that EU Directives and EU Regulations were now responsible for a large percentage of UK law. Daniel Hannan’s 84%, UKIP’s 75% and David Cameron’s 50%, have now become lore, despite the truth being that ‘no one really knows’. Nevertheless, they must have some influence on UK trade and commerce.
A recent press release by the British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) stated that only 12% of firms want to leave the EU altogether. While remaining a part of the EU, 47% wanted to negotiate a looser relationship and 26% want to maintain the status quo. The rules and regulations imposed by Brussels resulted in 35% responding that they outweighed the benefits of a the Single Market. Read more of this post
Anu Bradford’s ‘Brussels Effect’ is the theme of her article ‘The Global Rise of a Regulatory Superstate in Europe’. Published in the the Globalist she says that the European Union (EU) influences worldwide markets through its regulatory and legal framework, impacting on the everyday lives of citizens around the world by setting global rules governing a variety of areas, such as food, chemicals, antitrust and the protection of privacy. Read more of this post
A previous post Seeking Keynes – the cake introduced John Maynard Keynes and his book THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE. Keynes wrote the book in 1919 following his resignation from the British delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, when it became evident that there was no hope of substantial modification in the draft Terms of Peace. The following is a condensed version of selected parts in which Keynes considered the nature of Europe and the Treaty of Versailles.
The Cobden Centre aims to promote social progress through honest money, free trade and peace. Something very commendable, but obviously doesn’t preclude disingenuous commentary now that advocates of hard money would seem to be in the ascendancy over the advocates of soft money. At least that’s the view I took on reading the ‘Top ten reasons why fiat currency is superior to gold (pdf – full transcript)’. Read more of this post
We’re all Socialists now! records Peter Hitchens saying of Margaret Thatcher:
‘I shall never cease to admire her courage and determination. – But at the end of it, she was a great and noble failure, who forgot or ignored half of what she really needed to do, and so lived to see almost all her successes negated. And until conservatives in Britain and America are ready to recognize that, they too will fail, over and over again’.
Abridged here from a commentary with the title Anatomy of Thatcherism that first appeared in 2009 at the Project Syndicate and written by Robert Skidelsky, he would seem to support Hitchens’ view of Margaret Thatcher. Clearly a Keynesian, Skidelsky sees Thatcherism as the outcome of Thatcher/Reagan economics.
‘The Thatcher revolution inspired policies to free markets from government interference. Many people attribute the global crisis to these very ideas, the Anglo-American model of capitalism is deemed to have failed. The following hindsights are judgement on which elements of the Thatcher revolution should be preserved, and which should be amended as a result of global economic downturn’. Read more of this post
In the introduction to her autobiography The Downing Street Years – abridged here – Margaret Thatcher indicts Socialism for its failure to be efficacious. Writing that successive post war Labour Governments began a sustained attempt of a centralizing, managerial, bureaucratic, interventionist style of government. Read more of this post
Ruralshire General Hospital A&E looks like one of those US Federal prisons we should (but don’t) have in England. More money has been spent on huge secure electronic doors to the treatment areas, swipe card access control systems and high-resolution CCTV than on medical equipment.
Three of us stand in front of 3 inches of armoured glass at A&E in all our gear, radios blasting, while dozens of tired sad-looking prospective patients look on. A bored gum-chewing receptionist is having a protracted telephone conversation. We have to wait for at least four minutes until she exhausts the phone conversation and will deign to look up and meet my gaze. Read more of this post
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