As I walked home from the railway station tonight, along the well-lit streets, I crossed Temple Way at the pedestrian crossing; I looked down at the patches of tarmac where the roads had been repaired, and at the drains which lead to our sewers; I glanced at the litter bins where people deposit their rubbish, at the mini-recycling centre, and the big bins of rubbish waiting for the next collection; I looked up at the road signs which helpfully told me which street I was in, and the signs which tell visitors the way to the city centre, Temple Meads, and the shops; I walked past tidy grass verges and trees which had seen attention from the tree surgeons, past the zebra crossing near Age Concern, along well-maintained pavements...
And then I got home, and switched on the television to watch the audience pleading for more Government action to protect people's jobs and people's homes, and Government intervention to stop them being ripped off by the banks.
And I thought to myself, come the libertarian revolution...
62 comments:
The problem with Old Holborns viewpoint is that he has an extremely simplistic view of things. He thinks if the state confined itself to law and order, everything would work out peachy. The old, sick and unemployed would find work/emigrate/die and all that would be left are upper-middle class types like himself. The problem is many millions of working individuals and families depend on the state to provide NHS care, education and infrastructure. Many would not be able to afford private health care AND private education for their children AND save for retirement and possible unemployment. The fact that the state (which is essentially the democratic, organised community) helps with these burdens and uncertainties not only means millions can contribute to the economy but (ironically) people like OH live in an ultimately more prosperous society.
As I walked home from the railway station tonight, along the well-lit streets knowing that Bristol has one of the highest crime rates in the UK, I crossed Temple Way at the pedestrian crossing dodging the car jacked Subarus; I looked down at the patches of tarmac where the roads had been repaired, and at the drains which lead to our sewers, stumbled across the potholes; I glanced at the litter bins where people deposit their rubbish, empty of course, whilst bones and litter from the KFC were strwen everywhere, at the mini-recycling centre, and the big bins of rubbish waiting for the next collection, strewn all over thedtreet; I looked up at the road signs which helpfully told me which street I was in, and the signs which tell visitors the way to the city centre, Temple Meads, and the shops (I need to shop at 11pm); I walked past tidy grass verges full of needles and trees which had seen attention from the tree surgeons (cut in half), past the zebra crossing near Age Concern, where the old people cowered frightened of drug addicts in the UK's highest crime zone, along well-maintained pavements...
And then I got home, and switched on the television to watch the audience pleading for more Government action to protect people's jobs and people's homes, and Government intervention to stop them being ripped off by the banks. What they really meant was SHUT THE FUCK UP. WE'VE HAD ENOUGH.
And I thought to myself, come the libertarian revolution...
646 of you, 60,000,000 of us. Not now, but eventually, 92,500 of us for every one of you will ask you what the fuck you thought you were doing with our money.
Fixed that for you
Careful...he's European ;)
Blogsy
Explain to a pod of Dolphins what you mean
Explain to a troop of Chimpanzees what you mean.
We are mammals, aren't we?
Keep up with the herd. Or suffer the consequences.
NL,
I also speak two African languages, you vile racist
Now that's just showing off ;)
"Keep up with the herd. Or suffer the consequences"
I assume thats some sork of thinly veiled threat. Hope I'm not kept awake at night
Will Bristol be safer once the social security net is dismantled? Will the old cower in fear or shiver with the cold so you can have a lower tax rate? Will the streets repair themselves? As always you confuse the current unpopularity of the Labour Party with a rejection of the welfare state. I'm afraid you're going to be as disappionted with the next government as the current one. And all others after that.
"He was so learned that he could name a horse in nine languages. So ignorant that he bought a cow to ride on."
Benjamin Franklin.
.... along well-maintained pavements...
I haven't laughed so much since... well, your last post come to think of it.
A while ago in that Cyrpus; I noticed all the pretty palm trees that had been planted for the fat tourists. Snaking across all the pavements were black plastic pipes feeding these palms their water. In places the kerbs were over a foot high (30cm in français).
"Aren't you worried people will trip over?" I asked a local peasant.
He looked back in surprise and said "But people will look where they are walking?"
Needless to say, I've attempted to look up the casualty figures for huge numbers of Cypriots involved in horrific pavement accidents but so far without success. I guess they must just be better at walking on the sidewalk than British people are?
I drove home tonight. I was stopped by the police and breathalised because they thought I had driven out of a pub car park. I drove through a Council housing estate and saw groups of kids hanging around street corners because there was nothing else for them to do. I drove past a run down pub and through the window saw the locals drinking away their benefits. I drove past a number of shops, their windows boarded up because the owners were no longer able to pay their Council tax. When I got home my daughter told me that she and two of her school friends had been approached by the local community police officers and ordered to 'disperse'. My son told me that he had recently attracted a criminal record for stubbing out a cigarette on the pavement. There were two letters on the kitchen table. One was a notification of fine from the DVLA for neglecting to tell them I had sold my car last month, the other a communication from my Council telling me that if I employed illegal immigrants I would go to jail. I switched on the TV and watched an advert telling me that I should not exceed a certain number of units of alcohol each week. I poured myself a drink. Another advert came on showing me how I would die if I exceeded the speed limit and crashed my car. And then another came on telling me not to leave my TV on standby or some polar bears would drown. I switched the TV off and went to bed. Before I fell asleep it occured to me that my taxes were paying for some very expensive adverts and tried to work out why I also had to pay the BBC a license fee.
And I thought to myself, come the libertarian revolution...
"He was so learned that he could name a horse in nine languages. So ignorant that he bought a cow to ride on."
Benjamin Franklin.
Kerry, stop selling cows to people who can't ride
Damn.
OH got his pastiche in before me.
No wonder people don't like him!!!
Sorry Kerry.
Nobody could do justice to the original post. It was pure Betjeman without the poetry.
Modern industrial societies require government. There are good governments and bad but that governments are a necessity is irrefutable.
Kerry points to some of the many benefits governments bring. Old Holborn claims in response that government is failng in some of these tasks. That may be so but it does not follow that these tasks should not be carried out.
Argue for smaller government if you will, but this extremist libertarian nonsense is just that: nonsense. It is the solution to nothing. An empty, pointless protest.
"extremist libertarian"
You're kinding right?
Extremist Libertarian, I like it. Must go off now and design some menacing looking uniforms for our evil armies... I'm thinking of something with an Hawaiian motif?
Come the "Libertarian Revolution", hopefully blogs like this won't be needed anymore.
Because God knows, life on the streets of everyday Britain have only gotten more exciting since Labour took over.
Kerry,
You must be a great deal braver than your female front benchers, who require a flack jacket and police escorts to walk the streets of London in daylight or to pop out for a kebab.
The Penguin
Look at what is happening in Somalia! In a libertarian land do we all turn to piracy to survive?
We have entered a new phase today.
We are now living in a Stalinist State.
The Government now controls the banks and is arresting opposition MP's.
This is going to end in tears.
"Look at what is happening in Somalia! In a libertarian land do we all turn to piracy to survive?"
At this rate you'll be arrested for saying something like that, especially as anti-terror police tend to miss sarcasm and humour tags...
My comments in bold.
As I walked home from the railway station tonight, along the well-lit streets,
are you seriously telling me you think the streets around temple meads are well-lit?!?!
I crossed Temple Way at the pedestrian crossing; I looked down at the patches of tarmac where the roads had been repaired
For many years the stretch of road outside Temple Meads station had one of the worst, deepest potholes in Bristol. It's only recently been repaired, but not soon enough that the drop-link bushes in my car needed replacing
and at the drains which lead to our sewers;
that flood every time it rains
I glanced at the litter bins where people deposit their rubbish,
that are rarely emptied
at the mini-recycling centre,
which there would be no need for if the council spent their money a bit more wisely and sorted recyclables at the rubbish collection depot
and the big bins of rubbish waiting for the next collection;
half of which will be missed
I looked up at the road signs which helpfully told me which street I was in, and the signs which tell visitors the way to the city centre,
crikey, that's unique. Can't think of any other countries that have street signs of all things...
OH said:
'We are now living in a Stalinist State'
Oh dear - this is all becoming rather pathetic now isn't it.
I wonder if OH realises how ironic it is that the simple fact that he can call the state Stalinist means that it sure as hell isn't.
Northern Lights, was it you who was boasting about having TWO first class degrees in politics? If so, many congratulation indeed, although some might question why, having one, one would want or need a second one (unless to waste yet more years as a student?). Bit like having an extra set of arms but only one knob?
Anyway, I am disappointed that with all that expertise at your disposal your arguments are so pathetic.
I expected better
The Penguin
"I wonder if OH realises how ironic it is that the simple fact that he can call the state Stalinist means that it sure as hell isn't."
Yes, because the government are so adept at the whole internet thing.
It's one thing to round up someone yelling on the street corner, its another thing entirely to track someone down when they're calling something a Stalinist state on the comments section of a blog.
What would be helpful, Ms. McCarthy, is if your blessed regime were to grasp the concept that in this country, everyone is equal before the law.
What this means is that the police are an independent body meant to enforce the law, not Labour directives.
In other words, stop arresting opposition politicians and start arresting the vile scum who terrorise innocent people on a daily basis.
Can we have the death penalty back now please?
A member of the opposition front bench was arrested last night and you post about bottle banks! Amazing.
Come on, tell us what you think of this...
This has not been a good week for civil liberties and Labour are losing the benefit of the doubt. To use a cricket analogy the ball pitched in line with the stumps and struck the pad half way up about to uproot the middles stump, plumb LBW. Green arrested and “Damian Green was questioned for nine hours over an inquiry into Home Office leaks before being released on bail.” And “The November 2007 revelation that the home secretary knew the Security Industry Authority had granted licences to 5,000 illegal workers, but decided not to publicise it. The February 2008 news that an illegal immigrant had been employed as a cleaner in the House of Commons…. A letter from the home secretary warning that a recession could lead to a rise in crime.
This morning in a rush to work I had forgotten that my monthly season ticket had ran out, dashed through the barriers, got off at Liverpool Street Station and approached a ticket inspector to pay my fare or ideally renew my season ticket to include today. After declining to give the inspector my name and address, but still maintaining my desire to pay for my fare the inspector called a British Transport Policeman, a WPC. Fulfilling my legal obligation to furnish my name and address to the WPC, I gave strict instructions that it was not passed onto the inspector. Cut a long story short after debating the matter for about 10 minutes I was arrested and handcuffed. She then passed my name and address to the inspector.
Harriet Harman is quoted as saying that she wants slow the growth of lap dancing clubs, no doubt because she personally disapproves of them. So Harman’s personal prejudges are becoming law in this country, it is obviously not good enough for 20 women to exploit 200 weak, slavering men. With lap dancing clubs the customers and performers are entirely there by consent. And yes I have been to one and if you touch one of them, the bouncers will immediately eject anyone the dancer thinks is a threat, drunk, abusive etc. They are the ones in control.
I think Labour should have a good look in the mirror, take a deep breath and de-Stalinise itself, I am genuinely disgusted.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7753763.stm
My Email inbox is full of people I have never heard of demanding that I organise a march on Parliament. NOW.
People are getting very angry indeed. Charles I lost his head in very similar circumstances.
Me: "He was so learned that he could name a horse in nine languages. So ignorant that he bought a cow to ride on." Benjamin Franklin.
OH: "Kerry, stop selling cows to people who can't ride."
But in a libertarian society, surely caveat emptor applies? Or are you going to impose draconian new laws on cow sales? Fascist!
I wonder if OH will take off his mask in the next march? Not that he's a coward...
Kerry
What do you think of arresting opposition MP's?
Two alternatives:
1) Ministers knew - we live in an authoritarian state,
2) Ministers didn't know - we live in a police state.
Which is it?
OH - You have realised that not all 60 million people can vote?
Might post on it tonight. Thought Phil Woolas' comments on Today programme were interesting, and point to there perhaps being more to this than might immediately seem apparent.
Kerry wrote: '...the audience pleading for more Government action to protect people's jobs and people's homes, and Government intervention to stop them being ripped off by the banks.'
++++++++++++++++++++++++
What programme was that, exactly? All my TV shows is jumped-up govt johnnies pretending they are 'doing whatever it takes to protect hard-working families' blah blah blah, whilst knowing perfectly well that they are powerless.
Blogsy said: As always you confuse the current unpopularity of the Labour Party with a rejection of the welfare state.
**********************
It seems to me that something more insidious is at work. Gradually, more and more people are being forced, reluctantly at first, to become dependent on the state. As they perceive their dependence as inevitable, they lapse into apathy. Because they do not actively protest, this is construed by pinkoes as approval of statism.
It is reaching into too many areas of our lives. It's been done with low-cost housing. It's been done with health services. It's been done with education. None of them is exactly a success. The biggest and most disreputable action was picking the pockets of pension funds for £5bn a year - thus starting the process of forcing people who had made personal provision for retirement into state dependents in their old age.
NuLab is unpopular because it is incompetent, deceitful and hypocritical. The price to be paid by the dependents it has created will be high, as the state is rolled back.
No wonder so many, left and right, regard Brown and his lickspittles as despicable beyond measure.
Kerry's annexation of centuries of civic action to the sole ownership of this discredited govt has got me really angry. Hence yet another post.
Once upon a time, the government was the creature of the people and did only as much as the people wished it to do. It provided armies and navies to protect the borders, police to ensure civil order, clean water supplies, roads and an impartial structure of civil and criminal justice, as well as one or two other things acknowledged to be of general use.
Secure from incursion by raiding foreigners, able to sleep soundly in the civil peace, the people got on with running their own lives in the ways that they, individually wanted. If a man chose to fritter his life away in idleness, that was his affair. It cost nobody but himself (and if he had one, his family), a penny. The industrious and productive were admired and rewarded with marks of civic respect and paid more than their fair share of the costs of civic actions. The law ensured that infractions of others’ rights to peace and quiet (in another country, ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’) were dealt with. Everyone shared a common language and a sense of nationhood. There were inequalities, but such has been the human condition since time out of mind.
Where a local, community-wide need arose, the local people came together and, by common consent, dealt with it. Businessmen put up street signs so that customers could find them. People fed up with being asked the way set up signposts. Sewers came into being not because an enlightened state imposed its will, but because the people demanded them. The Industrial Revolution created the need for efficient bulk transport, satisfied by the privately-established canal companies. After 30 years, they were supplanted by the railways, also funded by private capital and set up by private initiative. The state’s role in all of these was no more than to enable; crucially, it did not DO much.
So far, so straightforward (and grossly over-simplified) – but that view of life was the one that the 20th century inherited from the 19th and its predecessors.
Then came the reformers, people who thought that revolution was a quicker route to Utopia than evolution (it never has been so far). Lloyd George decided to wage class war on the aristocracy via confiscatory taxation regimes (serve ‘em right for the Enclosure Acts, say I). The Labour Party, informed by the French Revolution and Marxism’s poisonous emphasis on social class, extended the warfare more widely. Nobody who was not a ‘worker’ had legitimacy as a human being. Ever since then, things have gone downhill for the UK, both socially and economically. The pyramid of esteem has been inverted: ne’er-do-wells are rewarded, the industrious and thrifty milked and scorned.
There was one flicker of hope, in the 1980s. An energetic Prime Minster acting (wrongly, in my view) from conviction, exercised (rightly) all her energies against creeping statism. As all political careers do, hers ended in failure. But it does not mean that the English have given up their hopes of freedom restored. We shall throw off the NuLab yoke, repeal their 3,000 laws, abolish the Barnett formula so as to give the Scots the same as the rest of us, fire NuLab’s 900,000 extra public servants and then get down to shrinking the state back into its proper place. That will leave us with some money in our pockets to make our own provision, just as much or as little as we want.
The state is there to serve the people, not to be their master. That is where you and your kind get it so wrong, Kerry. You would do well to remember the Law of Unintended Consequences, which always torpedoes do-gooders in the end. Eric Sevareid put it forcefully: ‘THE CHIEF CAUSE OF PROBLEMS IS SOLUTIONS.’ NuLab’s chief danger, greater even than its fundamental amorality and deceit, is that it believes in state-imposed SOLUTIONS.
"What programme was that, exactly? All my TV shows is jumped-up govt johnnies pretending they are 'doing whatever it takes to protect hard-working families' blah blah blah, whilst knowing perfectly well that they are powerless."
I'm still waiting on Jacqui Smith pointing out who all these people are who kept coming up to her saying they "couldn't wait" for ID cards.
Some chance.
It's interesting that you walk home. I thought most MP's got taxi's everywhere so as not to mix with people who might want to tell you their veiws.
Having spent several years living abroad, I for one am delighted to be living in England. Now I can walk on a footpath not a dirt road, see where I am going while I walk, not have to wade through puddles walking through streets which have no drainage, put toilet paper down my loos as we have mains sewage, have my bins emptied for me, drink the water straight from my taps, report crime if I am misfortunate, turn on a TV and see a variety of viewpoints, see a doctor without worrying about the cost, educate my children for free and to a great standard, get help if I am in dire straights.. I am thankful to be here, it´s a shame so many of you cannot see how lucky you are too.
Fred,
Private companies could have provided all of that for you, much, much cheaper.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that it is not your money the Government spends. It has NO other income.
The Government is failing to tackle winter deaths which result from fuel poverty, Help the Aged has said.
Last winter's cold weather claimed more than 25,000 lives - the highest for four years, a report revealed yesterday.
The deaths, which came amid soaring fuel costs, were up 7 per cent on the previous year and are the highest in Europe.
The vast majority - 22,400 - were among pensioners, millions of whom are in fuel poverty, having to choose between heating and eating.
Charities said the deaths were a 'national scandal' and warned that this winter, which is forecast to be colder, would see even more deaths.
Gas costs have surged by 50 per cent in a year and electricity by a third, adding around £400 to annual bills.
A survey by Age Concern found two-thirds of pensioners are cutting back on the amount of gas and electricity they are using. On Monday, Chancellor Alistair Darling announced an extra £60 at Christmas to help with winter fuel payments for pensioners – but campaigners said it was not enough.
Gordon Lishman, of Age Concern, said: 'Pensioners are clearly more worried about staying warm and well this year. Yet, the impact of increased energy bills is causing thousands to risk their health by cutting back on heating.'
The figures, from the Office for National Statistics, show that between December and March, there were 25,300 more deaths in England and Wales when compared with the rest of the year.
Winter deaths are often as a result of heart attacks, strokes, bronchial and other conditions and may occur several days after exposure to the cold.
and now to put it into perspective, as thousands were dying from poverty in Britain
Brown announces India aid package
Gordon Brown has announced a new aid package for nuclear, space race India, worth £825m over the next three years.
The thousands of pentioners dying at the very time of the anouncement by Brown must have been so happy to assist India space program as they made their last frozen breath!
Remember, every single penny Gordon spends is OURS.
OH, I worked for years with the elderly in this country, visiting them in their homes and providing care, food and domestic services. Without exception, they lived in 2 or 3 bedroomed homes alone, heating the whole property but only using one or two of the rooms.
There are good provisions in place to aid those wanting to stay in their own homes and that is of course and should always be their choice. Often these were council owned homes though which could have been exchanged for more appropriate 1 bedroomed sheltered accomodation which would have been far more economical to heat and much safer for the resident to live in.
For me, seeing those elderly with wedges of cash stuffed in drawers and bags whilst they complained about heating costs was very frustrating.
Every one of us knows a pensioner who refuses to put on their heating, or wear their new winter cardigans/thermals that we have bought them.. they are full of character but stubborn and set in their ways, it is not just the fuel prices that are stopping the elderly from being warm but their own stiff upper lips.
Warm Front Grants are available to those on a low income to enable them to have better insulation and more economical heating systems.
There is also a Cold Weather allowance paid to those recieving Pension Credit and those on a low income.
Kerry any update on Phil Woolas speech on Radio 4 this morning?
Listen again.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7753000/7753799.stm
He found about the arrest from the media yet can deny any ministerial interference?
The man is lying.
Some people on here talk such a load of rubbish it's unbelieveable.
And Old Holborn talks utter crap. He can't put together a serious arguement if he tried. He thinks using swear words helps his cause and he is so boring.
I am glad he said "SHUT UP" he just should have been looking in the mirror at the time.
OH - so are private companies going to help older people keep warm during the winter.
I thought we enlightened libertarians 'despised' private companies?
OH can't answer this fundamental flaw in his own logic.
ps. Old Holborn - does this mean that the Government should do MORE to help people?
I thought libertarians were against interventionist governments?
"Well-lit streets" Kerry? By "well lit" I assume you mean "brightly lit".
So bright is UK streetlighting that very few of us get to see the beauty of the night sky in its true colours. Instead, a pall of dusky-peach light-pollution - skyglow - hangs above every town in the land, extending miles into the passive-consuming countryside.
Most of the sodium streetlights are very poor at rendering colour, meaning that not only do they uglify their surroundings with their horrid orangeyness, but also that they are extremely inefficient in the production of useful illumination. Naturalistic white-coloured lighting doesn't need to be nearly so bright in order to achieve a similar effect on drivers' reaction times.
The politician's justification for bright streetlighting is as a sop to peoples' fear of crime. The Home Office give contradictory advice to householders, who are told [rightly, in my view] that less is more, as over-bright lighting is wasteful and creates shadow behind the glare. But they still assert "brightly-lit streets cut crime". This view is informed primarily by one very dodgy piece of meta-analysis, which has been comprehensively debunked.
From UK Parliamentary Select Committee Science & Technology 7th Report:
"... the Committee notes that in the August 2003 electricity blackout in parts of North America, the feared crime wave did not materialise. Similarly, in 1998, Auckland was victim to a black out lasting several weeks. A police inspector was reported as saying "It's almost a crime-free zone. The normal levels of muggings, violence, fights, burglary and robbery have just not happened."
Sorry about the lengthy post. The honed, illustrated and fully-referenced version is on one of my blogs. But since someone's invoked Betjeman already, I'll end here as there with the last verse of his "Inexpensive Progress":
When all our roads are lighted
By concrete monsters sited
Like gallows overhead,
Bathed in the yellow vomit
Each monster belches from it,
We'll know that we are dead.
Get off your bike Kerry and take a really good look around. Look at what led you to become a Labour MP and examine the world around you.
You seem to have found a word to hook your blog on: Libertarians. Look it up in the dictionary, dissect its principles and then try to tell me that socialism is better without choking on your muesli.
I haven't come across a blog like yours before; you just close your eyes and type tripe.
Kelvin, Northern Lights
LOVE your blogs
Your point is?
While I remember - OH criticised the '26,000 new laws' Labour introduced in an earlier post, and then threatened to put in an FoI request.
Once again, the contradictions in his posts highlight the flaws in his argument
Hi N.L. I'm just an on looker out here like thousands of others,
O.H. is a little sharp but does put quantity into his reply,
so can I ask you why have we got 26000 more laws in this country?
Thankyou.
I'm not here to defend the Government.
I just like asking questions of people's views. Others are more than free to pick mine apart - and as will be obvious from earlier posts - this happens a lot.
If I make a statement I'm prepared to defend it. I don't think it's the number of laws that are important - what's important is whether those laws are good or bad.
It's a little disingenuous therefore for OH to criticise the fact that we have '26,000 new laws' and then talk about using one of them.
Ok, I'll play
I've just caught a grey squirrel. I didn't mean to. It was in a sack in the shed that I moved. I think it's hibernating.
New Labour have introduced a law that says I must kill it. I will be prosecuted if I simply let it go. I am not ALLOWED to let it go.
So Kerry. I want YOU, who made the law that said all 60,000,000 of us who might find a grey squirrel must kill it, to tell me the best way to kill it.
I have six children and I want to understand the rule of law, so they have to watch me kill a squirrel. As you demand. They want me to let it go, but alas, that is illegal, so it must die. Otherwise their father is a criminal. And must submit his DNA, his photo, his fingerprints, his address.
So Kerry, my kids are watching. What do you, as the person who made the rule, recommend?
(PS. One of my kids reckons we should eat it)
I assume you're referring to the Grey Squirrels (Prohibition of Importation & Keeping) Order 1937, which made it an offence to release live-trapped grey squirrels. I was not in Parliament then.
Kerry,
Could I sell it perhaps?
Nah
And still rising.....
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/more-than-3600-new-offences-under-labour-918053.html
3600 plus
It's not every day I get accused of being an 104 year old squirrel killer.
According to squirrels.org it's illegal to poison squirrels in Minnesota. Is that less or more libertarian than the UK?
That's a very good question.
"As I walked home from the railway station tonight...."
You're lucky, Kerry. Any idea what proportion of your constituents can walk home from Temple Meads... or can catch a bus direct from the station?
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