Left supports Right defending liberty

Astonishing. Old Communist Tony Benn, in a blue tie, supports Tory David Davis, on the issue of preserving Magna Carta. Well done, sir!

Free Scotland!

The greatest thing that can happen to the United Kingdom is its dissolution. The smaller each governmental area, the less the power of each government can be flexed, and the more places we can all easily escape to if our own particular government becomes too overbearing. What we really need here in the UK is the German situation of half a millenia ago, with six hundred or more independent cities, bishoprics, and polities - the more anarchic the better - but I'll settle for a free Scotland first, followed by a free Wales, and then a free Ulster!*

So it is with great expectation that we witness the gathering breakup of the British Union, and the fears of the Westminster politicians at the loss of their power. And it is with even greater pleasure that we wish the Great Scottish People their freedom back, stolen from them in 1707 by a rotten railroaded deal set up by a corrupt Scottish government elite. (Oh, and if all the Scottish MPs at Westminster, including Badger Darling and Toad Brown, should happen to find their blood-sucking beaks pulled from the back of their English host to find no such happy home awaiting them in a free Scotland, don't expect to find too many tears drenching this particular diarist's writing desk, except perhaps ones of joy!)

So Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), consider yourself an AngloAustrian hero, for your increasingly successful work on the secession of Scotland. Go Alex, go!

* Or a free Ireland - it's none of my business what other people choose to do with their lives, so long as they don't encroach on mine. Though ideally, I would prefer the current Irish republic to break up too, to end the life of its own appalling nanny-state government. Indeed, one day I pray for an independent Ulidia, Oriel, Southern Ui Neill, Northern Ui Neill, Leinster, Munster, Connaught, and Breifne, along with a whole host of totally independent city states such as Dubh Linn, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, and Limerick - in fact the exact situation before the Normans got to Ireland and tried to enslave it, after they first fragged England in 1066. Imagine how magnificent such a free Ireland would be - a whole host of Hong Kongs, Singapores, and Monacos, vying for the title of best place in the world to live. Magnificent.

I'm all right, Jack!

Politicians are usually very careful with words, the tools of their thieving trade, so it’s often worth a little extra effort to consider what they really mean when they open their lying mouths.

Two of the best in the business were at it last night. So let’s translate the text of what Sir Mervyn Counterfeiter and Chancellor Badger Darling said in their speeches at their annual Mansion House blow-out.

Families will see their standard of living stagnate this year while the value of their homes will fall further, the Bank of England has warned.

Wages are dropping and prices are going up. Deal with it, plebs.

The coming months represent the biggest challenge for the economy for two decades, Mervyn King said, adding that some households will find them "particularly difficult".

My salary and pension are sorted, with money printed from fresh air by the government, so don’t expect any tears from me.

In his most sombre message yet, Mr King said families were being squeezed hard by higher electricity and food prices on the one hand and slowly-increasing wages on the other.

And if you haven’t noticed this yet, peasants, you deserve everything that’s coming to you.

He told Alistair Darling and leading City dignitaries in London that the experience would be even tougher than the credit crunch, and warned that the "era of cheap mortgage finance... is over".

Well, at least until the next time the Bank of England is able to get away with it.

Mr King said: "This year our real take-home pay will rise at a slower pace than national productivity. Rising fuel, gas, electricity and food prices, mean that average real take-home pay will stagnate this year.

Stagnate does of course mean drop like a stone, but we don’t want to frighten the horses.

"It will not be an easy time, and I know that some families will find it particularly difficult."

Ha, ha, ha – that’ll serve the little people right for bleeding their mortgages to buy fancy barbecues, garden decking, and ridiculous hot tubs.

In a blow for The Chancellor of the Exchequer, beside whom he delivered his speech at the annual Mansion House banquet last night, he warned: "The squeeze on real take-home pay will arguably be an even more significant restraint on consumer spending this year than the credit crunch.

Yep. Caught bang to rights, guv. But nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more to the eye of a blind man – Know what I mean, eh, eh?

"And it will affect the housing market too – lower demand in the high street will go hand in hand with lower demand in the property market."

You’re all screwed.

The Governor said house prices would fall in comparison to families’ earnings - an indication that their values have some way further to drop.

Really screwed.

The speech was the most austere yet delivered by Mr King, who has previously warned that the so-called NICE decade (standing for non-inflationary consistent expansion) was over.

Because in our world, the CPI figures of 2%, the RPI figures of 4%, and the real inflation rate of 10%, all add up to a non-inflationary figure of zero, mainly because you’re all idiots who can’t add up. In fact anything under 20% means no inflation at all. Idiots.

The comments come in a week inflation rose to its highest level in 15 years, outpacing wages and threatening to reduce Britons' standard of living.

Well, I wouldn’t say ‘threaten’. I really think that ‘demolish’ would be the more appropriate word.

Mr King was forced earlier this week to write his second letter of explanation to Mr Darling for allowing inflation to rise above target.

It was nuffing to do with us, guv. All those government bonds we bought with fresh air, thus creating hundreds of billions in fractional reserve fiat cash, are completely immaterial.

However, the Bank Governor urged families not to panic, reassuring them that this tough period would be short-lived.

About five years. And you peasants must keep paying your mortgages on shrinking wages, otherwise those of us in the banking and political classes might actually notice.

"These changes to our spending power and to the housing market are 'real' shifts that, although not easy to accept, we cannot side-step," he said.

Turn off the printing press, Claude, for a bit. We’ve been rumbled by those pesky Austrians, again.

"We face the most difficult economic challenge for two decades. But I am confident that we can meet it. Inflation will fall back and growth will recover."

Christmas is cancelled.

He and the Chancellor urged families not to demand higher wages and push prices even higher.

You should eat cake, instead.

In his first address to the masnion House event since becoming Chancellor, Mr Darling dismissed suggestions that the economy is heading for a 1970s-style meltdown.

I’d reckon more like a 1930s-style one.

But he warned that inflation did need to be brought under control and that people should exercise restraint in pay negotiations to avoid the current economic woes deepening.

So take it on the chin, unwashed masses of Britain, work hard, pay your taxes, and stop grumbling – we need you more than you can imagine.

On Wednesday it was disclosed that the Shell tankers' driver strike was called off following a 14 per cent pay rise offer.

Bastards.

Mr Darling said: "I have seen reports suggesting inflation figures show we are returning to the days of the 70’s.

The last time we had a Labour government.

"They are wrong, both in the nature of the problems we face and also in the scale. Today’s inflation must be tackled. We cannot be complacent.

Instead, we must run like headless chickens through 10 and 11 Downing Street, praying for a miracle to happen in the next two years otherwise the Labour party is going to be wiped out in the next election, and may disappear entirely to shrink smaller than the Liberal Democrats.

"But in comparison to the 1970s when it reached over 26 per cent, it remains low. Even in 1991, it was still at 8 per cent."

Yes, we’ll take credit for the good times, but when the bad times come, it ain’t nuffing to do with all those government bonds we’ve been routing through the Bank of England counterfeit machine.

The Chancellor said that inflation was rising as a result of global economic turbulence which was rapidly pushing up the price of food and energy.

Yes, inflation has been visited upon us from outer space. It really does have absolutely nothing to do with all those pounds, dollars, yen, and euros, the world’s central banks have been pumping out of fresh air for the last couple of decades.

Consumers have been warned that gas and electricity bills could rise by up to 40 per cent this winter.

Budget for at least 50%, and put a crisis management plan in place for 100%.

However, Mr Darling urged workers not to make matters worse by pushing for inflation-busting pay rises.

As well as Christmas, your holidays are cancelled, you won’t be getting a new car for a few years (which is nice, as we’ll be putting up taxes on your old one), those piano and ballet lessons for your children should be cancelled, and it will probably be a good idea to get your elderly relatives over to Switzerland so you can bump them off to pick up their inheritances (which is even nicer, as I’ll be taxing you at 40% on those). By the way, none of this applies to anyone working in the public sector – you can carry on hosing yourselves in champagne. And why not? It’s not like you’re paying for anything, is it?

"Continued restraint on pay is required from both the public and private sector," he said.

Though MPs, senior civil servants, generals, bankers, and anyone else who might one day get on a Bilderberger invitation list, will of course deserve magnificent pay rises to reward them for getting us through this crisis.

"We must recognise the need to reward efforts of people who work hard.

Especially those of us who travel first class on airplanes, while travelling to six-star hotels in the US, to discuss these difficult matters over Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Michelin-starred meals, with our Bilderberger colleagues, before being whisked back to Dulles in chauffeured air-conditioned Mercedes. By Gad, it’s a tough life.

"But to return now to inflationary pay settlements would undermine rather than raise people’s living standards with a damaging circle of wage increases eroded by steadily rising prices.

So, poor people, be glad that your wealth has been successfully transferred to the political and banking classes and stop grumbling about it; you’re starting to make us feel slightly guilty.

"We must never return to those days."

And the waves must cease coming in, said King Canute to his minions, because I order it so.

The warning was sounded amid growing disquiet from public sector unions over the pay increases - which are now below inflation - agreed with the police, teachers, nurses and council workers.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha – more fool them!

Many are now threatening strike action and are demanding that the pay agreements are renegotiated.

Ungrateful bastards. Haven’t we gold-plated them enough already?

There are growing concerns the resolution of the Shell dispute could encourage further industrial action.

We will be pulling the Army out of Afghanistan and Iraq shortly, so they can re-garrison Britain, particularly around the major conurbations. All contingencies have been planned and budgeted for.

The Government could face a major challenge next week when Unison announces the results of a strike ballot among 600,000 council workers. The workers have rejected a 2.45 per cent pay increase.

We will order the Bank of England to buy up around £5 billion in old government bonds. This will then enable the banks to buy up £100 billion in new government bonds, which should be enough for us to pay off all of these ungrateful swine. And believe me, if you think you’ve got inflation now, wait until all that little lot feeds through the monetary system!

In a BBC interview, Mr Darling repeatedly declined to reject suggestions that Britons would face a decline in living standards this year - as their wages would rise by less than the cost of living.

So what? Can’t you plebs cut down on your MacDonald’s meals, weekend coke runs, and Sky Sports subscriptions? Why should politicians and their minions have to suffer in times of recession? We are needed to steer everyone through – therefore I will shortly be announcing a massive rise in MPs’ pay, for all the unsung hard work they do at the many bars and restaurants of Westminster.

He also insisted that the economic pain was likely to prove short-lived.

Well, for those of us in the trough, obviously.

"There are very good reasons for people to be optimistic," he said.

Have you seen the size of my government pension? It’s massive.

"Yes it’s tough, but we can get through it."

I’ll rattle along, on a hundred and fifty thousand a year, with another £200 thousand in expenses, plus never having to pay for any Michelin-starred meal or any first class journey, with a £2.5 million pension pot awaiting me in five years time. I’ll be alright. Thanks taxpayers – Fools!

Bonson Jorris and Sir Llewellyn

It would seem that our soon-to-be-late MP, here in Henley, Bonson Jorris, is attracting quite a fan club over at LRC. Here's just a few of the posts which have appeared in the last couple of days, following the blond one's superb Torygraph article on Bicycle helmets:

I Love Boris Johnson
Re: Boris Johnson's Helmet
re: Bike Helmets
Re: Re: Bike Helmets
I Love Boris Johnson Too!

In the first of the posts above, Sir Llewellyn claims that:

"...the antiwar Tory Mayor of London has long been a faithful LRC reader."

I don't know how Sir Llew knows this fact, but I'll take him at his word.

While desperately struggling to avoid any Boris Johnson helmet jokes, in a non-bicyclist sense, I also know for a fact that Mr Jorris was personally handed a copy of Democracy: The God That Failed, several years ago, here in Oxfordshire, by one of his former stalwart Tory constituency supporters (whose name need not be repeated here). I like to think these two facts are related, though I suppose we'll never know. Though I do know that this former Tory stalwart also met Mr Jorris again fairly recently, in the middle of an Oxfordshire field (please don't ask), where the new London Mayor brought the subject up of Hoppe's masterwork without any prompting, much to this former stalwart's great surprise.

Yes, it's an odd combination, an LRC-reading democratically elected figure of some significance who has read Der Hoppemeister's master work, but as I support Ron Paul, with some enthusiasm, without myself being a believer in democracy, perhaps Mr Jorris deserves similar support over here in the UK in his fight for our liberty from the fascist/socialist Guardianista intelligentsia of old London town.

Though I swear as long as I live I will never knock on another door for the Conservative party, with the sole exception of any referenda to free Scotland and Wales from England, or to free England from the EU, I therefore wish him the best of luck in his quest to de-socialize London, and hopefully to improve the cycling routes around the city without ripping off the taxpayer (something safe from Trafalgar Square to the City please, if you're reading, especially around the two-wheeled horror of the Bank of England).

Let us hope that one day he may even be associated with the full independence of this great city, and the creation of a full-blown Hoppeian city-state. Yes, unlikely; but you never know, especially when talking about a Periclean classicist who so admires the ancient city-state of Athens.

But now, here in deepest Oxfordshire, with regatta coming up, I feel it is time for a rather large Pimms.

Chin chin!

The emperor is stealing our clothes

Blimey. The Iranians are just begging to get bombed by the imperial legions or their regional auxiliaries. The Iranians are now telling the rest of OPEC to just stop taking US dollars:

"They get our oil and give us a worthless piece of paper ... As you know the decrease in the dollar's value and the increase in energy prices are two sides of the same coin which are being introduced as factors behind the recent instability." - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Full story link, via LRC.

(God Bless Sir Llew - Ok, I know he would probably reject a knighthood, even an honorary one, but Llewellyn is a Welsh name. Perhaps as soon as Wales secedes from Britain, it will hopefully reject democracy and head towards true freedom via a monarch, the first true Prince of Wales since Owain Glyndŵr. And who knows, perhaps Sir Llew might volunteer to be this first Welsh Prince, with Der Hoppemeister nominated as Sir Llew's first prime minister? :-)

Try living in my world for a few days. After that you'll believe anything is possible!

So who rules the world?

Well, these people do, many of whom were on the official guest list at the recent Bilderberger meeting, which went completely unreported on any major news channel near you.

Don't worry, I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't think there's any conspiracy about it at all; it's almost all completely in the open. The global elite, as heavily represented by this list, want a single unitary world government, a single world paper currency, a single world taxation system, a single world judicial system, and they want all of this to be ruled over by a wise beneficent oligarchy, i.e. themselves. If endless wealth and power should happen to be transmitted down the generations to their genetic or intellectual offspring, for the rest of time...well, that's just the price they'll have to pay for giving up their weekends by labouring on our behalf at Michelin-starred country retreats.

And what could be fairer than that? Obviously George W. Bush had to avoid being there, otherwise there would have been too much inevitable press attention, but you'll notice on the list a few people he might have a nodding acquaintance with:

• Keith Alexander, Director, US National Security Agency
• Ben Bernanke
• Tim Geithner, President & CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
• Henry A. Kissinger
• Condoleezza Rice
• David Rockefeller
• Paul Wolfowitz

The third one of these is of course the same Tim Geithner who suggested, on the Monday following this Bilderberger weekend retreat meeting, that the world should adopt a single financial governing body ruled over by the Federal Reserve. How incredibly selfless, noble, and coincidental of him! Expect more such pronouncements over the next few weeks, as the plan unfolds, especially as there are strong rumours that Barack Obama also attended off-guest-list, presumably to receive his Bilderberger blessing and anointment.

So who represented Blighty at this global gathering of the great and the good who rule so wisely and benevolently over the rest of us little people?

• Kenneth Clarke
• Lord John Kerr, Deputy Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell
• Tom McKillop, Chairman, Royal Bank of Scotland
• George Osborne, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
• J. Martin Taylor, Chairman, Syngenta

So now at least we know where to slot George Osborne when the revolution comes. Kenneth Clarke, the toadying EU supplicant, is a fairly obvious choice for this year's list, but why is T. Blair Esquire missing from it? I am confident, however, that our former Dear Leader will have been there in spirit, as a former guest, or even possibly off-guest-list, like Obama.

The other question for the ambitious, is this. How do you get yourself onto this Bilderberger invitational list, or how do you get a membership invite to any of the other related organisations? [e.g. Chatham House (formerly known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs), the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), or the Trilateral Commission]

Well, the minimum requirement is that you have to be an immoral self-serving liberty-destroying crook who wishes to live off the sweat of others via government privilege. To add a first cherry to this cake, you should also wish to preserve the right to do this for yourself and your descendants for the rest of time by continually destroying and undermining the free market of human aspiration, via inflation, regulation, and taxation. To add a second cherry you must add talent, energy, and charisma, to a point which exceeds most mortal men. Career choices? Banking, law, or politics, though perhaps all three combined with a smattering of media knowledge, will get you into the club. Interested? Then get a law degree, gain a career with a major bank, then join the Labour party or the Conservative party and use your ruthless ambition to drive your name and career forward at all opportunities until you are at the top of the pelfdom rat tree. The Bilderberger meeting invitation will then be dans le post, as surely as eggs is self-hatching plots.

Incidentally, I really am not a conspiracy theorist as I would rather avoid heading into the furry purple undergrowth of David Icke territory. I merely believe that all of the Bilderbergers are self-seeking criminally-minded individuals who have gathered together to enhance their joint theft practices upon others, in a loose amalgamation of thieving co-interests; in other words, they are a loosely inter-connected Mafia Commission of crooks at the rotten robbing heart of the world's statist bureaucracy.

All historical forces are merely the amalgamations of individual self-interest. Some are civilising and noble (i.e. Austrianism) and some are decivilising and ignoble (e.g. Bilderbergerism).

For a masterclass exposition of how shyster individual self-interest can warp the dynamics of even the most libertarian of systems, with extensive coverage of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission, you can do no better than Uncle Murray's exposé of the inauguration and growth of the Federal Reserve system via its symbiotic inter-twining with the US welfare/warfare state:

Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy

Marvellous!

BTW, in answer to my original question of "who rules the world?", if your answer was anywhere near, "we do, because democracy is where we rule ourselves", then I have the following website recommendation for you:

The Home for Believers in Democracy

You'll probably need to follow that up, rather swiftly, with:

The Cure for Believers in Democracy

Pip pip!!

The omniscience of the mighty

The Sky News reporter broke into a hushed tone, tonight, before informing me of the mighty event that had just been witnessed at Downing Street by a mere mortal! I was rapt:

"A Downing Street insider has just informed me that at tonight's discussion to solve world terrorism, between George Bush and Gordon Brown, which went on for half an hour longer than planned, President Bush predicted that oil prices would rise higher. Gordon Brown nodded in agreement. Within half an hour, the world oil price had risen to over $140 dollars!"

Bejesus. We are unworthy of even breathing the same air as such Colossi.

A British Rothbardian instance of left and right?

Okay, as a Hoppeian I believe that democracy is a busted crock and ought to disappear as soon as possible down the toilet bowl of history, before the entire world is drowned in worthless paper money, Bilderberger fascism, capital destruction, and decivilising stone age reversions, all topped off with a heady cocktail of war on terror nuclear fallout. However, when the Westminster village hoi polloi criticize a man for daring to nail his colours to a principle, I become more convinced than ever that the end of democracy needs to occur sooner rather than later.

So good luck David Davis, in your attempt to show up Gordon Brown for the pusillanimous tyrant that he is, by opposing his plans to lock innocent people up for six weeks without bothering to inform them on what grounds.

But better even than that, good luck Bob Marshall Andrews, socialist maverick, for daring Brown to sack you for supporting the Tory David Davis. It would seem the Labour Party's George Orwell crowd is still just about alive and kicking. Good luck to 'em.

Welcome back to the oubliette

If you look carefully at the bottom of the photograph above, you should be able to see the grating at the upper entrance of an "oubliette" dungeon in Warwick Castle. The word oubliette comes from the French, oublier, to forget. What would happen is that one of the French terrorists who took over this country in 1066 would take a saxon prole and drop them into this oubliette dungeon and then forget about them, usually because the French overlord felt like it.

It became illegal to use an oubliette in 1215 when Plantaganet French tyrant, King John, was forced to sign the Magna Carta. From then on, whenever any man, no matter his station in life, was taken prisoner by an overlord, he had to be charged before being locked away. That is, his incarceration had to be made public and he had to be told why he had been locked up.

Our current Scottish tyrant overlord, Gordon Brown, has now removed this central plank of Magna Carta. He has destroyed Habeas Corpus and replaced it with the same tyranny that gave us the oubliette. Let us be in no doubt that now this human rat has got his 42 day oubliette plan, a 90 day oubliette plan, with 30 day extensions ad infinitum, is merely a matter a time.

Thank you Gordon, for giving us back the oubliette after nearly 800 years in this country of being free of such wretched terrorism. Let us hope that one day we can drop you into one too, to let you know how it feels.

The Dementors are loose again

Crikey. I'm trying to wean myself off the Torygraph to get back into the FT after a period of abstinence. However, because there's no sport in the FT, which is why I stopped reading it, I flipped back for a single moment to the Torygraph but nearly got myself drowned in the misery. Surely there must be some Dementors loose around the place!

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King raises stagflation spectre
Sir Mervyn tells us why he's useless and why he has no clue what to do

House sales fall is steepest since the 1970s, says RICS
The housing market continues its plummet to destruction

Fuel strikes: Gordon Brown urges motorists not to panic buy
The idiot Brown guarantees via fat-headed remarks that there will be a fuel panic

Blimey. On the good side, however:

England recall Olly Barkley and hand debut to Topsy Ojo against All Blacks in Auckland
At least there'll be something good to watch on the telly when everything else has collapsed

Pip pip!!

British civil servants crooked, shock

A small British group of former senior civil servants (a.k.a. uncivil masters) have helped themselves to £90 million pounds of your money. Unsurprisingly, Carlyle, the Bush-connected private equity group, is heavily involved with this money stolen from the military industrial complex.

So what's going to be done about it? In the words of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, "Absolutely nothing". Quelle Surprise.

NY Fed chief urges global bank framework

It would seem that the neocons want to rumble their tanks onto the entire world's lawns with their latest plan to introduce a worldwide financial hegemony, ruled over by the Federal Reserve.

With the gradual slippage of the dollar from its previously esteemed position as the world's reserve currency, a hangover from its days as a relatively hard standard at $35 dollars per ounce of gold, the Fed is beginning to get extremely nervous as it runs ever-closer to the ignominy of a total dollar collapse.

Perusing this plan, however, it seems strange that anyone should think the Fed should be rewarded with the governorship of the entire world's finances, due to its utter inability to manage the dollar? However, I suppose that everyone must have an ambition in life, even the Ponzi-scheme counterfeiters who run the Fed.

With the dollar's general inflation-led deterioration, expect more such panic-driven statements from the Fed, especially just before they reach the Niagara tipping point where Bernanke runs out of US Treasury debt collateral, as reported by Uncle Gary North.

In the meantime, I have some words of advice for Timothy Geithner, The President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and his erstwhile bid for us to create the financial foundation for a single world government ruled over by power-crazed District of Columbia reptiles:

If you really want the dollar to survive, Tim, stop printing them up out of thin air!

Will my simple yet magnanimous advice be taken? Perhaps when the land of the free actually becomes free again, by abolishing the Federal Reserve and then returning to a commodity-based money standard, this time one with a 100% reserve.

Let us hope that we do not have to suffer too many more empire-expanding Fed-funded wars, before this happens.

Deep Thought and the 42 days of silence

When the tyrants who currently rule England grant themselves the ability to lock you up for 42 days because they feel like it, there is one basic rule that you must always follow if you should attract their ire and find yourself being clapped into their irons for offending them; you must spend 42 days saying absolutely nothing if you ever want to get out of there in anything under six years.

This holds true to the principle that you should never answer any question from self-appointed state authorities when they accuse you of some crime or could in any way use what you say against you.

But don't just take my word for it. Take instead the word of Professor James Duane, above, perhaps the world's finest advocate for the US fifth amendment, a document itself derived from a 1628 re-interpretation of Magna Carta by Sir Edward Coke. This re-interpretation, The Institutes of the Laws of England, was known intimately by most of the founding fathers of the American colonies when they threw off the statist British yoke of George III, the infamous German stooge. Along with Magna Carta, the glorious 1215 document which re-asserted the rights of Englishmen originally lost to Norman, French, and Breton marauders in 1066, this re-interpretation was used as a template for the American Bill of Rights.

Remember that the British state is nothing but a well-entrenched mafia, which originated as a murderous force of tax-and-land-hungry invaders in 1066, and it has no right to demand anything of you, unless you are stupid enough to legitimise it by voting in its spurious "elections". Obviously, the state employs lots of gun-toting morons in its ranks so we have to use a little common sense, but part of this common sense is saying absolutely nothing to these morons when their guns are pointed your way. Give them nothing they can use later to hang you with. Remember, if refusing to answer the police's questions is good enough for Lord Sir Tony Blair, the former barrister, then it is certainly good enough for you.

Here's the drill: When the Stasi arrive at 3:30am to drag you away, while they're bundling you into the back of some comfortable car they previously made you pay for, they will start asking you questions. They will know full well that at 3:30am, you, their victim, will most likely tell them what they need to nail you to the wall. Say just this: "I will say nothing until I am in the presence of my lawyer." They will undoubtedly be very angry with you, but you will have foxed them, at least for the moment.

Later, when you're banged up and left to sweat in the windowless holding cell you were also made to pay for, as soon as your lawyer gets there, tell this franchisee of the socialist legal system to instruct you to say nothing. Later, when the Stasi goons start asking you questions again, simply say this; "My lawyer has instructed me to say nothing." What can they say in court about you now? Only this: He refused to speak until he saw his lawyer, and then his lawyer forbid him to speak. All this will prove is that you are clear-headed, sure-footed, and willing to obey designated authority. Marvellous!

Yes, they may keep you banged up for six weeks, but if you can hang on that long, contemplating deep thoughts about your navel, and tell them absolutely nothing, you will almost certainly have removed yourself from the hole they intended to bury you in. Six weeks is a lot better than six years.

But more puzzling than all of the above is just where did Scotsman Gordon Brown get the figure of 42 days from? Is he simply a Douglas Adams fan, as the keeper of all the lizards in the Labour Party, or is there something more intrinsic about 42 that I'm missing? If it is simply that more is better, why not 43 days, or 49 days, or even 365 days? What makes 42 days the right number? For that matter, what makes 28 days the right number? Upon what principle are all these numbers based except the Maoist principle of where power springs from? How about the Rothbardian notion that nobody has any right to do anything at all to you, until they have proved that you have done something? Or is it all just a bid by Brown to get his future EU-non-job by replacing Habeas Corpus with the rotten Corpus Juris serfdom-embedding system invented by the mafiosi tyrant to end all mafiosi tyrants, the Emperor Justinian? I ask merely for information.

UPDATE: If the Google video above should fail, try the direct link here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4097602514885833865&q=dont+talk+to+police+james&ei=GutJSP6OCKP6qwO_h8CuDA&hl=en

Another freedom fighter turned by power

Matthew D'Ancona can usually be relied upon to deal authority well-chosen blows in his perambulations around the Westminster village. However, his appointment as editor of The Spectator appears to have turned his head. Now that as a man with substantial influence himself he gets invited to intimate Tête-À-Têtes with cabinet ministers, especially those trying to caress the front page of Bonson Jorris's old rag, he is gradually becoming a full-blown statist; alas, just like everyone who gets too close to the Head of the Hydra.

Witness his recent approval of the destruction of Habeas Corpus.

He should resign as the editor of The Spectator, immediately.

UPDATE: Maturin Towers comment: Jack Maturin on June 8, 2008 10:30 AM

Labour Party could be bankrupt in three weeks

Oh dear. It would appear that Gordon Brown's infamous New Labour political machine is currently running on financial fumes. The only question remains as to what sickeningly corrupt deal Gordon will agree to over the next few weeks, to transfuse funds into the Labour party's stricken corpse?

Ex-BBC man delivers sterling performance

Jeff Randall has one or two things to say to Gordon Brown:

Reasons to be cheerful? Well, at least the sun shone yesterday

Argentaria Britanniae delenda est

It never ceases to amaze me how the entire government and media establishment keeps telling us repeatedly that the worst is over, with the current financial crisis. When HBOS tell us today that the average house price has fallen 3.8% in the last year, we will almost certainly be told tomorrow that conditions are easing, and that we can expect things to improve in the next few months.

We will then then be promised that more government intervention will help us achieve this happy outcome. Why? It is government intervention which has got us into this mess in the first place, with its heady cocktail of tax, regulation, and Bank of England stoked inflation, all three of which have caused massive malinvestment in all parts of the economy, but particularly in the housing market.

We have a long way to go down yet, though I lack exact knowledge about where the bottom lies. However I do know it lies a long way south of 3.8%. How about 10%, 25%, or even 40%? In a couple of years 50% would fail to surprise me, but whatever the case, this bubble has some way to pop before it's all over. The only government intervention which could stop such a price collapse is a massive expansion in inflation, with prices rising at 20% plus a year, but even Sir Mervyn King and His Majesty Gordon Brown might balk at that. Though don't rule it out. Brown will do whatever it takes to save his own personal 'legacy' and all the debtors of Britain, which is most of us, may begin screaming for interest rates cuts and more inflation, before very long.

So what's the solution? First and foremost, the Bank of England should be barred from creating any more money out of fresh air. They should not be allowed to buy anything and all of their running costs should come out of charges on commercial banks rather than out of the printing press, as at present. We should take the forthcoming recessionary hit, and then thank our lucky stars it wasn't worse, when it is over in about two years time. Every single government intervention will extend this period in an equal ratio to its individual stupidity.

Once we have the BoE in check, we should then begin a massive program of tax cuts and regulation bonfires. Admittedly, as a Rothbardian, I want all taxes cut and all regulations burned, but I'll settle initially for the removal of all business taxes (capital gains, corporation tax, etc), and the burning of all business regulations, especially anything coming out of the EU. However, the most important act will be to shackle and then destroy our central bank and return our currency to a commodity basis, this time bringing deposits into the loop as well as cash, and then removing fractional reserve fraud where a banker can take in one gold coin and then mysteriously lend out 20 gold coins, as at present.

Once we have removed the BoE, the tax and regulation cuts will then take care of themselves, because without being able to recycle government bonds via its useful idiots at the BoE, the Treasury will have to pay for all government expenditures out of tax or savings. This combination will provide us with a double-whammy regulation-cutting effect.

To increase savings income, the government will need to reduce bureaucratic oversight, by sacking non-jobbers directly and the regulations which drive their current employment. To increase tax income, the government will also need to remove wealth restricting regulations, thereby sacking non-jobbers indirectly, to allow the market to generate more income. Although I would never go so far as to say the removal of the Bank of England would give us an honest government, it would certainly provide us with a far less dishonest one. The magic of recycling bonds allows the government to continually increase its income without increasing taxes or decreasing spending. Why do you think we have the Bank of England in the first place?

Carthago delenda est was a stock phrase of Cato the Elder in the Punic wars. "Carthage must be destroyed." My feelings are similar about the Bank of England. Argentaria Britanniae delenda est. The Bank of England must be destroyed.

UPDATE: More statist nonsense from the Torygraph, asking whether the government should intervene to solve this crisis. Obviously, I couldn't let that one pass without a comment: Jack Maturin on June 5, 2008 11:01 AM.

Give that Scotsman a medal

Something very unusual happened today on the BBC's Daily Politics show. For some reason, and without any warning, the maverick host Andrew Neil suddenly turned upon Ben Bradshaw, a government socialist stooge, and asked him why the Treasury was taxing people on cars and fuel so heavily, when all four global institutes measuring global temperatures, have, for the last 10 years now, reported an average global temperature drop of 0.3 degrees celcius, per annum.

The look of Taboo-busting horror on Bradshaw's face was simply hilarious as he bamboozled his way out of answering the question. In the end a flummoxed Bradshaw was reduced to blathering that Neil was just 'WRONG!', despite Neil's gentle reminders that all global institutes reporting these figures have been saying the same thing for some time. "But the Emperor has clothes!" shouted Bradshaw. "Not in these photographs he doesn't," replied Neil. Magnificent.

It would appear then, that Mr Neil may be an Anthropogenic Global Warming Denier, thus a Heretic in need of ritual burning at the stake. But it was great to see him on the BBC, before the flames lick his toes, getting away with broadcasting this heresy.

If you want to see this unprovoked disembowelling of Bradshaw for yourself, go to this page, and find the video underneath the Nick Robinson's View title. You will find this glorious exchange start at 7:50 minutes, going through to 9:35. Marvellous.

BTW, while you're on this particular web page, you may want to watch something else equally hilarious. Simply scroll up to the top of the page and watch Gordon Brown being skewered by David Cameron in today's Prime Ministers Questions. What a shambolic wreck Brown has become, stuttering, staring at the floor, ignoring the question, regurgitating doctored tractor factory statistics, and generally being derided by all and sundry. Look particularly for the point when the entire Labour front bench winces under the question from David Cameron of who has been talking out of school about their grim unloved master. Simply superb.

Brown is now well and truly "frit" of Cameron. You can almost see him wishing the men in grey suits would come and take him away. You can also see many of the men in grey suits behind him wishing the same thing. Oh dear. It can't be long now, surely? Though as all the Labour backbenchers have bottled it on the 42 days incarceration with no charge issue, and the destruction of Habeas Corpus, maybe he can drift on past the party conference season. I'm convinced this is what Cameron wants, and just as Blair himself did 15 years ago, Cameron is really beginning to dominate this House of Commons.

The fun begins in the PMQs video from 2:30 minutes, through to 12:30. Don't bother watching the rest. I have, and my face nearly fell off with boredom.

The granny state

I was delighted to see an opinion article in the Torygraph which denounced the nanny state. However, the reaction of some Torygraph readers was a little saddening, as they posited the solution to the state's interference was to have yet more state interference. It would seem the state education system truly has done its job, when even those who see the problem think the solution is more of the same.

UPDATE: My daily fix of a Torygraph comment (Jack Maturin on June 4, 2008 11:05 AM) has attracted a dreary statist response, from a blue pill taker. How very sad.

Whoops! Butter fingers

Another British bank appears to be imploding. Funny, I thought the entire financial media told me two weeks ago that the worst was already over?

The seven horcruxes of inflation

Have you wondered recently where all this inflation seems to be coming from? Well, forget all that nonsense about a world growth in demand for oil pushed out by those moronic propagandists at the BBC and other government-licensed broadcasters. The real root of this monster is, of course, Gordon Brown’s tax and spend policy.

As a single example, let’s examine how he got himself out of the recent 10p tax dispute he fought with his own backbenchers.

1) Gordon Brown needed £2.7 billion pounds to make the pain of the 10p tax revolt go away. Obviously, he could have cut government spending by this much, but then he would have upset some of his parasite-state clients. He could also have raised this sum by further taxing the productive part of the UK economy. However, he has finally reached his ceiling on stealth taxes, so this route was politically closed off to him too. Between a political rock and a political hard place, what could he do? Well, easy really; he decided to stoke inflation instead. Here’s how.

2) What Gordon needed to get off the hook was to sell £2.7 billion pounds worth of UK government bonds. But who on Earth was going to buy them? The major holders of government bonds, and certainly the only ones who could pony up this much cash in a tight time frame, are the major commercial banks. However, even Gordon may have noticed that these organisations are in a tight financial fix at the moment, so how could he enable them to find the required sum? Easy.

3) Without really anyone noticing it, the Bank of England would have been ordered by the Treasury to surreptitiously buy up some old government bonds from commercial bank holders, via the BoE’s own open market operations. The BoE would have bought up around £135 million of extant UK government bonds, a pin-prick in this vast market. This would have been spread across various bond sellers, to hide the source, just like any good laundering counterfeiter, but most likely spread over the Treasury-licensed gilt-edged market makers, who gain enormous privileges on the buying and selling of UK government bonds, in return for generally agreeing to buy up any new ones which are issued by the Treasury. (These privileges include the stripping of gilts, but now we’re getting technical. BTW, you can see a list of these GEMMs, here). So where did the BoE get this £135 million from? Well, that’s where the magic comes in. They would have created it painlessly from out of 'fresh air'. Marvellous. But it gets better.

4) The current minimum reserve ratio for UK banks is 5%, which means that if a bank holds £5 million pounds in a Bank of England reserve account, they can then use the fraudulent fractional reserve system to lend out a further £100 million from out of even more 'fresh air'. In the words of the late Freddie Mercury, it really is a kind of magic.

5) Major bond buyers in the banking industry would then have found an extra £135 million pounds scattered across their various accounts, in exchange for offloading their bonds at a tidy profit. What would they have done with this extra loot? They would have immediately plugged it into their BoE reserve accounts, to then enable the commercial lending of a further £2.7 billion pounds. But where to spend this new money first, in the middle of the credit crunch? Well, the gentlemen’s agreement which governs GEMM licensing would have told them exactly where to spend it: protecting Gordon Brown’s fat arse by soaking up his £2.7 billion bond to finance his get-out-of-jail-free card on the 10p tax rate. Fantastic. It's almost symphonic in its crooked majesty.

6) In return for this favour of unloading bonds at a profit, the banks now also own £2.7 billion pounds of AAA-rated collateral to help with the credit crunch squeeze, plus interest payments from the British taxpayer for the next 10 years or so, plus the return of the £2.7 billion from the taxpayer again, when this new bond matures. Alistair Darling also gets to remain as Chancellor, because his Finance Bill will get through, and Scotsman Gordon Brown gets to remain as Prime Minister for another two years, for having managed to save his Scottish chancellor’s scrawny central belt neck.

7) So what does this give the rest of us poor saps who funded all of this Machiavellian bond skulduggery, ultimately at gunpoint? Well, we got one miserable tax rise cancelled for a single year, all of the bond coupons and principal lumbered onto us to pay off in the future, and a further £2.7 billion pounds worth of currency let loose to float around our sterling economy, pushing up prices all round as more money chases the same number of scarce goods.

So the next time you go to Tesco's and you cannot quite believe what the till receipt says, which is about 30% more than what a similar till receipt would have said this time last year, don’t be fooled by all the BBC's nonsense about a growing world demand for energy. There is just one fat man to blame for your continuing impoverishment. And I think we all know who that fat man is.

Anyone interested in learning more about the criminality of inflation can do no worse than read Uncle Murray’s The Mystery of Banking, which is freely available as a PDF from the Mises Institute.

So how do we ultimately solve all of this inflationary theft? The only way is to tie money back into a commodity which people want to hold and which cannot be created out of thin air by central banks and also by abolishing the fraudulent legal theft privileges of fractional reserve banking. The chosen commodity can be anything you like, from cocoa pods through to cigarette packets, but the most likely commodities are either gold or silver (or even both in a dual floating rate system). But I'll leave all of that detail for another day.

UPDATE: Related article today in the Torygraph. Maturin comment: Jack Maturin on June 2, 2008 11:56 AM.

UPDATE: Another related article, another Maturin comment: Jack Maturin on June 3, 2008 11:21 AM. Gotta get out more! :-)

It was emotional

Despite being a hard-core anarcho-capitalist and dedicated Rothbardian, plus a total opponent of most forms of democracy, I've still found time in the last few weeks to support Jodie Prenger in her bid to become Nancy in Cameron Mackintosh's forthcoming production of 'Oliver'. As someone who has struggled myself with a prediliction for fine Belgian beers and pomme frites to go with my mussels, I've been right behind her all the way, and as Cameron Mackintosh himself said, I was 'thrilled' when Jodie won on Saturday. Marvellous. Not a dry eye in the house. Alas, I suspect Mr Mackintosh is regretting saying that 'Jessie is Nancy', which cast rather an early pall over his initial relationship with Jodie, but I still hope that despite his comment she does indeed have what it takes to become a big West End star. However, before the curtain goes up, and despite his obvious preference for the less matronly Jessie, I'm certain that Mr Mackintosh will have got Jodie back down to the size 10 she reached two years ago (below) after losing over 100 pounds. I'm not normally one for the West End myself, but I think in this show's case I will make an exception and pay up the bunce for a decent ticket in the first couple of months, if I can get my hands on some. As the only one of the twelve original hopefuls who regularly made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, I'm sure it will be worth every penny. But Rowan Atkinson as Fagin? That's just going to be weird.