Musings of a Libertarian

Yesterday the Commons heard about the “collective failure” to address concerns about the ethnicity of grooming-gang members. Casey’s report states: “Child sexual exploitation is horrendous whoever commits it, but there have been enough convictions across the country of groups of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds to have warranted closer examination. Instead of examination, we have seen obfuscation.” For libertarians, a defendant’s ethnicity or cultural background is of no concern. Individuals are individuals; the circumstances of their birth need not dictate their own actions or how they should be treated by the state. The problem with the grooming-gang crisis—as the full inquiry will no doubt uncover—is that concerns over the ethnicity of perpetrators resulted in the shameful white-washing, victim-blaming and inaction we have seen on one of the most horrendous crimes in recent history. This is a direct result of the woke left’s dominance in our judiciary and police forces—those like L...

Earlier this month, a group of Labour MPs—backed by "Labour Together"—publicly endorsed the introduction of a smartphone-based “BritCard.” On Saturday, reports indicated that the government, influenced by Starmer and Yvette Cooper, is “exploring” adopting the BritCard plan to tackle illegal migration and welfare fraud. Frankly this should come as no surprise given Starmer's authoritarian leanings and the fact that plans for Digital ID have been sitting quietly on the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology's website since the last election. Slightly more novel, most likely in response to Reform's positions in the polls, is Labour's illegal migration justification - though this too falls neatly into the Statist strategy of utilising crises to legitimise further control of citizens. Many people think a Digital ID is just your driving licence on a screen. It’s not. It’s your entire life—tax records, medical history, travel movements, social media, emplo...

As of Sunday, it is now illegal to purchase disposable vapes in the UK (though, somewhat perversely, it de facto remains perfectly legal to cross the Channel in a dinghy or publicly call for the murder of Conservative MPs). This latest instance of state overreach, arriving hot on the heels of Sunak’s progressive increases to the legal smoking age, prompts one to ask when legislation last – in this country – made people more free. There are, however, some strong arguments in favour of the ban: these small plastic sticks of joy (usually flavoured in revoltingly sweet “fruit” varieties) each contain a lithium battery — a finite resource that is costly and difficult to recycle. Virtually all disposable vapes end up in landfill (leaking toxins into the soil or catching fire during processing) or littering the streets like bright, tubular gutter flowers. Five million are thrown out every week. It is possible, of course, to manage them more effectively, but reality dictates that the average t...