notes from a small bedroom

I do find it kind of depressing that while everything good this country has ever stood for is being dismantled in the twin names of ‘modernisation‘ and ‘terrorism‘ that so many politicians and political activists, as well as the vast bulk of the general public are still obsessed with the small change of political life. It’s like people living in a house by the sea arguing over the right colour for the paintwork and the pattern on the wallpaper while the sea has undermined the cliff on which the house stands*.

I know these smaller issues are important, especially to the individuals involved, but by their concentrating on those sorts of issues the government is being given a free ride with yet more illiberal legislation. It’s the other side of spin really. The shiny side is where stuff which isn’t new, or hasn’t achieved what was intended is ‘bigged up’ to be much more than it really is; the dark side is where bad, ill-thought-out, illiberal measure are presented as if they were just some dull administrative correction or actually a liberalisation.

Well ‘eternal vigilance is the price of liberty’ (as Jefferson probably didn’t say – it was Wendell Phillips apparently). Hell, at the moment I’d settle for a couple of weeks vigilance.

*Note how I cunningly avoided mentioning ‘re-arranging the deckchairs on the Ttanic’.

I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
James Madison, speech, Virginia Convention, 1788

It’s been a long day, and it was damn cold in the office (10 degrees for goodness sake! with the heating on full), but I wanted to set down my first reaction to Millibands ‘double devolution’.

As far as I can see, it consists essentially of cutting out local democratic control of spending, services, resources, in favour of a direct relationship between central government and local ‘volunteers’ and activists, who will, no doubt, be selected by the government (who else will do the selecting anyway?).

This is neither democratic nor decentralising. Indeed it amount to a further increase in central control and a further reduction in democracy and accountability. As a consequence I now look at the proposed school reforms in a new light. Rather than schools being merely removed from the ‘shackles’ of LEA control, they will instead be controlled directly from DfES (there’s a phrase about pipers and playlists that springs to mind). And no individual school will be in a position to stand up to the dictats of the minister of the month. Freedom is slavery, eh?

The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power.
Daniel Webster

Neil Harding, I’m afraid, is almost the blogosphere’s very definition of cluelessness (as in ‘could not get a clue if he smeared himself in clue pheromones and stood in a middle of a field of horny clues in the clue mating season’). And briefly admitted as much on his own site (a genuine screenshot). He really still (despite repeated explanations by people who, frankly, are a lot more patient with him than he deserves) does not understand what is meant by civil liberties. He is a hopeless case. Unless of course he’s really just some sort of joke blog intended to discredit Labour supporters?

And despite his claim to ‘remember fully the whole authoritarianism of the Thatcher/Major era’, he quite clearly doesn’t really understand what is meant by authoritarianism, nor does his memory of that period seem to be particularly accurate (indeed downright inaccurate would be a better description), relying more on remembered slogans and the usual tactic of ‘if you don’t know something, just make shit up and hope no-one checks’.

Well I do remember, and I am over forty, and if anyone wants to talk about history – the assault on our freedom by this Labour Government are unprecedented in the last 350 years (I am not however 350 years old…). You may have disapproved of Thatcher’s economic policies – I did myself; you may have disapproved of the hectoring moral tone – I did too; but for all her personal and political faults neither her government nor John Major’s contrived to undermine the basis of our entire legal system or to tear up the fabric of our constitution, and all in the name of a narrow, short-term, media-driven political advantage.

That in the end is what is most despicable about this Labour government – that it does these things, not out of a sense of ideology or moral purpose, but for the sake a few good headlines and to outflank their party political opponents. That it should do such damage to our democracy so casually and so thoughtlessly, with such patent lack of understanding is what both astonishes and appals.

The end of the law is, not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.
John Locke

BTW, I really will slap the next person I hear say, “But if you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.”

I’m seriously considering carrying a web cam round with me so (after they recover from the well-deserved slap), I can go round to their house and install it in their house so I can keep an eye on them. After all… they’ve done nothing wrong… so…

Meanwhile back at the quote library:

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed – and thus clamorous to be led to safety – by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H.L. Mencken

One of the great irritants of the ongoing ‘war on terror’ is the regular appearance of conveniently-time briefings from ministers and (despicably) from senior police officers about the threat from terrorism. The latest example being particularly risible. I mean talk about figures just plucked from the air – fifty years? Of course one would hardly expect someone whose job depends on persuading us of the threat to say, “No need to panic, it’s all in hand – by the way this is where to send the P45″ would one?

You have to love the way so much of this depends on veiled references to ‘secret intelligence’, particularly when they bring up ‘plots which have been foiled’. Strange how these foiled plots never seem to lead to any arrests or prosecutions isn’t it? Add to this the ‘friend of a friend who knows someone in the Met’ rumours and we have a whole mass of people basically just making shit up. As an aside, how on earth do they keep getting away with references to the completely fictitious ‘ricin plot’.

Meanwhile Safety says, “We have to hope expect the threat of terrorism to be with us for many years.”

At times it’s hard to think of a fate suitable for mendacious little creeps like these. Lying has just become a way of life for them – they’ve got away with it for so long, and they don’t seem to see a problem, because they believe they are lying in a good cause. So they continue to lie, invent and exaggerate because it’s all for our own good. I was brought up to believe (and have generally found) that honesty is the best policy. Obviously NuLab believe in saving the best till last.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.”
C. S. Lewis

Well it seems in short supply amongst UK politicians these days. But here’s a few inspiring quotes I found:

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
Edmund Burke

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
William Pitt

Strange how often we go back to 18th and 19th century writers when looking to the defence of liberty, as if the 20th century were largely the province of totalitarian thought.

Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purpose is beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
Louis Dembitz Brandeis

“Well-meaning but without understanding” probably sums up New Labour. Ignorance and arrogance combined, a deadly mix.

Time to start a new blog. Time to join together and do what we can to get New Labour out. Time to begin the fight for liberty while we still have some freedoms left. And just now feeling a little bit inspired by the sudden coming together in UK blogworld. But what do we do? Three years at least to the next election, and NuLab are entrenched behind their inordinate majority passing one illiberal law after another. It still astonishes me that so few Labour MPs seem to think this is a problem.

A number of random thoughts… who was it said politics was ‘showbusiness for ugly people’? There’s a certain cruel truth in that. In particular the constant need politicians seem to have to be in the public eye, rather than actually doing the job they are paid for (you know, scrutinising legislation, managing departments of state). I wonder if a lot of this is the consequence of a combination of a more pervasive mass media and essentially weak characters – such that the semblance of activity becomes more important than the effectiveness of the action. Thus we have a constant stream of new legislation, and little attention paid to the enforcement of the laws that already exist – if it’s just the plods doing their job, then it looks like the ministers aren’t doing anything. Of course if our politicians weren’t such feeble wretches, it wouldn’t matter so much, since they wouldn’t feel driven to do something, anything, to give the impression of activity. And was there ever a nation ruled over by such a set of political and intellectual pygmies?

It’s hard to know where to turn. I can’t say that Cameron inspires any confidence, and looks to be all too much just Blair-lite, and all too lukewarm in his defence of liberty. Of course all parties have their authoritarian wing. The political landscape has changed for many of us now. Let’s be honest – the economic argument is over. All that remains is the details, and though they are significant, they are not of supreme importance. The key fight in the days ahead is no longer a question of left or right – the vital question is liberty or authority. I know where I stand, and I know what I fear for the future of my children.