At what point do we start making gin at home? Not too long if Sir Liam Donaldson has anything to do with it. The architect of the smoking ban is going to suggest that the government institutes a minimum price for alcohol. His plan: no drinks will be sold for less than 50 pence per unit of alcohol. It would of course fail to meet its aims and is a slippery slope towards prohibition.
Despite the BBC taking a clear line in favour of the move, the government it seems will not institute such an unpopular policy so close to a general election. James Purnell, Work and Pensions Secretary, has already come out in opposition, stating that ministers have no intention of going ahead with something that would punish the responsible majority of drinkers.
At some point though, cheap alcohol will be scrapped. As a Department of Health spokeswoman stated: "We have not ruled out taking action on very cheap alcohol - it's clearly linked to people drinking more and the subsequent harm to their health." The socialistic stance of the Department of Health will live on in the next government (no matter who wins) and alcohol will continue to be on the public health agenda, especially with Scotland's plans.
The most disturbing thing to come out of this nonsense is the fact the Liberal Democrat Culture, Media and Sport spokesman Don Foster has come out as a fan of plan, saying, “The Liberal Democrats have long argued that the ridiculously cheap below-cost price of alcohol in some of our supermarkets and off-licenses is a key contributor to the problem of binge drinking...We welcome Sir Liam’s intervention and hope that the Government will act." It is clearly time for Clegg to decide what it means to be a Liberal Democrat; he needs his ‘Clause IV’ moment, arguing for true liberalism in economic and social policy.
In the years to come it will not be hard to find yourself hauled in front of the Religious Inquisition Tribunal to evaluate the level of hate crime that you have committed due to expressing an opinion that you incorrectly held on a religion. That is surely the road that we are travelling along due to our own subservience to the ideology that is driving legislation and destroying long held liberties.
Throughout history peoples have wished to enshrine the right to freely express oneself: The Bill of Rights in the US, in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19 and even the EU have pronounced in their Charter of Fundamental Rights, Article 11. All hold free speech to be an inalienable right. This is a liberty that we hold dear in this country as seen last week when the police protected a number of British Muslims who had chosen to demonstrate at an homecoming parade of the Royal Anglians in Luton. They were invoking their right to speak freely. However, they are hypocrites if they also support the announcements from the Organization of the Islamic Conference in seeking to criminalize the ‘defamation’ of religion.
Instituting this type of legislation would be a stricture upon advancing our world away from the Dark Ages where heretics were burned at the stake. Practising a religion is by extension a form of freedom of expression; where religion seeks to curtail this freedom for others, they will in time also suffer. The state will use its legitimate violence to breach religious practices it sees as abhorrent to its own ideology, then they may understand that freedom is a mutually beneficial status.
Much like the argument over gun control and the gun rights with assertion that "guns don't kill people, people kill people", video gamers are saying the same thing in the latest onslaught after a school massacre in Germany. Of course, meddling politicians are using the attack as to ban or severely restrict video games. Expect this event to help push further tightening of controls on "violent" video games all over Europe.
Daniel Finklestein has written an excellent retort to the claims about video games causing violence that is well worth reading.
One sometimes wonders if the anti-game/gun/etc. politicians have letters or statements pre-written in case something useful comes along in the news. Its amazing they can make a case for such legislation based on one awful occurance. One bad apple out of the millions of people who play video games does not make a case for anything in a sensible mind.
Video games don't kill people, deranged lunatics do.
In the aftermath of the shootings this week in Germany and America, there will of course be the obvious calls that gun control needs to be further tightened. However, even if we compare these two nations and their approach to gun control, we’ll see that freedom barely clings on in either one.
In Germany they’ve spent 30 years strengthening the state’s hold over the ownership of weapons to no avail. In America there are at least some examples where people have not been robbed of the right to protect themselves and this has proven to be an impressive way of cutting crime (or in moving it elsewhere) as the article shows. Americans have their founders to thank for protecting them via the Second Amendment against swingeing government violence but we in Europe are at the mercy of government, simply due to the fundamental idea that when something like this occurs we need legislation to unarm those who desire to kill.
But when you examine the simple undertones of these shocking crimes you understand that the chosen weapon is not to blame. In an interesting article, in the Freeman, written by Scott A. Kjar and Jason Robinson, the rationale is broken down behind why it’s not the weapon that should be the centre of attention, but the person who utilizes it. The criminals have an end and they find a way compatible to achieve it successfully. In almost all cases they choose to be efficient and decide on a path that will meet the least resistance. It is perhaps time to reflect on gun legislation and realise that we are broadly capable of protecting ourselves, and others, from harm. The state has failed to protect us and will continually do so.
The ongoing popular witch-hunt of Sir Fred Goodwin over his pension is an interesting case. Principally the events show how weak a grasp that most politicians, journalists and the public at large seem to have over the theory and practice of justice.
Sir Fred Goodwin clearly made mistakes in the running of RBS and he lost his position accordingly. Putting aside the recriminations as to whether or not he should have been sacked, the fact is he wasn’t. As a consequence he is to (and certainly should) receive his £703,000 per year pension.
Gordon Brown argues that he shouldn’t be rewarded for failure, but since when have pensions been performance related? If they were, most civil servants would see little of the final salary pensions they still retire on. But more importantly than this, justice demands that contracts are honoured. The type of kangaroo court that Harriet Harmon has set in motion, based as it is upon a perceived court of public opinion, runs counter to the sanctity of contract.
It is a slippery slope from here. The demand for the head of Goodwin subverts the foundations of true justice in favour of the perverse relative of ‘social justice’, a concept that is firmly and convincingly challenged in an excellent article by the sublime Anthony de Jasay. In the same piece, de Jasay in passing suggests that the only real-world example where the equality of social justice exists is in prison camps. A stark warning of the path this country is currently on.
Apparently Goodwin might leave the country. And why not? If they could, witches on trial in early modern Europe - who were massacred for another perverted vision of justice - would have done much the same thing.
At a session entitled ‘The Left and Liberty’ at the Convention on Modern Liberty, the ancient enemies of freedom, in the form of quasi socialists and big government social democrats represented by the Fabians, Compass, Soundings and others, hopelessly attempted to attach the term of liberty to their cause.
Looking back at history, it is groups such as these which have been highly responsible for the anti freedom intellectual movement, the elimination of freedom around the world, and huge suffering caused by the inevitable failure of their utopian revolutions. Well intended philosophies led to actual ruin.
I chuckled to myself in the audience as they spewed deluded analysis, countless unsupported fallacies, straw men, and deceitful misinterpretations bordering on lies. To me it seemed as if they thought we lived in “unfettered markets", with practically no intervention of regulation in any sector. Anyone who believes otherwise is by definition a “market fundamentalist".
The positive model they used to champion ‘liberty’ is inherently unsound. Government would be permitted to force an individual to become ‘more free’ by locking him up in chains. The state can force people to carry out specific actions rather than choose. The state supposedly knows what is best for the individual, and thus people should desire the state’s choice and must follow it, whether or not they actually desire that route at all. With this must come extreme coercion.
Additionally, they emphasise relative incapacity to carry out an action as constituting a lack of freedom: I may wish to drink tea at the Ritz, but “I am not able to" due to my financial position thus I supposedly lack the liberty to drink tea. This is an invalid form of analysis, as I am still free to choose how to prioritise the use of my resources.
This fundamental confusion between the liberty to choose as you wish and the ability to implement these choices is not new. As Helvetius clarifies, “The free man is the man who is not in irons, nor imprisoned in a gaol, nor terrorized like a slave by the fear of punishment... it is not lack of freedom not to fly like an eagle or swim like a whale."
The Liberal Democrats recently unveiled their new "Freedom Bill". Although it has been heralded as the beginning of the counter-attack to reclaim our civil liberties, its lack of ambition and the existence of a number of possible flaws mean that this valiant effort may fail in its early stages.
The proposal for reducing the period of detention without trial is limited in only demanding a retreat from 28 to 14 days when it had the opportunity to call for a much greater reduction. However, this is not the only sign of unfulfilled aspiration. With measures to restore the right to public assembly by increasing the numbers permitted back from 2 to 20, the Bill has missed the opportunity to demand an even higher number.
A proposed reduction in the number of crimes that can be retried in light of new evidence appears to suggest that attempted murder, kidnapping and a number of sexual offences are not considered serious enough, and that retrial should be limited exclusively to cases of genocide and murder. By doing so, the Bill does not defend against Double Jeopardy, which is the retrial for the same crime on the same evidence, but instead attacks the retrial of gravely serious crimes based on both new and compelling evidence - terms already clearly defined.
Finally, the "Freedom Bill" makes no mention of repealing some of the most ridiculous curtailments of our freedoms. There is nothing on repealing the criminalisation of photographing police officers, and perhaps most seriously of all, there is nothing to balance or redress the huge potential to abuse ministerial powers due to the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act of 2006, a law that allows minsters to ignore Parliament and even directly amend existing legislation at their own discretion.
If Britain is to truly reclaim liberty from its own government, we must have the courage to be bolder and more radical in our demands.
Last Saturday, I attended the London event of the Convention on Modern Liberty. It was “a call to all concerned with attacks on our fundamental rights and freedoms under pressure from counter-terrorism, financial breakdown and the database state".
Whilst England may be the birthplace of freedom, we live in a country increasingly burdened by excessive government. Our political freedoms are under perpetual attack under the false pretext that freedom and security are a zero sum game and liberty must be traded for security. As the economy crumbles, the battle to halt the further erosion of our economic freedoms will be tough. We have reached the dire situation where we have failed to achieve greater security or better services, but have given up fundamental liberty. The attrition has accelerated under the Labour regime and as David Davis commented, we may not live in a police state, but when does it become one? We only see what we have lost when it has become too late.
While there was considerable concurrence at the convention against many forms of swelling intrusion, especially in political terms, I was shocked and perturbed by the many who claimed to champion the cause of Liberty, but actually wished dishonourably to stab it in the back. To clarify with some examples:
Billy Bragg passionately attacked the rise of individualism, and consumerism. He clearly missed the inherent link between Liberty, and the freedom to pursue one’s own interests.
There was little mention of economic freedoms.
The Left and Liberty ... a contradiction in terms? It was noteworthy how quasi socialists attempted to latch on to the positive support for liberty.
Overall, it was an excellent event, and I highly recommend going on the website to look at media from the event and to support the cause. The eternal battle for liberty is never won, but people “have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win."
A serious policy package from the Liberal Democrats has been announced that tries to counteract the erosion of our basic civil rights and freedoms. They have announced a proposal for a ‘Freedom Bill’, designed to reverse years of damage that New Labour has inflicted on our social freedoms.
Their draft plan contains around 20 measures with the aim to:
Cut the maximum pre-charge detention period from 28 to 14 days.
Abolish the veto in the Freedom of Information Act that allows ministers to keep information secret.
Scrap the ID card scheme.
Remove all innocent people from the DNA database, except for those tried for a violent or sexual offence.
Stop councils and others snooping by restricting the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) to serious and terrorist offences.
Regulate CCTV to protect privacy following a Royal Commission on the use of cameras.
There is a realistic possibility that the Liberal Democrats could gain power at the next election as part of a coalition government, or with Labour's declining fortunes, they might even fine themselves in true opposition. Perhaps then, this proposal is the first step in turning the tide of authoritarianism.
At what point do we start making gin at 
In the years to come it will not be hard to find yourself hauled in front of the Religious Inquisition Tribunal to evaluate the level of hate crime that you have committed due to expressing an opinion that you incorrectly held on a religion. That is surely the road that we are travelling along due to our own subservience to the ideology that is driving legislation and destroying long held liberties.
The ongoing popular witch-hunt of Sir Fred Goodwin over his pension is an interesting case. Principally the events show how weak a grasp that most politicians, journalists and the public at large seem to have over the theory and practice of justice.
At a session entitled ‘The Left and Liberty’ at the 
The Liberal Democrats recently unveiled their new "Freedom Bill". Although it has been heralded as the beginning of the counter-attack to reclaim our civil liberties, its lack of ambition and the existence of a number of possible flaws mean that this valiant effort may fail in its early stages.
Last Saturday, I attended the London event of the Convention on Modern Liberty. It was “a call to all concerned with attacks on our fundamental rights and freedoms under pressure from counter-terrorism, financial breakdown and the database state".