Yet More Indications We Are Ruled By Thieving, Conniving Turds

A Labour MP yesterday. Hope he's got receipts for those

Honestly how is it we are still ruled over by thieves, liars and corrupted souls? When was someone going to tell me Byers was still around causing trouble? Whether he's allowing his buddies to loot British car manufcturers and the taxpayer or undermining the privatised rail industry stock price to enable the government to renationalise it on the cheap, putting old retirees on the breadline he's bad news anywhere he goes*.

Guido and the sunlight centre have him pegged and are petitioning our Buffy to have the "right honourable" bit removed from his name in an official capacity - it was probably removed long ago in the unofficial one. Ofcourse on present form the Queens actions tend not to extend beyond arm waving but we can live in hope.

To make matters worse the Daily Fail is saying that as ex-cabinet ministers they are in line for peerages; this is insult on lasting injury.

What is the panacea to all of this? Politicians will tell you it us mire QUANGOs, more faux-scrutiny and more money to stop them stealing from us or undermining the rule of law; I have a simpler, more elegant solution: a recall law.

Have a localised recall law which comes into effect after the mp's first year in power that allows his constituents to remove him upon collection of more than 51% of registered voters (NOT popular votes; we've all got to want rid of them, not just the ones who are bothered enough to turn up; the right to recall should ensure this figure is closer to the popular one) which immeadiately calls for a byelection.

Likewise a national referrenda (again based on total registered voters not the popular vote) for the removal of a lord which requires a 1% higher than that of the mps who voted to give them a seat in a secret ballot for the lords.

I still think there is some stock to keep the Lords, and that democratising it needs to be done carefully; the only thing that should prevent a Lord entering the upper house is being behind bars and/or being recalled by the citizenry, not the autocracy.

Predictions for #budget2010

A KFC in every bucket, and an uninsured vauxhall nova in every yard.

Either that or the party slogan (pick any party, doesn't matter).

Vote same. Get same.

The Non-Ideal Solution to Meow Meow

A lot has been made of the use and dangers of legal highs recently, particularly with the deaths of 2 children in Scunthorpe thought to be linked to "Meow meow" or mephedrone as it is known chemically.

Whilst drug deaths, especially those where children are involved are heartbraking I remain convinced that the calls of those directly affected for a ban are misguided whilst those of their political masters are purely taking advantage of the situation; either through more thorough control over us proles or, though a more cynical reason there is none, for political gain (particularly odious considering the cause of these childrens deaths isn't entirely as clear cut); if there were any proportionality to there reasoning why not ban alcohol and tabacco, blowing up distilleries.

Boatang has recorded some of the goings on with prohibition over the last century; he makes the standard libertarian arguements, and I agree with them. All.

Problem is as I found out in very practical terms recently people put very little stock in arguements that are inherently pro-freedom; they are geared to accept a smaller world view and find the path of least resistance in simple punitive arguements of one group or another (Melanie Philips being a case in point).

That is why I would like to propose an alternative to outright legalisation which would reduce the prevalence of deaths attributable to drug taking whilst curbing the spread: expand the powers of the MHRA to include recreational drugs of all kinds (including alcohol and tabacco) and alter the remit of drug laws to inform peoples of the risks involved.

Additionally tax it as you would any other legal recreational drug; weight for weight recreational drugs like alcohol and tabacco mitigate the costs associated with their use many times over - possibly one of the only reasons why they've not been banned outright by a bansturbating parliament, plus the fact that they are populist, attention-seeking scumbags probably figures into it quite heavily too. Either way one of the most egregious aspects of prohibition has been the lack of research that goes into these drugs; a fact that through much of their history has led to pathways of research being controlled by some particularly unsavoury elements, which can never be a good thing.

Drug licencing means that credible research will have to be done into the effects of these drugs in their pure form and delivery methods will be improved - we will swap pharmaceutical-grade talc and polyols for brick dust and cut glass currently used.

All the while drug development can continue in a self-sustaining manner; the burdens of abuse becoming self-mitigated problems.

This isn't ideal; I am effectively calling for the problem of recreational drugs to fall out of one government agencies lap (the police and justice agencies) into another (the regulatory bodies) and to ensure comparisons can be drawn include tabacco (alcohol is covered by strict GMP guidelines making it less worthwhile); the outcome of any credible study would probably make uncomfortable reading for some users of current legal drugs.

All in all though I am advocating a net increase in the individuals freedom; not everyone will make decisions which will be good for them but fewer of those bad decisions will prove fatal or find them taking their life places that will prove impossible to come back from. Drugs will naturally become cheaper and safer, releasing the burden on healthcare and remove the criminal monopsonies that plague our inner cities; the police becoming able to mop up weakened and impoverished criminal gangs.

If the war on drugs teaches us anything it illustrates where denormalising behaviour eventually takes us; to disenfranchise and criminalise an entire subculture merely impoverishes us all.

I am no fan of drugs; I think it is pure escapism, but as a drinker and resident of the UK I have to say of late we have all needed an escape; making drugs pay their own way will only reduce the dependency on them overall and help those who use them become responsible for their own actions.

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Panic Buying

Good God is there no group Gordo won't beat up on and then pander to the next minute like a deranged schizophrenic ex-girlfriend off her meds?

London’s hedge fund and private equity industry won a last-minute reprieve from contentious new European regulations on Tuesday, after Gordon Brown pleaded that the issue be shelved until after the general election.

The personal intervention by the prime minister staved off certain defeat for Britain at a finance ministers’ meeting in Brussels, where France leads a powerful coalition that is calling for tough regulation of the sector.

Having realised the enormous amount of wealth and money these funds generate in the capital he suddenly realises that letting rival countries having a say in the way one of the last best functioning industries in the UK works may not be in the best natural interest. Do I hear a mea culpa? Do I chuff.

But the confrontation has only been deferred. Spain, holder of the rotating European Union presidency, signalled that it intended to secure a deal on proposed legislation on the “alternative investments” sector before its term ends in June.

The grandstanding hasn't stopped, but merely delayed- why you ask?

That could create a bruising early test of relations between an incoming Conservative government – if the opposition party wins the election expected on May 6 – and the rest of Europe on an issue of vital economic interest for Britain.

France and Germany have led calls for regulation of hedge funds and private equity, arguing for more disclosure of trading information to supervisors as they pose a systemic risk. Britain accepts the need for regulation but argues that draft rules would be too onerous.

The proposed EU directive mainly affects Britain: an estimated 80 per cent of Europe’s hedge funds and 60 per cent of private equity firms are based in the UK.

To create problems for the Bory's; typical ZanuNuLayabout gerrymandering skeelitness.

So what does this new directive intend to achieve?

The so-called Alternative Investment Fund Managers directive would regulate private equity and hedge funds as well as various other “alternative” funds – such as for commodities, real estate and infrastructure, writes Nikki Tait.

Core measures include requiring fund managers to obtain authorisation before they operate in the EU; satisfying authorities about their internal risk management arrangements; providing certain information to investors; rules on leverage and custodial standards; and rules for offshore funds and managers located in so-called third countries.

The directive must be approved by member states and by the European parliament before it can become law.

So fund managers, with billions entrusted to them by investors to whom they are accountable, to look after their money and make it work for them, are expected to be answerable to an unelected, unaccountable quango in Brussels? Part of the same quangocracy and mediocracy that hasn't had it's own accounts signed off for God knows how long?

The European Commission says the AIF sector in the EU managed about €2,000bn ($2,720bn, £1,900bn) in assets at the end of 2008.

€2 TRILLION is a lot of money from which to cream off a healthy crust (not accounting for all this other points the cash is striped from our unwilling hands. Kerching!

Knowing that Britain would be outvoted in Brussels on Tuesday, Mr Brown made a last-ditch appeal to José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, his Spanish counterpart, to defer a decision by finance ministers on the directive. Downing Street rejoiced at what it portrayed as a diplomatic coup for Mr Brown. “Gordon has spent years building up political capital with key allies in Europe,” said one aide. “Mr Zapatero was very understanding.”

Spain said it wanted to take more time to get a better result.

Pure political point scoring being played by Mr Brown - in the short term he has mitigated the effects of an unelected quangocracy's decisions to further ruin the finance industry of the UK by palming off any decision to the Bory's (potentially) in the next parliament. What's the betting limpet Brown will be on the opposition benches after the GE heckling them about not protecting the finance industry?

And just to prove where the "opposition" lies on this:

However, Mark Hoban, Conservative spokesman for the City, said Mr Brown had been forced to plead for a deferral because he had failed to dilute the directive at an earlier stage. The Tories would base a Treasury minister in Brussels to monitor future legislation.

Notice this is an admission that, either way there is nothing either party can do to stop this; if the EU wants control of this area they will regulate it into submission; this is it's modis operendi since day 1. Also notice that the Bory's actually welcome the chance to interfere in yet more things.

The key issue holding up a compromise deal was disagreement over the conditions on which funds and fund managers based outside the EU – including London-based managers running offshore funds – should be allowed to market to professional investors within the 27-country bloc.

You know all that money we've been buying up Chinese and far east goods with al these years? Now that there is a way of investing that back into the West they want to stop it.

Let me say this as plainly as I can; there was a time long before governments, national or federated, thought their job was to interfere in every facet of our existence; they knew their only role was to protect mens freedom to go about their business without harressment - if a Bernie Madoff-type defrauded you of your lifetime savings he could be tried and put in choky and his assets stripped to pay you back.

The crunch, heck me losing my job, was not caused by greedy bankers and hedge funds; it was caused by the housing being overinflated in an environment of low central-bank interest rates - Brown even then was on course for screwing up the competitiveness of our finance industry and needed an "opiate" to distract us- he was quite happy to let us think the price of bricks and mortar were rising whilst we bet the value of them on our credit cards and the never-never. It is ironic that Spain holding the big seat in the EU and trying to make these laws is also the country which proves it had nothing to do with the banks as that link shows.

When the dust on our country finally settles and we are left impoverised as a result of strangling regulation and job losses, cold when practical proof of the fact that climate change was a con comes in the form of freezing winters and a decrepit, failing energy infrastructure and angry at our increasingly worthless mps, their troughing of the few remaining taxpayers and wonderment that noone in the market wants to buy the hard work of our children and grandchildren (don't get me started on GILTs), when all this has come about the only people to blame will be the ones who felt that these things didn't matter, that all we needed was to change to the "other guys" intent on fixing our broken society without understanding why it was broke in the firstplace.

You vote the same, you get the same.

Get Off Our Backs- LPUK Campaign Slogan

Whilst the Conservatives have 'Time for a change' (yawn- I can see no radical change a coming, just more of the same, Labour want a fairer Britain ( what as opposed to a vast interfering state run and financed by UNITE) and the Social Democrats want a change to a fairer Britain (puh-lease !)

The Libertarian Party has one simple message, GET OFF OUR BACKS this applies to all members of the two and a half party State.

Stop taxing us to death, stop passing laws every ten minutes creating more criminal offences, replace 'Parliamentary Democracy' with a Referenda based local democracy. Let us decide the best way to spend our money,live our lives Not you