A libertarian returns to Scotland

"Freedom and Whisky gang thegither"

- Robert Burns

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Just how many tourists will get arrested during the 2014 games in Glasgow?

 

Ten?

A hundred?

A thousand?

Probably far more if this is implemented:

Amateur Photographer (AP) can exclusively reveal that Glasgow Subway passengers will be told they must ‘not take photographs, or make video, audio or visual recordings on any part of the subway'.

These authoritarian bansturbators are a menace to civilised society. The Glasgow Subway is one of the city's great icons and it's exactly what tourists will want to photograph. What a message to send to Scotland's visitors. What's needed is for major investors to refuse to do business in cities ruled by authoritarians.
posted by David Farrer at 12:12
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The Scottish Cup

 

posted by David Farrer at 19:49
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Jambos

 

posted by David Farrer at 19:48
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Hibees

 

posted by David Farrer at 19:48
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The Midlothian Campaign

 

I don't live in Midlothian East but if I did I'd have voted for Peter de Vink last week.

Brian Monteith writes about the de Vink victory in today's Scotsman

If there is any doubt that the Conservatives have become a toxic brand, the council election victory of Peter de Vink will dispel it, writes Brian Monteith

Monteith concludes

It should not need repeating, but I shall say it yet again. The Conservatives are finished in Scotland and the only hope for conservatism is to start again before more good people like Peter de Vink walk cross the floor for good.

That seems to be correct in my view. The Tories should have picked Murdo Fraser as their leader last year, but they bottled it.

I'd be quite happy to see the Union continue but only in a very different form as explained here:

Withdraw from the EU

Devolve all powers - except defence and foreign affairs - to the various national parliaments

Each parliament to be fiscally independent with contributions being made to the federal government in proportion to population

The federal government should be situated on the Isle of Man, which is not in any of the home countries but is equidistant from all four of them

The Irish Republic should be invited to unite with the North and rejoin the UK with Dublin taking its rightful place in the Anglosphere alongside Cardiff, Edinburgh and London

Well, there's probably not enough time for that to be sorted before 2014. So what the Coalition government needs to do is to move the British government from London to Scotland. At once, the UK's demographic problems would be solved. No longer would our wealth be artificially sucked into London and the Southeast as must be the case when the state spends so much of the country's wealth. We'd solve all of those UK regional imbalances that do so much harm. And most Scots would support such a rebalanced Union.

But I think that Edinburgh would be overwhelmed by a big transfer like that, given that the British people haven't yet realised that almost all state activities should be abolished outright.

That means that the British capital should move to Glasgow. Think of all the benefits. Unemployment in Glasgow would fall at a stroke; the city's restaurants, hotels and pubs would boom; Prestwick airport would be revived. And two iconic buildings will shortly be available for the star roles.

The House of Commons can be rehoused in Ibrox stadium: so close to the airport and ever so loyal to the British state. And without the 'Gers Celtic would have no purpose in life, other than that of providing the new home of the House of Lords and so appropriate for all of those Scottish Labour peers...

posted by David Farrer at 17:08
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Private bad, public good

 

Just when I thought that the state could sink no lower I read this:

A transplant ambulance driver has been found guilty of speeding while travelling from Edinburgh with a human organ on board.

Andy Thomson, 46, from Blyth in Northumberland, got three penalty points and a £60 fine.

Fortunately the liver was delivered from Edinburgh to Leeds in time for a transplant operation.

It seems that there's such a thing as a "Section 37 exemption" that may be used to rule out speeding prosecutions in emergency cases. So why no exemption this time? Here's the shocking answer:

"Lothian and Borders Police have made it very clear that they will not accept a section 87 exemption from private ambulance operators, despite the fact that the exemption is only ever used in emergency situations when we are working under contract to NHS Blood and Transplant."

So is it more important to attack private suppliers than to save lives?

posted by David Farrer at 17:56
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The establishment

 

The Mail carries an article by Dominic Sandbrook about Ferdinand Mount's new book.

Mount's theme is that Britain is run by an out-of-date and out-of-touch self-perpetuating elite. I have no argument with that, but I don't quite think that Sandbrook or Mount have understood the real problem.

Consider this extract:

Mount gives the example of High Bickington, a village in Devon which put forward a much-needed scheme for 36 new homes for poor families, 16 private homes, a school and a community centre.

Everyone backed it. The district council approved it. So did the county council. Even the relevant minister in London liked it. But the scheme died, crushed by the Government Office For The South West — just one of thousands of quangos of faceless, unelected bureaucrats.

We are obviously expected to take the side of the locals against the distant bureaucrats. But I don't think that we've got enough information to make a proper judgment on this particular event.

For a start, who owns the land in question? Does the legitimate owner wish the proposed development to go ahead? Who was going to fund the homes, school and "community centre"? A private developer is unlikely to say that he's building homes "for poor families": this sounds to me like a proposal to spend taxpayers' money, not a private investment. And something called a "community centre" is almost certainly a creation of the state. The same state that is resolutely destroying real community centres - otherwise known as pubs.

And perhaps the Office For The South West is filled with sound libertarians who are opposed to what sounds like a boondoggle. Or maybe it's the other way round and I've unjustly maligned a genuine local development that's entirely funded on the free market and that's being attacked by wicked statists in the OFTSW.

I strongly suspect that neither group is standing up for the rights of legitimate property owners. That would be an astounding development.

Mount's point seems to be that local is good and distant is bad without considering the rights of the property owners involved.

The real aim should be to defend liberty wherever it is located and that means reducing the powers of politicians and bureaucrats whether they are in Parliament or Parish, or in Quango or Council.

posted by David Farrer at 16:28
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Comments

 

Readers may be wondering why comments are currently appearing in the main view rather than in a separate clickable window.

It's all to do with the closing down of my current commenting system at the end of September. The Freedom and Whisky template goes way back to the days when Blogger was an independent company. Back then, there were no commenting facilities on the template. After a while a company by the name of Haloscan (subsequently acquired by Echo) provided free commenting software that could be inserted into the Blogger template. That's what I've been using all these years.

The Blogger company was eventually bought by Google and I now post via a Google log-in. Newer Google templates have their own built-in commenting facilities but I've always resisted upgrading my template in case the old comments couldn't be migrated across. Now Echo has announced that the comments will be switched off from 1st October.

So, what to do?

First, as advised by Echo, I have downloaded the historical comments into something called an XML file. I think that some very early comments didn't make the journey... Apparently it's possible to transfer these historical comments into one of the newer Google templates that has commenting facilities. At some time I'll upgrade to one of these new templates but what's not clear is this: Will the XML file of old comments make it onto the new template given that they were originally posted onto an old one?

Ever since this blog started I've been backing up my monthly posts onto Word documents. As a result of making an adjustment in the Echo system the comments now appear on the main blog page rather than in a separate window. So I am now able re-backup every month's postings with all comments being visible, thus giving me a complete historical record. Also, the backups are now going into a Textedit file instead of Word and that maintains all of the clickable links and all of the photographs. At some stage I'll probably print off the whole thing.

After the new backup's been completed I'll switch to one of the current Google blogging templates and attempt to upload the XML file of comments. If that doesn't work I can always copy and paste the old comments onto the new system...

Can anyone think of a better way?

posted by David Farrer at 12:26
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Harry Browne

 

This is a great book that should be read by everyone.
posted by David Farrer at 15:32
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Scottish Libertarians

 

The Scottish Libertarians are developing nicely and plan to become a political party:

There are a few big announcements to make. The National Council of Representatives (NCR) for the Scottish Libertarians has been quite busy laying the foundations for the party.

The working draft for the party manifesto is now available for reading on-line at the website and it has already created a bit of a storm. The official version has to wait until after the first Annual General Meeting where members can debate, argue, re-write, and finally vote on the final version.

I hope to attend their Edinburgh meeting tomorrow.

The Statement of Principle of the Scottish Libertarians is excellent and can be found here.

posted by David Farrer at 09:43
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A fundamental error in Austrian economics!

 

Earlier today I started to read the excellent pocket-sized version of Man Economy and State along with Robert Murphy's Study Guide to the great work.

Imagine my shock when I came across a fundamental error.

CLICK to enlarge:

Line x4 on the left hand diagram should be one row down, i.e. one line below Y3!

Obviously.

Thank goodness my forty-year-old version of the great work had things correct, otherwise I might have given up 2% into the book and never have become a libertarian...

posted by David Farrer at 16:29
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Liberty League

 

Mrs F&W and I went down to Newcastle to attend the Liberty League weekend conference. We hadn't quite realised that this was essentially a student event but we were made welcome and had a thoroughly enjoyable couple of days. Some of the speakers I'd met before - Kevin Dowd, Madsen Pirie, Claire Fox and Alex Singleton.

After Kevin Dowd's second talk one of the locals said that the number of libertarians in Newcastle could be counted on the fingers of one hand. "Pah" I responded: "I can remember when the number of libertarians in the whole of the UK could be counted on the fingers of one hand!"

When we arrived I didn't recognise a single name on the attendee list - but that's a good thing is it not? There are now so many libertarians in the country that one couldn't possibly know all of them.

At Newcastle Central Station I noticed quite a few attendees making their way homeward. (To think again?) . I enjoyed a pint of Guinness with vertical black and cream stripes, specially produced to mark Newcastle's defeat of Liverpool earlier in the day. It was, after all, the First of April...

posted by David Farrer at 16:38
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San Francisco

 

We paid a short visit to San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. Here are the photos:

Cable Cars etc.

Bars

Black and White

Mission

Palace of Fine Arts

General

posted by David Farrer at 20:23
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Comments and the new URL

 

Readers may have noticed the problem with the commenting system. It's the result of the new Google policy of changing the URL from .com to one that is country specific. So, if you're reading this in the UK, the last part of the URL will change automatically to .co.uk. That in turn screws up the commenting system provided by Echo.

If you amend the .co.uk ending to .com/ncr all will be back to normal. Or "temporarily" as Google puts it. The purpose of this is to allow Google to render posts unseeable in certain countries but not others...

Of course, politicians will want to make the entire Internet "unseeable".

Echo (the commenting company) has provided me with some code that's meant to solve this problem. So far it doesn't. I do see however that the .dot.com version still appears on the Safari browser but not on Firefox.

I imagine that UK blogs that use Google's own commenting system aren't affected by this. I use Echo because this blog and its template predate Google's purchase of Blogger. I'm not sure that an update to a new Google template is viable given my desire to keep the historical comments.

Does any reader know what I can do about this?

In return I offer a way of becoming the richest person in the world.

All you need to do is to produce software that's guaranteed NEVER to be updated without the user's specific approval. Ant failure to meet this commitment would result in a large payment of gold bullion being transferred to the victim. But which bank is safe enough to keep the necessary gold in escrow?

(UPDATE: Thanks to Echo for fixing this.)

posted by David Farrer at 15:46
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A reply to this.

I've followed your blog for quite some time but this piece is very upsetting.

Let's start with this: "Scottish identity is fundamentally an ethnic affiliation." I'm sorry, but that's completely wrong. How does one explain all of those English born SNP activists not to mention the various English born SNP members at Holyrood? Our SNP education secretary was born in Kent. And what about the SNP's Asian politicians and the fact that the SNP deputy leader represents what's probably the most ethnically Asian place in Scotland?

Also let's note that the SNP wants the independence referendum to be based on those who live here. It's the unionists who want it to based on place of birth.

The desire for independence is connected with Scotland's different civic society, not on ethnicity.

Your students take A- levels; ours take Highers. Your degrees take three years; ours take four years. You have barristers; we have advocates. The head of your national church is the Queen: the head of ours is Jesus Christ. Your chartered accountants are ACAs or FCAs; ours are CAs. Your architects are in the RIBA; ours are in the RIAS. Your teachers join the NUT; ours the EIS. Your cup final takes place at Wembley; ours at Hampden. You have twelve-man juries; we have fifteen. Your National Portrait Gallery is in St Martin's Place; ours is in Queen Street.

And so on and so on.

It's the existence of our own separate civil society that's the key to understanding Scotland.

The idea that the identities of Bradford and Liverpool are unique in the same way as Scotland's is risible.

By the way, this separate Scottish civil society is not the result of devolution, but rather its cause. And it may well become the cause of independence if its existence continues to be ignored by England. The "presumption of the English norm" is what will most likely end the Union. A Union of which I am actually quite fond.

The Scottish (and English) border has been established for centuries. Does anyone think that Germany can't be clearly defined despite its several boundary changes in the last century? Then I wonder why you mention "The Orkneys", a sure sign of not knowing much about Scotland. Ah, it's the oil, isn't it? If I had a pound for every English person who told us that the boundary didn't go due eastwards, I could buy all of the oil in the North Sea for myself. We do study geography up here you know. As it happens, international law applies the equidistance principle in these cases, not the angle of entry into the sea. As it also so happens, the equidistance principle also means a northeasterly boundary. Universities, think tanks, economists, and yes, oil companies know all of this full well. All revenue calculations are based on the internationally accepted northeasterly boundary. Of course, if some of our English friends get their way and Hadrian's Wall is rebuilt things would be very different…

On the EU, I'd love it for an independent Scotland to be out of the whole thing. But I take it you haven't heard of recent Spanish government pronouncements rejecting claims that they'd blackball Scotland, the EU's biggest source of oil and a major supplier of fish to Spain. There are plenty of European lawyers who accept that Scotland and the RUK would both be regarded as successor states to the UK. That's historically logical, is it not? On that basis, both would have to re-apply or both would automatically continue as members.

It would seem that you are unaware that government figures regularly show that Scotland is financially a boringly average part of the UK and indeed of Europe, and that it has recently been doing better than the rest of the UK.

I have little doubt that the most likely cause of the break-up of the UK be southern misunderstanding.

posted by David Farrer at 17:41
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Is this e-mail a con?

 

Attn:

Your name top the list of Americans who have been struggling for many years now to get back their unclaimed- Lotto winnings, Contract payments and Inheritance fund from oversea banks/countries without success.

As part of President Barack Obama's Economic Blueprint, aimed at empowering Americans financially, as outlined in his last State of the Union Address, the President had ordered that we HELP in getting your full entitlements transferred to you immediately from any oversea Bank(s)/Countries where your fund is located. To enable us conclude this ASAP, you would have to provide me with the following information for confirmation purposes;

1: Your full names

2: Your contact address

3: Your telephone/fax #s

4: What Banks/Countries is your fund located & Amount

Regards,

Tim Geithner, Secretary, United States Department of the Treasury,

Probably a con. You see, I'm not American...
posted by David Farrer at 11:12
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The continuing saga on Political Betting

 

I've just posted this over on Political Betting:

I have to agree that James Kelly is a bit misguided. Because he is a socialist, that is.

But on the question at hand he has my full support. Mike has built up the best political site in the UK. And as a hard-core libertarian I fully support Mike’s right to make any rules whatsoever. However, the best sites do tend to run off thread very quickly simply because of the volume of traffic. Look at the excellent Belmont Club blog for example. The solution for the Brit Nats (or English Nats – it’s sometimes difficult to tell) is simply to out post the Scot Nats.

My own background is both English and Scottish. Generally speaking I believe that the Union has been a good thing and the UK a force for good in the world. But I must say that I am increasingly likely to vote for independence, as are many others in the Scottish business community. I am however open to persuasion, not that there’s any sign of intelligent campaigning from the Unionists.

Whether the UK continues to exist for more than another thirty months is clearly the most important issue facing the country. Restricting comments about Scotland is just the sort of thing that contributes to nationalist feelings. I urge a change of policy.

posted by David Farrer at 19:04
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Margaret McAlpine and Joan Thatcher

 

The SNP MSP Margaret Joan McAlpine has got herself into a bit of trouble:

What I said that day was clipped on some television bulletins in a way which cut me off mid-sentence so that I seem to be saying that Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Tories were anti-Scottish, full stop.

But there was no full stop. The sentence goes on to say “in coming together to defy the will of the Scottish people and the democratic mandate that they gave us to hold a referendum at a time of our choosing.”

I can fully understand Joan's annoyance at being misquoted, in particular by the egregious Douglas Alexander on Question Time.

But cast our minds back to around twenty-five years ago.

The then UK prime minister Joan Margaret Thatcher shocked us all by stating that: "There is no such thing as society".

This "quote" has been continuously thrown at Mrs Thatcher.

Except that's not quite what she said, was it?

Here's the full quote:

And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour.

I strongly suspect that plenty of SNP politicians have "quoted" Mrs Thatcher wrongly over the years. What goes around comes around.

On balance this event is probably a useful lesson for the SNP. More than two years before the referendum they've learnt that they are in a fight to the death. One side will win and one will be destroyed.

posted by David Farrer at 18:05
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Quote of the day

 

From Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism:

In the interwar period, the large Austrian banks had consciously sought to win economists of Schumpeter's standing as front men to reassure their creditors from abroad. They had also asked Mises for support several times, but he always rejected these proposals because he thought the commercial banks were all bankrupt. This was not a pose. He had in fact always kept his personal account with Austria's postal savings bank.

posted by David Farrer at 09:08
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Pre-Christmas inbox

 

posted by David Farrer at 16:30
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Currently reading

 

posted by David Farrer at 16:26
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Am I the only one not calling for a subsidy?

 

Here we go again:

PUBLIC money should be used to subsidise more direct flights from Scotland to China, Russia, India and Brazil

Now I'm a fan of aviation having been brought up at Prestwick, but this is ridiculous. Just the sort of nonsense one would expect from the Labour party.

But read on:

Both Labour and the Conservatives yesterday urged SNP ministers to set up a dedicated pot of cash to tempt airlines to fly routes direct to the new global economic powerhouses.

So the Tories are at it just like Labour. No wonder lots of us have given up voting for them.

The best way to attract air services to Scotland is to have a low tax, low regulation economy. It would also help to re-establish our once world beating education system. Subsidising airlines is not the answer. Eliminating the Air Passenger Duty on the other hand is exactly what's needed.

posted by David Farrer at 15:48
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How to save the Union

 

I'm not saying that one should or shouldn't want to save the Union but simply explaining how it could be saved. And this is the only way.

Back in May I wrote this:

I have no doubt at all that most nationalists are motivated by questions of identity, not finance. Of course it helps their case if the economics look good but what they are working towards is for Scotland to be a normal country.

It really is rather unusual for somewhere to have its own national legal system, its own national Church, its own national sporting teams and representation, and almost all of the other attributes of nationality and yet not be independent. That's what motivates the SNP, not whether an independent Scotland would be richer or poorer.

It's a question of identity, and nothing else. Forget all about oil, not to mention Barnett and GERS.

Five years ago I had this to say:

Everything would be much clearer if the SNP were known as the Scottish Normalcy Party instead of the Scottish National Party. Almost all Scots, nationalist or otherwise, get extremely upset about what I call The Presumption of the English Norm. For example, there are apparently several countries in which one can look up "British Embassy" in the local phone book (and in the local language) and find no entry. It's under "English Embassy", even when the language in question has a word for "British". And given that the Bank of "England" hasn't been renamed makes me think that Gordon Brown could be an SNP agent. I don't believe that our southern friends have any idea how annoying this kind of thing is, but imagine how they would feel if the rest of the world used the word "French" to mean "English".

If you visit the country where the locals speak Japanese, the government is known as the Japanese government, and the country is called - wait for it - "Japan". The country where folk speak French is ruled by the French government and it's called "France". It's the same almost everywhere. So it follows that the country where people speak English is ruled by the English government and is called "England", does it not? Well, no, it doesn't. But most of the world, including most English people, talks as if that were so. Well then, why does this happen?

I think that it's all to do with the language of Britain - the UK actually - being called "English" rather than "British". This would be less of an issue if it weren't for the fact that English is also the language of the world's most powerful nation, of science, of business, of finance and also of the Internet. That linguistic domination continuously reminds the rest of the world of the concept "England", while millions of Scots keep shouting: "You mean Britain."

Some of us like myself put up with this while still being annoyed and just accept that the UK is a very unusual country - one that is a multinational state. (Confusingly, the US is a multi-state nation.) But for many Scots this issue is all consuming, and more than anything else in politics they want to live in a "normal" country. So what's normal?

Back when the SNP was founded "normal" meant independent, like Norway or Switzerland today. But most countries in Europe are now members of the EU - that's the new norm, however much we may dislike it. And that's why the SNP wants Scotland to join the EU. It doesn't matter to them if it all leads to a federal superstate - or worse, a non-federal superstate - as long as Scotland has the same status as everywhere else. While Scotland remains an invisible part of a country known to most of the world as "England", membership of the EU is seen as a better option by members of the SNP - the Scottish Normalcy Party.

All of that remains true and answers the perennial question about why Scotland might wish to leave the British union only to join a European one.

So, if the British establishment wishes to save the Union, and it does for they are far better informed than the English blogosphere, what needs to be done is clear. And nothing else will do the job.

There must be a joint announcement by David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg.

With immediate effect any public servant or MP who uses the term "England" when they mean "Britain" or the "United Kingdom" will be dismissed on the spot, without compensation, and with loss of all pension rights. This will obviously also apply to those employed by quangos, especially by the BBC. The Bank of England will be renamed the Bank of the United Kingdom.

Any foreign government getting it wrong will find that diplomatic recognition will be removed for one month for every offence. If M Sarkozy refers to the UK as "England", we will call France "Bretagne". Should President Obama get it wrong, we'll start to call the US "North Dakota". But if Ron Paul gets elected and makes a mistake we'll give him a second chance...

So, is all of this going to happen?

I don't think so, and that's why I expect to be a holder of a Scottish passport in the not too distant future.

posted by David Farrer at 16:30
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Merry Christmas

 

With acknowledgement to: these guys.

(CLICK image for clearer version)

posted by David Farrer at 22:11
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