I used to be quite proud of the fact that the British governments of all parties would stand by the Unionists of Northern Ireland. Especially as it seems likely that most mainlanders feel no kinship with the people of the Province.
Today the DUP has stabbed us in the back.
I now say: to hell with them; kick Northern Ireland out of the Union. The UK's probably going to break up anyway. Let's start the process by expressing our outrage at this sell-out of Britain's traditional liberties.
But nutty behaviour has now spread to American Airlines too:
L.I. Family Suing American Airlines Over Peanuts.Actually, to sort of quote Bill Clinton (remember him?): I feel their pain. Let me explain.Mother Says 4-Year-Old Son Has Life-Threatening Allergy, And That By Serving Nuts His Civil Rights Were Violated
Around 15 years ago I flew to and from the US on American. And guess what? Some years ago my local MP became Chancellor of the Exchequer. And he's totally nuts. Obviously there's a connection here. Time to contact my lawyer...
But the English get Scotland wrong too. Even Frank Field, the only sensible person in the Labour Party.
Here he is in today's Telegraph:
With no residential care-home fees, Scots, unlike the English, don’t face having to sell their homes to pay them.But it's not true!
What's provided in Scotland is "Free" Personal Care. That's help with things like personal hygiene. The cost of the accommodation itself is born by the resident - just like in England. Now, as a libertarian, I don't think that the state should be paying for any of this. But at least we should get the facts right. As far as I can see, every single blogger and journalist in England believes that retirement and nursing homes in Scotland are provided by the taxpayer. It ain't so.
SIR Terry Wogan, the veteran Eurovision commentator, has cast doubt on whether he would be involved in covering the event again.One of the Scotsman's commenters had the same idea as myself:He said it was "no longer a music contest" and that prospects for western European participants were "poor".
The obvious solution to the political voting problem, by the way, is for the BBC to allow Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland to enter the contest separately - it would be the right thing to do on its own merits, but it would also set up a new British Isles voting bloc to rival that of the Balkans, the Baltic, Scandinavia and the ex-USSR.I'd go further: let's give the vote to the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey etc., not to mention the Free State of Berwick upon Tweed. Then one of our lot would win every year.
On a more serious note (no pun intended!) this whole charade demonstrates some of the problems inherent in democracy itself. It does seem rather unfair that Iceland has the same voting power as Russia in the Eurovision contest. That could be fixed easily enough. Nevertheless, there's still going to be one winning country.
Similarly in a political democracy the winner takes all, no matter how "proportional" the voting system may be. You get Brown or Cameron; Salmond or Alexander; McCain or Obama/Clinton.
How different from the marketplace. When I go into my local pub no vote is held on what we drink, with the winner then being the only available product. No, we all "vote" with our money and the outcome is a huge selection and we all get what we want as individuals. That's why the state should do as little as possible (or nothing at all), letting the market handle almost everything.
No, what's shocking is that 30% of the voters still vote for the Labour Party despite ten long years of economic sabotage and - even more frightening - ten long years of relentless attacks on our civil liberties. I know that 25% or so work for the state. Who on earth are the other 5%? I suppose they're on welfare. Can anyone who's a net taxpayer still vote Labour?
They chose the £800,000 bid over a higher offer, on the grounds that the University would make the building more accessible to the public. The University plans to restore the house to promote the study of economics. Hmmm. Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to sell to the highest bidder?In one of the comments Gavin Kennedy writes:
The difference in the bid was £150,000, a rather small amount which will be more than covered quickly by the commercial operations of Adam Smith's former home (1788-90) in pursuit of academic excellence in economics.I'd like to enlarge on that observation with a nod in the direction of the Austrian School of Economics.This is also a public benefit, which was lauded by Adam Smith.
Values are subjective. We each have our own unique scale of values and if that weren't so no trade would be possible at all. Let's imagine that I'm in the market for a property. I might be happy to pay £250,000 for a flat in central Edinburgh but another person might well prefer to spend the same amount of money on a sizeable house in rural Fife. And I might be willing to spend a bit extra on a place in Edinburgh simply because it had once been owned by Adam Smith! Others wouldn't. Values aren't limited to monetary considerations.
So I would argue that the City Council hasn't necessarily sold the Smith abode to a low bidder. It all depends on the Council's scale of values and those values can include a keenness for a particular future use of the property. From its point of view the Council has sold to the highest bidder. For once, in this case the Council's scale of values is not unlike mine!
Martin Kelly wrote about my own earlier observations on Boris Johnson's alcohol ban on the London Tube.
Martin claims that:
libertarians...forget that even in the smallest of all possible British states, the authorities would retain a monopoly on forceand that could justify:
banning alcohol from public places.
Again, the libertarian position is a bit more nuanced than that. First, individuals in a libertarian limited state would retain the right of self-defence. The state wouldn't enjoy a monopoly on all uses of force. Second, what is a "public space"? The Tube is arguably a public place (given its current ownership), but "public" houses aren't. Nor are football stadia for that matter. Libertarians think that the Tube should be privatised thus ceasing to be a "public place" but rather a place into which the public are allowed to enter subject to the owner's regulations - just like on the railways. There's an important difference. The rules concerning entry that are set by the owners could include an alcohol ban.
A small minority of Rangers fans are a "disgrace" who could have jeopardised England's bid to host the 2018 football World Cup, Gordon Brown warned today.First, I find it odd that our PM should immediately think of linking the trouble in Manchester with something ten years away. Why did he do that? Is it because his priority is to keep England "on side" (his side of course) rather than making suitable observations about the events themselves?
Second, I wonder how many English viewers were bemused to see so many Union Jacks being waved by Scottish fans in scenes reminiscent of Wembley in 1966. But I seem to recall reading somewhere that Glasgow was one of the top markets for sales of England football shirts. That's certain to confuse certain English bloggers for weeks...
Third, let's suppose that Brown's fears come to pass. Imagine England losing the right to host the World Cup because of the actions of Scottish fans who support the union with England albeit being even more passionate about the one with Northern Ireland. It's enough to confuse most people! But the quality of history teaching these days is such that plenty of English folk would blame Scotland as a whole despite the fact that the Scottish national team is usually supported by everyone except Rangers (and Celtic) fans whose predominant loyalties lie elsewhere.
Wouldn't it be bizarre were an England that had lost the right to host the World Cup respond by kicking Scotland out of the Union even though the Scots in Manchester were the most pro English ones that one could find? Stranger things have happened.
STENOGRAPHERS employed by an English company are littering court transcripts with mistakes because they are bamboozled by Scots accents, senior lawyers have claimed.I'm not one of those who oppose the outsourcing of Scottish jobs to England or anywhere else for that matter. We could hardly do so while being quietly proud that the RBS is now one of the world's largest banks. Surely though you need to make sure that the firm can do the job. Clearly, this one can't.Leading advocates have complained that Scottish names such as Barlinnie have been wrongly transcribed as “Barrel Annie” and that words such as “libelled” and “fanciful” have been replaced with “liable” and “fanciable”.
But what's this?
“The transcriptions are bloody awful,” said Donald Findlay QC, one of Scotland's leading defence barristersDonald Findlay a barrister! Surely he's an advocate.
(My spellchecker is ever so slightly superior - in a Glasgow way. Milngavie is OK, but not Barlinnie...)
(Incidentally, I imagine that Mr Devil was pleased to note that the population of the world probably reached 6,666,666,666 during the period of this debate...)
The trouble is, as some of the commenters have pointed out, that things can be more complicated than they may seem at first.
Here's Blue Eyes:
It is essentially a condition of carriage which as a private operator TFL is entitled to change from time to time. Or don't you agree with contracts between consenting adults now DK?
And DK's response:
P.S. If the Tube is a private space, then a politician should not be able to interfere. That was the whole point about the banning of smoking in pubs too.Either it is a public area, in which case the politicians should have no mandate.
Which is it?
And here's Rory Meakin:
As I said, however, I am distinctly uncomfortable with this decision being taken by a politician. Whether a train/bus/tram company should permit alcohol on its property is in no sense a legitimate matter for public policy. This is the main problem.All libertarians opposed the pub smoking ban. That issue was straightforward. Despite their rather ambiguous name, pubs are private property and conditions of entry should be set by the owner and no one else, including the government. The same principle obviously applies to privately owned trains, buses and aircraft.The solution would be for TFL (and libraries) to be privatised and for the owners of those businesses to take such decisions (subject to any licensing as may be required). I believe a private tube operater might well also ban alcohol as it's perhaps not viable to sell it like on long distance journeys.
The problem is, of course, that the Tube isn't privately owned and the question is this: What should the guiding operating principles be when it comes to state-owned assets?
We come here to the heart of radical libertarian theory.
The non-aggression principle limits the state to the provision of defence, police and court systems. Anarcho-capitalists (with whom I sympathise) argue that no state has ever remained limited and can't do so by its very nature.
But if the state is abolished, then all property - including all land - becomes privately owned and each landowner has the right to set whatever rules for entry to his property that he chooses, for any reason whatsoever and however "irrational" to others. Just like those pub owners mentioned earlier or you, dear reader, with your own house.
Under this regime every bit of land is, yes, governed by its owner, and each owner will set those rules that he sees fit. Riding on a Stornoway bus may well necessitate the wearing of a conservative, black, three-piece suit and the carrying of a Bible. San Francisco's BART system would probably be somewhat different...
So, the free market would produce a vast variety of communities. Some would allow drink (and food) on "public" transport and others not. The owner of each community would decide what rules to apply according to his own value system and those values wouldn't necessarily be financial.
So what should Boris do?
I can see the argument that says that Boris is merely acting just like a private manager might do. But Boris isn't the manager of a private company, and in such cases I get very nervous when illiberal policies are introduced even though such "illiberalism" would be perfectly acceptable in privately run organisations.
In short, instead of bannning alcohol on the Tube Boris should tell the police to get out of their offices, stop enforcing political correctness, and start catching criminals.
If you send a letter to a bank and don't address it to a named individual the letter doesn't get opened at the branch. It goes to a "central mailroom" to be processed in another city. The result can be (the voice of experience here...) that a cheque can take a couple of weeks to get into your account. The lady at the bank in question told me that it was all to do with improving efficiency. When asked if that worked I heard a cynical laugh from the phone...
But what was this on the south side of town? An Esso garage with no queues and a full complement of the Sunday papers! I put in £34 pounds worth, my previous maximum being around £25. The lady told me that supplies were fine down there but that there'd been a bit of a panic back on Monday.
So, plan "A" continued. On to Dumfries, then Southerness, which I knew as a child, and next I went to the John Paul Jones Cottage. This is a very nice little museum and was the birthplace of the "Father of the American Navy". Jones also served as an admiral in Russia and eventually died in Paris. I wonder what he'd make of present-day Scottish politics...
Onwards to Rockcliffe where I once spent part of a holiday in a darkened hotel room suffering from chickenpox or measles. Then to Kippford, which was nice and misty.
Other photos from this trip are here.
Sunday's photos from Glencoe and Oban are here.
Like train journeys to exotic places.
I started from Edinburgh Haymarket at 0818 and did the following:
Haymarket to Glasgow Queen Street
Queen Street to Dumbarton Central (via Anniesland)
Dumbarton Central to Helensburgh Central
Helensburgh Central to Dalmuir
Dalmuir to Hyndland (via Clydebank)
Hyndland to Hamilton CentralBeer Break!
Hamilton Central to Newton
Newton to Glasgow Central (via Maxwell Park)Second Beer Break
Borders Bookshop Break
Apple Shop BreakQueen Street to Haymarket.
Just a typical boy's day out.
Partners at firms such as Freshfields and Clifford Chance now command as much as £700 per hour, with senior associates charged out at as much as £500£700 per hour! Nice work if you can get it. But why are these lawyers able to charge so much?
I suspect that this book will provide some clues. Most or all of the law is no different from other public "services" and it's not surprising that we see inefficiencies and excessive costs. I've read about a quarter of the book so far and will report on it again when finished.
The FT article also claims that:
“Lawyers, hookers and plumbers are the only people who still charge by the hour.”Hang on a moment! I charge by the hour and I don't fit into any of those three categories. On second thoughts, I did connect a new shower hose in our bathroom last week...
TEN years after the death of the brutal Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, his grave has become a symbol of spiritual comfort to some in the village where he died.Shocking news, I thought. But perhaps not too shocking. Here in the sophisticated West there are millions of idiots who praise the likes of Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Some of the communist leaders have inspired rich fashion designers. Reading people like Hayek - who explained how society could be organised peacefully from the bottom up - is considered a bit difficult but wearing a "Che" t-shirt is somehow cool. What a strange world.
The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and condemn them: for she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of SolomonOh yeah.
In force:
EXPERTS have warned of a looming recession and accused the Bank of England of failing to do enough to boost the flagging economy after it trimmed the base rate by only a quarter percentage point.
Here's the first one:
Julian King, of the National Homebuyers organisation, said the "timid" interest-rate cut was a "cruel snub" to thousands of British homeowners struggling to meet their mortgage payments.
And another:
Frank Blin, head of UK Regions at PricewaterhouseCoopers, also warned the Bank needed to do much more.Next:
And Stephen Robertson, the director-general of the British Retail Consortium, said that because changes take months to have an effect, further cuts were "needed sooner rather later to avoid a hard landing"And an economist (sic):
Economics professor David Bell, of Stirling University, said: "The rate cut will bring some benefit to the Scottish economyAnother one:
Iain Duff said the cut would "help maintain positive sentiment and reinforce the housing market, and make sure that the Scottish economy comes in at around trend rate of growth this year". He expected more cuts.And how about this?
Liz Cameron, chief executive of Scottish Chambers of Commerce, said the organisation hoped the cut would boost confidence and investment, and added that it would "come as some comfort" to Scottish firms facing rising transport and energy costs.And finally:
But the British Chambers of Commerce said the cut was "overdue" and called for a cut next month to 4.75 per cent.Let's get this straight. The house price bubble has been caused by money printing. In today's world, that means as a result of the Bank of England keeping interest rates artificially low. That's why the money supply is growing at more than 10% a year and this money has to go somewhere. Lots of it has gone into the housing market. And the "solution" from all of the above is more of the same!
Those who are going to pay for this mess are the prudent, those who haven't lived beyond their means. Their savings will be inflated away to bail out the welfare bums, many of whom are economic illiterates infesting the business world.
I must admit that I didn't know that the National Trust for Scotland had broken away from the original UK-wide body. But the point I was trying to get across wasn't so much concerning the origins of Scottish and British institutions but rather how they are perceived in Scotland and what the implications of that may be.
I've been reading the Scottish papers for close to forty years. In the early days the idea of Scottish independence was essentially a non-issue. But week after week, month after month, and year after year the same points were made in articles and letters to the editor. I put it like this:
This presumption of the English norm, as I have dubbed it, is intensely annoying to Scots. Being English is seen to be such a natural state of affairs that it's the exceptions to Englishness that are defined, not Englishness itself.I think that the point isn't whether or not there is a presumption of an English norm, it's that many, many folk up here deeply feel that there is. They may well be wrong, as Ken tells us in the National Trust example. But these beliefs have political consequences. I believe that they're a major cause of the rise in support for independence.
Now, most English folk aren't very interested in Scotland. Why should they be? But what I don't understand is why Scottish, Unionist politicians have been so incompetent. People like Gordon Brown.
If I'd devoted my whole life to becoming Prime Minister of the UK I'd have taken a few basic precautions to keep my fellow Scots on board. I'd have been reading all those articles and letters and would have done something about them - to take the wind out of the Nationalists' sails. I'd have renamed the Bank of England the Bank of the United Kingdom. I'd have made speeches suggesting that England-only bodies should proudly describe themselves as such. Just like in Scotland. I'd have made Scottish bank notes legal tender in England. I'd have strong words with the Foreign Secretary to sort out those buildings that proclaim that they are the "English" Embassy. I wouldn't have patronised the English (and really annoyed the Scots) by claiming that Gazza's goal was one of my favourite sporting moments. And yes, I'd produce a proper set of UK accounts that show the whole financial picture and avoid the endless rubbish that I've read over the last year or so. If Gordon Brown wants to enhance "Britishness", he doesn't have a clue about how to go about it.
But he doesn't and it's probably too late. David Cameron will no doubt serve as Prime Minister of the UK. But anyone else after him? Probably not.
HSBC is facing a possible investigation by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) after admitting that it has lost a disc containing details of 370,000 customers.You'll no doubt all know that F&W has been keeping a database containing information about our readers. Names, addresses, bank details, NI numbers, dates of birth, mother's maiden name - all that sort of thing. In fact I've got the disc right here on my desk; err, somewhere on the desk; let's see, it looks like I might have filed it away. Somewhere. Oh my God - I think I left it down the pub.
THE cost of renting property in Edinburgh has soared as the city's affordable housing crisis deepens.Unless houses are empty, they're affordable by someone. There's no God-given right to be supplied with a house wherever you want and at a price chosen by you rather than by the market. I'd like to live in Heriot Row, but it's not affordable for me. For some, it is.
Anyway, where there's a will there's a way:
A MAN who lives in a house subsidised by taxpayers has made a £200,000 profit from selling other properties in the last year.Surely everyone can do that. The "affordable" problem is solved. Or am I missing something?It is understood Derek Fyvie pays only £200 a month to live in housing association flat in the Grange.
But the Evening News revealed last year that the 59-year-old, originally from north Edinburgh, also owned at least five properties which he let
IT WILL be music to the ears of residents plagued by vandalism and anti-social behaviour – a Scottish supermarket is to blast out Beethoven and Mozart in a bid to deter loitering teenagers.Yes I can see why that may work, but I have a more radical proposal.Staff at the Co-op in Port Seton, East Lothian, plan to rig up speakers to play classical tunes to put off the groups of youths who are congregating around its doors at night.
First we need to hire a group of specialist workers. It may even be thought necessary for them to be paid out of taxation although I'm far from being convinced on that point. These workers would wear a distinctive outfit; perhaps we could call it a "uniform". We'd probably pick large men rather than small ladies for this role. The new recruits may even need to be provided with stab-proof vests. Perhaps the Home Secretary could suggest a design. I propose that these new workers be called "policemen" and it would be their job to "police" the streets and catch criminals. Yes, I know, a really radical suggestion, isn't it?
Next, we'd employ a second group of specialists. From my reading of ancient history we might find it appropriate to call these folk "judges" and "jurors". It would be their job to establish the innocence or guilt of those deemed by the first group of workers to have committed an offence. Needless-to-say these "offences" would, of necessity, require that there had been an actual victim, and the whole system would operate under a philosophy that I've dubbed "the presumption of innocence".
Well, I know that's a really radical plan. But who knows? It might just work! And if it does, may I please get the same kind of royalties that those Beethoven and Mozart chaps should have earned?
