Peace is the path to peace.

Further powers for privately-employed bailiffs to use force to enter and seize private property.

It is claimed these powers are already abused. In one case, an 89-year-old grandmother returned home to find a bailiff sitting in her chair having drawn up a list of her possessions. He was pursuing a parking fine owed by her son, who did not even live at the address.

Must we learn again every lesson from history? Under New Labour, it seems so.

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Douglas Carswell MP writes candidly about the ability of Parliament to do its job:

The House of Commons is useless at holding those with executive power to account. If Mr Speaker presides over a Table Office that won’t allow questions about the license fee, what’s the point of Parliament or of elections to decide its composition? (The Table Office claim its because the license fee isn’t part of ministerial responsibility – but its the executive deciding what is and what isn’t their responsibiliity, not the legislature – as was once the case).

Fearsome stuff.

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The high profile effort to agree legislation to lend $14bn to the US auto industry collapsed on Thursday night, leading the Bush administration to hold open the possibility that it would seek funds from its financial rescue plan instead.

Efforts to agree a deal in the US Senate ended in failure when Harry Reid, the leader of the Democratic majority, said negotiations with Senate Republicans were at an end and warned that millions of jobs were at stake as a result.

…

Both Democrats and Republicans said the sticking point was a demand to push Detroit to bring down labour costs to a par with foreign manufacturers in the US. Democrats said the move made unrealistic demands on the United Auto Workers union, while Republicans argued that no effort to restructure the industry would work without such a step.

Perhaps a loan conditional on appropriate commercial restructuring was an appropriate way to help families through this catastrophe, but it appears the coercive powers of state and union have created a destructive intransigence.

Presidential candidate Congressman Ron Paul spoke powerfully in the debate:

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From The Telegraph, the jury return an open verdict on the killing of De Menezes:

After a three-month hearing costing an estimated £6 million, jurors rejected a verdict that the innocent Brazilian had been killed lawfully by police.

They returned an ambigious, open verdict – the only other option they were given after the coroner ruled they could not find that Mr de Menezes was illegally shot dead by officers.

For those of us not completely familiar with the nuances of legal language, we are told:

The coroner had directed them to find an open verdict only if they rejected that the two marksmen who shot dead Mr de Menezes, “were acting in lawful defence of themselves or others” having “honestly although mistakenly” believed that he was a suicide bomber.

The BBC’s explanation of the verdict is also interesting: the jury decided that firearms officer C12 did not shout the warning, “armed police”. This is apparently consistent with the “Kratos” policy explained here.

How things have changed since Lee Clegg was convicted of murder and since I was trained as an armed guard and armed guard commander in the UK, facing an IRA threat.

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Lord Lester, a Liberal Democrat and distinguished human rights lawyer, quit as the prime minister’s adviser on constitutional reform a month ago. In a scathing attack yesterday, he revealed for the first time how he felt tethered by the government, describing its record on human rights as “dismal and deeply disappointing”.

Which makes this thread of reporting rather more interesting.

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At the FT:

Germany’s finance minister has launched a stinging attack on the “crass Keynesianism” pursued by Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, fuelling tensions on the eve of European economic crisis talks in Brussels.

Peer Steinbrück accuses Mr Brown in a magazine interview of “tossing around billions” and saddling a whole generation with a bill for paying off British debt.

At the Telegraph, “Brown’s economic rescue plan ineffective says German minister”:

Peer Steinbrück launched an outspoken attack on Mr Brown’s fiscal stimulus package, saying a cut in VAT would have little impact and predicting that the huge debts the Treasury is taking on will be a burden on the UK economy for a generation.

The remarks are an embarrassment for the Prime Minister, who has repeatedly claimed his plans have set the template that other countries are following.

They came the same day Mr Brown was ridiculed in the Commons for declaring that his policies had “saved the world.”

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Thanks to Graham for pointing out this article by Dominic Lawson promoting Austrian-school economics:

As the chief economic advisor to the Austrian government in the 1920s, Mises put his theories into practice and slowed down inflation in his native country (which, as a Jew, he later fled). He used his “cycle” theory to forecast that the “New Era” of apparently permanent prosperity in the 1920s was illusory, and that it would end in runs on banks and depression: The Wall Street crash of 1929 was exactly what Mises had predicted.

Mises believed that any currency which was not backed by gold was powerless to resist the depredations of governments and bankers addicted to the possibilities of limitless credit. Until the past few weeks, this has been seen as a bizarrely old-fashioned and eccentric outlook; but I would not be surprised if many young people – who have hitherto been comfortable with the idea of money as something which can just exist in the ether, travelling through the digital highway – now wonder whether anything of intrinsic value lies behind it all.

As far as Mises was concerned, even money made of paper, if it had nothing behind it other than the good word of politicians and central bankers, was inherently unsound; he lived just long enough to see the United States of America – where he ended his days – break decisively with the international Gold Standard.

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And see also, in the Telegraph today, “Fear triggers gold shortage, drives US treasury yields below zero”:

The investor search for a safe places to store wealth as the financial crisis shakes faith in the system has caused extraordinary moves in global markets over recent days, driving the yield on 3-month US Treasuries below zero and causing a rush for physical holdings of gold.

Perhaps if money was backed by a real asset, it would serve as a real store of value and matters would be somewhat simpler.

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Mr. Putin, the former president and current prime minister, has long maintained that Russia made a colossal error in the 1990s by allowing its enormous reserves of oil, gas and other natural resources to fall into private hands.

He has acted uncompromisingly — most notably in the case of the Yukos Oil Company in 2003 — to get them back.

Now, the Kremlin seems to be capitalizing on the economic crisis, exploiting the opportunity to establish more control over financially weakened industries that it has long coveted, particularly those in natural resources.

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Thanks to the Jeremy Vine Show over lunch:

Spitting, swearing and aggressive behaviour will be BANNED from ‘Proud Preston’.
…
Anyone who flouts the tough new code could be arrested or fined by patrolling police officers or council enforcers.

Council officers can fine people £75 for offences like littering, while police can give out fixed penalty notices of up to £80 for a range of offences.

Of course the target behaviour is unacceptable, but do we really want to replace personal responsibility with summary justice for minor misdemeanours? Callers to the show overwhelmingly thought so…

Surely we can do better?

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Irish voters who rejected the Lisbon Treaty in June will be asked to vote again on the issue next year, paving the way for controversial EU laws to be introduced in Britain.

Predictable, but an affront nevertheless.

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