Junk Mail

Why is it that the only e-mails identified as junk by Demon's e-mail system are Demon's own bills for Internet service provision?

Comments

I am gradually posting comments from the old template onto this new one. All comments for 2011 and 2012 should now be readable.

BBC uses one of my photos

The BBC has produced a rather good documentary on Hayek. My photo of Hayek taken outside Buckingham Palace appears at 53:37.

Thanks to Andy Duncan's blog for alerting me to the BBC programme.

News of the Wool

I'm in the market for a new sweater. My late mother used to work part-time in a shop in Keswick and they had a wonderful supply of sweaters made from the wool of the local Herdwick Sheep. No longer, as I noticed when I was down there recently. In fact, I was astounded at how difficult it seems to be to source another Herdwick sweater. There's a good business opportunity for someone.

But this creates opportunities for others. A bit of Googling led me to Mrs McCornack of Annan. And then I found these folk, also of Annan. A coincidence you may think?

Actually no. I was born in Annan and it looks like I've found the answer to the missing Herdwick question.

Support your local sweater.

The Third Way

The question of Heathrow expansion has been going on for as long as I can remember:

The announcement means that the debate over whether Heathrow should have a third runway, or whether a new airport should be built in the Thames Estuary, which has split the Conservative ranks, will drag on for many more months.

For some reason a third Heathrow runway would take around ten years to construct and Boris Island even longer. But what no one ever seems to mention is the real nature of the actual problem.

All of the UK's transport, employment and housing problems are caused by our having an extraordinarily centralised government that is located at one corner of a long and narrow land mass. Not only that, our capital is at the corner of the island that is nearest to the rest of Europe with all of the resulting advantages.

There are three ways out.

The best solution is to get rid of at least ninety percent of government activity. In such a paradise there would no longer be all of those government jobs in London but also no reason for so many private companies to locate there.

Next best would be to establish a proper federal system with the national capital on the Isle of Man. Preferably this would include a reunited Ireland. Again, that would result in a radical decentralisation of the UK.

Finally, if we really can't do without an oversized, hugely centralised and non-federal state, we should move the UK capital to Glasgow. We have the airport capacity. HS2 can start at the top and proceed southwards. To the provinces... And surely there's a Cameron tartan so that the PM could legitimately claim his state kilt on expenses. Then there'd be a British football team, based at Hampden Park of course. And I'm sure that the Queen would love to spend more time at Balmoral, enjoying drams with the Keeper of the Royal Stable, Lord Salmond.

A rebalanced UK would solve so many of our problems. Forget Boris Island and LHR3. Move it all up here.

Comments

I've ditched the Disqus system as according to their site it's failed to load comments older than two years but they didn't show on the blog up anyway!

I've now switched on Blogger's own commenting system.

Back ups of all previous comments are on my computer and I may try to reinstate them at some time in the future.

A new post! Grasmere

OK, so it wasn't taken in Scotland. Or perhaps it was! Cumbria used to be part of the Kingdom of Strathclyde...

Test 1

Testing new template

Just say no to bank/state collusion

Alex Salmond's been in a bit of trouble recently over whether to go for the Euro, start a new Scottish currency, or keep the pound. Keeping the pound, like keeping the Queen, all seems a bit, well, unionist, does it not? Actually, I don't think so. Despite its bizarre name the Bank of England is a UK institution and is therefore just as much Scottish as it is English. Similarly Her Majesty is every bit as much Queen of Scots as she is Queen of England. Nevertheless, lots of folk regard a policy of keeping the pound as somewhat of a climb down for Mr Salmond.
There is a way out of this, of course. With one jump Alex could be free. What Salmond needs to say is that an independent Scotland would have no official currency at all. Running the monetary system just isn't a legitimate function of government. The First Minister should say that an independent Scotland would leave the choice of what money to use in the hands of the people, from whose hands it should never have been taken.
This would require a ban on bailing out the shareholders or bondholders of financial institutions that got into difficulty. The government shouldn't be supporting any private company and that obviously includes banks. In addition a proper government of an independent Scotland shouldn't even protect the accounts of customers in banks. Caveat depositor. In such a world people would be very wary of banks and a reputation for conservative management would be essential for any bank to survive, let alone prosper.
More importantly, what would money actually be in a world (OK, a Scotland) without central banking? All historical evidence suggests that people would pick something like gold or silver as the money of choice. But that should be up to the people themselves, not a subject of legislation.
An independent Scotland could lead the world in re-establishing monetary soundness. Interest rates should be set by supply and demand, not by cosy cabals of bankers operating in a state created and controlled insiders' club.

Not quite "Up North"

Alex Singleton has a post up on his Daily Mail blog. Alex calls for a new elected UK Senate to be situated "up North". Alex suggests Manchester.

Naturally I had to respond:

Good idea Alex.

But in UK terms Manchester isn't in the North. It's only just beyond the end of the Metropolitan Line. The mid-point of the UK mainland is Kendal. If we count the offshore islands the centre of the country is Lockerbie...

So let's really put the new Senate in the north. I suggest Glasgow as a suitable location.

We need an appropriate building; one close to the city centre but not too far from the airport. A listed building that's close to the motorway system. A building that may shortly become available. A building that would come complete with the world's largest supply of union jacks.

Put the Senate in Ibrox Stadium!

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.

The Scottish Cup

Scottish Cup, a photo by David Farrer on Flickr.

Jambos

Scottish Cup, a photo by David Farrer on Flickr.

Hibees

Scottish Cup, a photo by David Farrer on Flickr.

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...

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?

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.

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?

Harry Browne

This is a great book that should be read by everyone.

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.

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...

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...

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

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.)