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Queen’s Speech: the Libertarian Draft

By admin
December 25th, 2009 at 4:00 pm | 1 Comment | Posted in Satire, UK Politics

What a lot of people don’t know is Her Majesty the Queen of England, is in fact a rampant libertarian. Every year Elizabeth II writes a secret libertarian draft of her speech which is quickly dismissed by courtiers. Well, this year Liberal Vision has obtained a copy of that draft and is proud to publish it here:

Merry Christmas,

What we really, really want for Christmas is the real proletariat revolution, libertarianism.

Many would not think myself or my family to be, in any way, libertarian, yet my darling Phillip has been doing his bit for freedom of speech for quite some time now.

Some may say that inheriting a monarchy and being a Libertarian are mutually exclusive. Yet our system, with a ceremonial head of state and an elected premier is less expensive to the taxpayer than the elected head of the executive also carrying out ceremonial duties. So it’s all good, bruv.

For those of you who question the appropriateness of an unelected leader in this day and age, I ask you this: “where exactly have you been since June 2007?”

I’m not too upset with Gordon, to be honest with you. He has a good heart but he is more than a little dull and clearly incompetent. Which is an easy combination to endure when you know it’ll be over soon. I must admit I am more partial to the lovely Sarah than that dreadful Cherie woman… It is important to remember that we are a nation at war. So don’t forget that they’re actually my armies, Gordo. Treat them with respect.

So I wish you a Merry Christmas and for most of you merry will mean your grandparents being high as a kite from having mixed their morphine based arthritis medicine with Tesco Value Lumbrusco or just plain drunk. But whilst you loll about in self-induced food and liquor coma, which as a Libertarian I’m all for, in everything you do and whatever path you choose, think of ways you can make this country more free.

In 2010 I wish you all a happy life, liberty and an elected premier.

Happy New Year.

'

Tuition Fee Festivity

By admin
December 22nd, 2009 at 12:00 pm | 1 Comment | Posted in Culture, Satire

Liberal Vision have received an anonymous tribute to Nick Clegg! In the name of the seasons festivities it is hereforth published on behalf of the author (who also sends their apologies to Monty Python…).

Bravely bold Sir Cleggy rode forth from Cowley Street

He was not afraid to defy, O brave Sir Cleggy
He was not at all afraid to be say no in nasty ways
Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Cleggy

He was not in the least bit scared to reverse party policy
Or to have his activists wail and his MPs rebel
To have his team resign and his popularity sink
And his expenses exposed by the Telegraph, brave Sir Cleggy

His leadership fail and his seat go red
And his column axed and his interviews stopped
And his children defect and his wife marry Chris Huhne
And his willy...
   Well that's enough music for now, lads...

Brave Sir Cleggy ran away - No!
Bravely ran away, away - I didn't!
When the FPC said no instead
He bravely turned his tail and fled - No!
Yes, brave Sir Cleggy turned about
And gallantly he chickened out
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat
Bravest of the brave, Sir Cleggy

GUEST POST: Here Comes the Digital Economy Bill – there goes the internet

By admin
December 16th, 2009 at 12:30 pm | 1 Comment | Posted in UK Politics

Today is the last day the Lords can table amendments against the Digital Economy Bill. The Open Rights Group are running a writing campaign: click here to join in while there’s still time.

Anyone who likes the internet, or just has a passing fondness for due process and parliamentary oversight, should care about stopping this trainwreck of a bill. Here is a greatest hits compilation of the reasons why:

“tell every Briton you know. If we can’t stop this, it’s beginning of the end for the net in Britain.” – Cory Doctorow

“the Secretary of State may compel any ISP to do anything at any time and for any reason he likes. No awkward laws need to be passed, there need be no tedious debate in Parliament, there need be no uncertain vote to take.” – Devil’s Kitchen.

“people can be cut off from the internet without a trial, without a jury and without proving they committed any offence at all” – Charlotte Gore

“the death of public Wi-Fi, closed as well as open” – Lilian Edwards, professor of internet law

“could give the government the right to spy on UK internet users.” – Google

“expands government control over the internet” – Dominique Lazanski, digital consultant.

“We mustn’t let Mandy do this WRONG thing” – Stephen Fry

“This Bill has some really bad stuff in it that if it gets adopted will affect everybody in the world.” – Don Tapscott, author of “Wikinomics”

More details from the Open Rights Group.

You can also join the Facebook group, Against the Digital Economy Bill.

And sign thepetition HERE.

Marc Sidwell

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GUEST POST: at Copenhagen, beware “green” protectionism

By admin
December 1st, 2009 at 2:15 pm | 2 Comments | Posted in Economics

dusty_kidWith all eyes on the UN summit at Copenhagen this month, keen observers are wondering whether collaborations are possible to mitigate climate change. Yet some proposals would do more harm than good, with “green” protectionism the most dangerous of all.

These are proposals to permit trade restrictions on the grounds that they will help to prevent climate change–a sadly misleading theory, which has predictably gained support already from uncompetitive industries and other vested interests have jumped on the bandwagon.

In our petition against these measures, the Freedom to Trade campaign explains:

“Trade enables specialisation, which results in the development of new technologies and leads to the creation of wealth. In the past two decades, trade has enabled over a billion people to escape poverty. Trade is the most powerful weapon in humanity’s armoury to fight poverty and environmental ills, including climate change. Trade restrictions are not desirable, nor are they an effective means of addressing climate change.”

Ongoing health disasters that some fear will be accentuated by climate change are already a reality today for millions of people–as a result of poverty, imbedded by oppression and trade restrictions.  Every thirty seconds a child dies of malaria, an entirely preventable and curable disease.  Seventeen thousand people in poor countries die every day from respiratory or diarrhoeal illnesses.

To instil today’s disasters by encouraging barriers to trade that are already preventing people in poor countries from lifting themselves out of poverty is madness. Please sign our petition against this phoney cure, and send a message to the politicians in Copenhagen that trade and wealth are our best weapons to adapt to a changing climate.

SIGN THE PETITION HERE: http://bit.ly/1mu46P

Alec van Gelder is Project Director of the Freedom to Trade campaign and writes on trade for publications such as the Wall Street Journal and Sydney Morning Herald.

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Anonymous dedication to David Howarth

By admin
November 9th, 2009 at 12:31 pm | 2 Comments | Posted in UK Politics

Liberal Vision has received an anonymous dedication to David Howarth MP, who is standing down at the next General Election. We’re more than happy to publish it here:

dhphpMost aptly called ‘Rumpolian’ by Quentin Letts, David Howarth, to the dismay of many, announced on Thursday that he will not be seeking re-election, in order to concentrate on his other life as an academic.

In the week that saw the dismissal of a government advisor on drug use by a Home Secretary more wedded to spin than science, David Howarth’s words have never been truer:

“Liberals still believe in what is fashionably called the ‘Enlightenment Project’. Not only should everyone be capable of participating in political discussion, but also, reason and knowledge, especially scientific knowledge, should form the basis of that discussion. Liberals instinctively reject the reliance on traditional authority and the cynical manipulation of myth and superstition which are fundamental to conservatism, including its modern ‘communitarian’ forms. Critics say that the Enlightenment Project has led to arrogant and ultimately disastrous attempts such as Marxism, to claim to apply scientific methods to politics. But Liberals have never claimed, as socialists did, that they possess knowledge that authorises them to reconstruct society. They claim instead that a society is rational to the extent that its members debate the future in a rational way” *

Rationality, absent in the current policy-making era, is a Howarth trademark. He uses it to great rhetorical effect when an opponent is making a simply absurd statement or policy, and it informs the stance he takes on almost every issue. It doubtless will inform the lectures and legal insights David makes in this other life.

Much has been said about David’s achievements as a stalwart defender of civil liberties, the right to protest, on the environment, and many of his successful campaigns, but he was and is also quite simply an excellent MP on the ground. A man from a working class background in Walsall, David went to Cambridge and Yale. He is a tall poppy even in the intellectual hothouse of Cambridge, yet because of his background, or his affable manner, or his earnest desire to make things better, he transcends class and is able to engage on any level in a way that is friendly and unceremonious but dignified and proper. He understands the importance of local democracy and localism.

In a year that the expenses saga engulfed parliament, he is someone with probity and integrity. Although entitled to go by First Class he travels Economy and his ad hoc surgeries start the minute a constituent recognizes him boarding the Cambridge train and continues, as other people join in, all the way to Kings Cross; more like a one-stop MP shop. Few people have wisdom, the dignity, and the good sense to walk away from a desired career at the height of their powers (although intellectual heights last a long time). If David suffers from anything it is being a polymath, in an era where democratic politics seem to require people who are full time professional politicians with, apparently, few other interests or capabilities.

One of David’s legacies on the ground is a buoyant local party which had an injection of new blood in the years since he left local government with continuing success at local level. A highly professional team of councillors runs the City Council and there was a good showing in the County Council elections too. More seats were contested and won by the Lib Dems than ever before in Cambridge elections in one go and they were jubilant at the count. The next stage will be to spread out into Cambridgeshire where the County Tories, seemingly lacking intelligent life form, are perplexed by the more cerebral but down-to-earth Lib Dems.

Selections can be dangerous territory though. Witness the Tory debacle in Bedford where, without taking detracting from Dave Hodgson’s great victory (Lib Dems majority of over 2,000 votes) their ‘open primary’ left the Tories with a candidate who could not garner full support, and a local party that felt patronised by High Command. Witness also the current Tory comedy of errors about Ms Truss as the hapless ‘no-one in Norfolk knows how to Google’ locals try to explain their distress to the dismissive aristocrats of Notting Hill.

A held seat is an attractive option for most would-be candidates. What is important for the local party now is to make sure that those short-listed next month work flat out to lay new foundations, for the City of Cambridge, to again be the winner by having another Lib Dem MP. Whoever follows will be different but the biggest tribute to H’s leadership in Cambridge is the legacy of continuing strength in local government and the large number of excellent potential MPs for what will doubtless be a hard fought, intellectually rigorous but good natured selection process – classic Cambridge.

* full text available here: http://www.csld.org.uk/

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