Is mankind's highest ideal to live without incident or
adventure? And if so, when did this begin?

Via The Scotsman, we learn of Sir Ken Macdonald’s view of Tony Blair in respect of the war in Iraq:

TONY Blair deployed “alarming subterfuge” to mislead the British people over the war in Iraq, one of his top law officers has said.

Sir Ken Macdonald, who was director of public prosecutions at the time of the invasion, launched a devastating attack on the former prime minister, accusing him of acting like a “narcissist” as he tried to justify his actions.

Mr Blair had exhibited “sycophancy” towards Washington in the run up to the war in March 2003, Sir Ken said.

Read more…

Via Ireland votes yes to Lisbon treaty | World news | guardian.co.uk :

In a dramatic political U-turn, Ireland has voted decisively in favour of the Lisbon treaty just 16 months after it first rejected the European Union reform plan.

With counting continuing this evening it was expected that 64% of those who voted in Friday’s referendum would have backed the treaty.

But I don’t like this result: best two out of three?

Now expect to hear Eurocrats celebrating the democratic will of the Irish people…

In a related message, David Cameron has sent this to supporters (emphasis mine), explaining how difficult a Conservative win will be to secure:

Our Conference starts in Manchester this weekend. It’s going to be the most vibrant and exciting for years.

Next week, we won’t be playing it safe – instead we will be offering bold plans to deal with the big problems the country faces.

Labour spent their conference talking only to themselves – not the country.

In contrast you will see a Conservative Party united, determined and ready to deliver the bold, tough and radical change Britain needs.

Labour are now the party of unemployment – at this conference we will show that we are the party of new jobs and new opportunities.

To deal with Labour’s Debt Crisis we will be setting out some of the tough decisions that need to be taken and unlike Gordon Brown we won’t duck them.

To give people hope for the future the country needs to change direction, and our Conference will show how we’re ready to make that change.

But there is absolutely no complacency.

Every member of the Conservative Party needs to remember the following: the Conservatives have never won a General Election from a starting point as difficult as we face now.

To win a majority, we must hold every seat we won in 2005 plus an additional 117 constituencies. This would be the biggest number of Conservative gains at a General Election since 1931.

We can do it: but we are going to have to work incredibly hard for every vote, every day between now and polling day. In this election, every vote will count.

This weekend we will hear the results of the referendum in Ireland on the re-named EU Constitution.

I want to make one thing clear: there will be no change in our policy on Europe and no new announcements at the Conference. There will be no change in Conservative policy as long as the Lisbon Treaty is still not in force. The Treaty has still not been ratified by the Czechs and the Poles. The Czech Prime Minister has said that the constitutional challenge before the Czech Constitutional Court could take 3-6 months to resolve.

I have said repeatedly that I want us to have a referendum. If the Treaty is not ratified in all Member States and not in force when the election is held, and if we are elected, then we will hold a referendum on it, we will name the date of the referendum in the election campaign, we will lead the campaign for a ‘No’ vote.

If the Treaty is ratified and in force in all Member States, we have repeatedly said we would not let matters rest there. But we have one policy at a time, and we will set out how we would proceed in those circumstances if, and only if, they happen.

This is going to be a great Conference. I look forward to seeing many of you in Manchester.

Well, I’m off to Manchester tomorrow where I will be chairing three joint fringe debates for the Smith Institute and the Centre for Social Justice on the bank bailouts, housing and insolvency. Looking forward to it.

I am constantly amazed by the equivocation of people who really should understand the importance of being able to dismiss a government at the ballot box.

I love Europe. I want deeper, freer relations among European people — all people for that matter — but I am not prepared to surrender democratic control of power in order to install a government which plans to force what could happen naturally. And yet here is Daniel Finkelstein’s view:

Second, they risk looking unreasonable and obsessive about Europe. While resisting the treaty before ratification was completely correct, resisting it after ratification risks Cameron’s image as a moderate person, fit to govern, someone who gets things in proportion.

Read more at Comment Central – Times Online – WBLG: What the Conservatives should do about Europe.

At this point, all we can do is hope that either the Irish vote no or that the Cameron team has a good answer up its sleeve. Otherwise, we may find ourselves locked into a failed and failing superstate.

Via CentreRight: One hundred reasons why Ireland should say ‘no’ (again) to Lisbon:

Jim McConalogue, Editor of The European Journal and occasionally of this parish, has listed one hundred reasons why Ireland should again reject Lisbon. It was disclosed at the weekend that Ryanair are helping to bankroll the ‘Yes campaign’ which current opinion polling suggests is on course for victory.

Read more here, and if you have not done so, it is well worth watching Daniel Hannan’s speech to the Conservative Party Conference last year here.

It is indeed an incredible thing that ostensible advocates of democracy are prepared to support the Lisbon Treaty. Ladies and gentlemen, the EU will be what is laid down in its Constitution, and that is a state whose ultimate and active originators of law cannot be dismissed at the ballot box.

As Karl Popper said:

You can choose whatever name you like for the two types of government. I personally call the type of government which can be removed without violence “democracy”, and the other “tyranny”.

Did you hear the one about bobbing heads on Sunday agreeing that the cause of the Great Depression was the absence of government guidance? “The Great Depression would never have happened if there had been any economic regulations,” agreed the policy wonks.

Oh, really?

So you think a free society generated that monstrosity?

It is accurate to say that in 1900 a free society did exist. The government still approximated a minimal state, exerting minimal guidance, and commanding minimal economic regulation. But, after 1900, virtually all public policy proposals called for more extensive governmental guidance.

via Did You Hear the One About… by Floy Lilley.

Ireland’s EU Commissioner, Charlie McCreevy, has conceded that voters in most EU countries would reject the stalled Lisbon Treaty.

via Ireland commissioner says most EU countries would reject Lisbon Treaty – Telegraph.

Ron Paul’s manifesto, The Revolution, is a remarkable read, not least for his account of Alan Greenspan:

Few Americans during his tenure knew that Greenspan had once been an outspoken advocate of the gold standard as the only monetary system that a free society should consider. Not long after my return to Congress in the election of 1996, I spoke with Greenspan at a special event that took place just before he was to speak in front of the House Banking Committee. At this event congressmen had a chance to meet and have their pictures taken with the Fed chairman. I decided to bring along my original copy of his 1966 article from the Objectivist Newsletter called “Gold and Economic Freedom”, an outstanding piece in which he laid out the economic and moral case for a commodity-based monetary system as against a fiat paper system. He graciously agreed to sign it for me. As he was doing so, I asked if he wanted to write a disclaimer on the article. He replied good-naturedly that he had recently reread the piece and that he would not change a word of it. I found that fascinating: could it be that, in his heart of hearts, Greenspan still believed in the bulletproof logic of that classic article?

Congressman Paul goes on to write that Greenspan expressed a different view before a later committee but that his views are ultimately unimportant: it is the system that matters. It appears Greenspan agreed:

A fully free banking system and fully consistent gold standard have not as yet been achieved. But prior to World War I, the banking system in the United States (and in most of the world) was based on gold and even though governments intervened occasionally, banking was more free than controlled. Periodically, as a result of overly rapid credit expansion, banks became loaned up to the limit of their gold reserves, interest rates rose sharply, new credit was cut off, and the economy went into a sharp, but short-lived recession. (Compared with the depressions of 1920 and 1932, the pre-World War I business declines were mild indeed.) It was limited gold reserves that stopped the unbalanced expansions of business activity, before they could develop into the post-World War I type of disaster. The readjustment periods were short and the economies quickly reestablished a sound basis to resume expansion.

Greenspan goes on to blame the Great Depression on the Fed’s creation of excess credit: a bitter irony.

Greenspan’s article may be found here. Quite what we are to make today of his advocacy of gold is a matter for further study, particularly as Gordon Brown sold half our reserves, without Bank of England advice, at the bottom of the market.

A good time to complete Booker and North’s extensive history of the European Union — “The Great Deception – Can the European Union survive?” — seemed to be these last few weeks, as I visited Portugal, France, Germany and Austria. It was an enlightening read.

I have visited most countries in western and northern Europe, perhaps all except Finland, Eire and the Balkans. I have also worked and toured widely in North America, the Middle East and Asia: those trips were a great pleasure but Europe is home and I love it. The political structure that is the European Union is another matter.

There runs through human history the idea that mankind could be happy, if only the good and wise were allowed to rule the rest, free of the inconvenience of democratic accountability. The European Union is yet one more embodiment of this idea.
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Two road safety initiatives struck me today:

Drivers will have to declare every 10 years whether they are medically able to get behind the wheel, according to proposals to be set out early in the new year.

via Drivers to have 10-year health checks under driver licence reforms and:

Automatic speed control devices should be installed in cars to force motorists to stick to speed limits, an influential pressure group recommended today.

via ‘Speed control’ devices should be installed in cars, say campaigners. The Times fails to point out that the proponent “pressure group”, the Motorists’ Forum, is part of the Government quango The Comission for Integrated Transport. 

Both proposals diminish personal responsibility. Both will be costly for someone. Both have voluntary elements which don’t sound like they will be voluntary for long. Neither is very convincing.
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The Telegraph furthers its “Justice for Pensioners” campaign:

As well as losing out on income in their retirement, pensioners are hit twice over because when calculating their benefits the Government assumes they are receiving interest rates of 10 per cent on any savings.

Ten percent? It would be funny if it didn’t hit vulnerable people’s life savings.

Once again, we find an episode illustrating Labour’s belief that state dependency is right and proper: that we should be glad to be wards of the state.

read more – Telegraph | digg story