TICAP, The Hague, March 15th 2010

Monday, October 01, 2007

Brown's Joyless Britain

By Blad Tolstoy

Following the Labour Party Conference there is no doubt that those of a more freedom and fun loving disposition will have had their worst fears confirmed. Gordon Brown is a joyless bore and Blad's forecast is that twelve months from now the country will be screaming to be rid of him. What a pity then, that the opposition cannot put up a better show!

Add to this, motorists can expect even more persecution under Brown's moronic regime and smokers, in particular, can expect a double dose of trendy victimisation. What's red and thick? A Nu-Labour MP!

Anyway, when in mourning I usually find some comfort in Simon Heffer's columns in The Daily Telegraph. As I have said before, I do not see eye to eye with Heffer on many issues, but when it comes to the defence of liberty delivered with a dry, caustic sense of humour, Heffer is a tonic. Here are two of his articles from last Saturday's Telegraph (29th September, 2007).

Smoking is bad for your driving licence

By Simon Heffer

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the inevitability of banning drivers from turning on the radio in their cars, or doing several other things that might entail taking a hand off the wheel, because of the health and safety fascism in our country. I had neglected to mention smoking - I forget there are some people who still do it - but the fascists have, indeed, said that having a fag at the wheel will lead to a charge of dangerous driving. I suppose having banned mobile phone use this was bound to be next, and it has an added piquancy of joining the road safety campaign with the campaign to ban people from smoking, even in a very private place like their own car. No doubt the dental fascists will be next, urging (with impeccable logic)that anyone eating a Mars Bar at the wheel should get six points on his licence. And, since the prisons are not nearly full enough, we await the spectacle of the police rounding up pensioners who pop in a Murray mint while trundling along at 25 mph. You know it makes sense!

Garbage, lies and more years of hard Labour

By Simon Heffer

In 20 years of writing about politics I have heard some garbage, but never, I think, quite so much in such a short space of time as the effluvia that came out of Bournemouth over the past week. Precisely because there is no opposition in this country, our new Prime Minister can get away with saying that he will find school places for every five-year-old in the world. For a disconcerting moment I thought he had become the Prime Minister of Earth; but then he said he would eradicate Aids as well and I realised he must in fact be God. Even more hilarious was Jack Straw - who has routinely voted against any measure to give householders more power to deal with intruders - saying that he was instituting a "review" of whether you can shoot a burglar. Having also "reviewed' casinos and round-the-clock boozing, it is presumably only a matter of days before the restoration of hanging, flogging and the pre-decimal currency are put under "review," too. Of course it is all lies, but we have at least five more years of the liars yet, I fear.