Musings of a Libertarian

As the year draws to a close, a brief summary of some of the key events from 2024: January Operation "Prosperity Guardian" - US led airstrikes on Yemen's Houthis to protect Red Sea shipping begins. Meanwhile in London the streets are inundated with protestors calling for "Yemen, Yemen make us proud, turn another ship around." February With the muder of Alexei Navalny in a gulag in northern Siberia, Putin removes the last high-profile opponent to his regime. March The Metropolitan recieve £230 million of taxpayers' money for surveillance drones and facial recognition technology, turning the High Street into a permanent police line-up. April Sunak's Rwanda bill finally passes. By the time Labour take office and scrap it, the Rwanda plan results in the deportation of a grand total of 5 individuals - at the bargain price of £140 million each. Meanwhile small boat crossings continue, adding over 36,000 highly educated taxpayers to the British economy by the e...

Yesterday the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology released a video showing off their new digital identification system, set to be rolled out in the new year. Titled "Merry Pint-Mas," the video begins with a young man entering a pub and being asked for ID after ordering a pint. He fumbles around in his wallet and proceeds to spill cards and cash all over the floor, at which point the video cuts away to an exposition of how a digital ID stored on your phone is more convenient, cooler, and will also somehow magically induce economic growth. Why wouldn't everyone want this digital panacea? Following concerns raised on social media, the Department for Science Innovation and Technology (a more accurate acronym would be the department of surveillance, intrusion and trespass) were quick to stress that use of digital ID would be optional. Privacy advocates quickly dug a little deeper, and discovered that while it is presently optional for pubs, those that choose to u...

Last week, for the first time, Parliament voted in favour of proportional representation. MPs voted by a whisker (137 to 135) to move Westminster and local elections away from First Past the Post. While this vote was largely symbolic and will not result in a change in the law, it is a welcome first step in the right direction. Another "vote" has also been doing the rounds- a popular petition for another General Election, counting almost 3 million signatures at the time of writing. It has easily surpassed the threshold for parliamentary debate, which will take place early in the New Year. Predicting the outcome is not a challenge. Starmer has already responded to the petition, saying "things don't work that way" and making reference to his "landslide" election victory, all with a lovely smirk on his face. The problem is, he didn't win a landslide. Not even close. 33.7% of the vote is hardly a grand slam. When turnout is taken into account, only one ...

In the latest political drama to come out of the US Biden has pardoned his son Hunter for offences relating to drug and firearm use, after publicly promising he would not do so. Social commentators have been rapid in their response- one of Biden’s X posts from earlier this year claiming that “no one is above the law” has already been “community noted” for inaccuracy. You can almost hear his fellow Democrats groaning from here, not because they support the principle of one law for all, but because it gives Trump a free pass to pardon the Capitol insurrectionists. In fairness, constitutional corruption is no better on this side of the pond, where unfettered Prime Ministerial patronage permits our leaders to appoint as many members to the second chamber as they wish, virtually without restriction. Truss managed 32, one for every 36 hours of her tenure. While American Presidents ride roughshod over the application of law, British Prime Ministers casually create new life-long lawmakers from...