Among the many provisions of the recently defeated immigration bill that most Americans didn’t know about was a massive expansion of the use of a National ID card. And it seems that those provisions may have ultimately been what killed the bill:
The U.S. Senate definitively rejected President George Bush’s immigration bill on Thursday, just hours […]
From The Liberty Papers
Tags: Libertarian, Politics, Liberty, Freedom
Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal?
His goal: transcend dental medication.
From Adam Smith Institute
Tags: Libertarian, Politics, Liberty, Freedom
Well, slimming down the Department of Trade and Industry is certainly welcome (and long overdue). For years the DTI has had little to do with trade and an influence on industry that is mostly unhelpful. Indeed ‘Deterrent to Trade and Industry’ has often seemed a more appropriate name, so lets hope the new department (this time for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform) will prove more successful. A concerted and sustained effort to reduce the regulatory burden on Britain’s businesses should be the enterprise secretary’s number one priority.
The DTI’s energy brief has now gone to the Department for the Environment. A move clearly designed to boost the new PM’s green credentials, it will also make the environment secretary a far more prominent figure in government – especially if they push ahead with plans for new generation of nuclear power stations. Nonetheless, it strikes me as a little risky. Energy policy is vital to the UK’s economic security and performance, and should not be dominated by the environmental agenda alone. It’s not hard to imagine an ideological attachment to renewable energy leading to serious economic misjudgements.
Meanwhile, science moves from the DTI to the Department for Innovations, Universities and Skills, one of two departments to be carved out of the old Department for Education. The other one is called the Department for Children, Schools and Families. Frankly, it would be better if neither of these departments existed at all. Skills are best left to the market – employers and individuals know far better what they need than central government. And it is government interference that has undermined schools, universities and families, and it’s a government stranglehold on funding that holds back science and innovation. An extra cabinet minister is unlikely to solve the problem.
Still, we can’t expect Gordon to realize that on his first day, can we?
From Adam Smith Institute
Tags: Libertarian, Politics, Liberty, Freedom
With Gordon Brown re-jigging the DTI and focusing on business and enterprise, there is an opportunity to do just that, by getting the dead hand of the state out of a lot of industries.
For example, the state owns about a third of British Energy. Why? And the Atomic Energy Authority could be split up and sold to a trade buyer. Likewise, the state doesn’t need to own a majority of National Air Traffic Services or Qinetiq. Scottish and Northern Ireland Water would make good public share offerings.
Of course, there is the argument about the need for strategic thinking on all these things – but governments have plenty of regulatory levers they can pull, without having to own things.
Then there is Royal Mail, which needs to be split between wholesale and retail operations – so that a majority of it can be sold to the public. Then it might just be able to compete with the more dynamic private (or privatized) companies that now operate in the UK.
The Tote too should be auctioned to the highest bidder – rather than sold off cheap to the government’s racing buddies, as they had planned.
I’m sure I could think of more, but there is a list for the new Enterprise Secretary to work on.
From Adam Smith Institute
Tags: Libertarian, Politics, Liberty, Freedom
As is traditional at times of change like this, it’s right to offer some well meaning advice to the incomers about how the system might be improved. It’s true that Alistair Darling has served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury but he is by background and training a lawyer so he is probably unaware of the subtleties of the Worstall Plan* to improve the taxation system of the United Kingdom.
1) All taxes (Income, capital, consumption, council etc) to be paid in cash, in person, in one lump sum, with no with-holding from pay packets or any other payment plan, in the first two weeks of April each year.
2) All elections to be held in the third and fourth weeks of April on the usual annual/ multi-annual cycles.
As we’re so constantly, even insistently, told, there’s a growing disillusion about politics, an apathy. This would serve nicely to get voter participation rates up, don’t you think?
* Stolen Borrowed from somewhere, can’t remember where though, sorry.
From Adam Smith Institute
Tags: Libertarian, Politics, Liberty, Freedom
…a new career for Brown… Melanie Brown. "You mean Gordon Brown, the new Prime Minister, don't you?" you say. Hell no, what could be interesting about that? I mean Melanie Brown. The fact we have a new Prime Minister makes bugger all difference. In fact it is hardly worth reporting. Gordon Brown says he wants to govern for 'change'. Well the catastrophic abridgement of the civil liberties of all Britons during the Blair Years was…
From Samizdata.net
Tags: Libertarian, Politics, Liberty, Freedom
I received an e-mail asking why, as many of the Samizdatistas live in London, we have not commented on the attempted mass murder by followers of Islam (also known as "the Religion of Peace"). Well, firstly we Londoners are fairly used to people setting off bombs in this city ever since Irish terrorists started doing that in the 1800's. The current crop of homicidal nutters trying to kill civilians happen to be less discriminating that…
From Samizdata.net
Tags: Libertarian, Politics, Liberty, Freedom
Scanning various news websites this morning, as is part of my routine, I came across this article over at Reuters. Scroll down and you will see that the item refers to a person commenting to the effect that car ownership is "immoral". Think about that: ownership of a piece of metal, with wheels at each corner, that conveys people from A to B by the harnessing of controlled explosions in something called an engine, is…
From Samizdata.net
Tags: Libertarian, Politics, Liberty, Freedom
Yesterday, it was New Hampshire, the Live Free or Die State, that said no to the Real ID Law:
New Hampshire on Wednesday rejected the federal Real ID Act as tantamount to requiring a national ID card, joining five other states in opposing it.
South Carolina, Montana, Washington, Oklahoma and Maine also have rejected the federal act.
“Here […]
From The Liberty Papers
Tags: Libertarian, Politics, Liberty, Freedom
“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” - John F. Kennedy
The United States House of […]
From The Liberty Papers
Tags: Libertarian, Politics, Liberty, Freedom
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