The Civil Libertorian

The recent turmoil in the Icelandic economy has frozen the assets some 20 councils to the tune of around £700m. Following government advice, councils spread their spare cash around into numerous different savings accounts, thus protecting themselves. Or so they thought.

With the 3 big Icelandic banks now in government ownership, and the country itself on the verge of bankruptcy; those councils who had deposited into these Icelandic institutions, or subsidiaries of these institutions; they are now facing an uphill battle to gain access to the money that they thought was safe.

The British government, at time of writing, were insisting that the councils absorb these losses them selves. This because they claim that local authorities would have been given far better advice than ordinary citizens. To me this claim is a tad erroneous, for if the City had no idea that Iceland was going to freeze the assets of their 3 main banks, how could local authorities know? After all, didn’t they follow government advice?

These local authorities are just the latest victims in the credit crunch. They deserve as much protection from loosing their money as do the people they represent. It just seems to me that the government is more concerned by bailing out the banks, and not the various local authorities affected.

During the past year or so, there has been a common consensus that Britain has to develop its own sources of energy, not having to rely on those nations who do not have stable regimes. The strategy conceived by the government is to focus the majority of its resources on developing new nuclear power stations.

They say that they wish to be self sufficient in energy production, yet today the government agreed the sale of British Energy to EDF. EDF is a French company who has the French government as its majority share holder. This means that all of the current 8 nucleor power plants and all future plants will be owned by France, not Britain. Is this self sufficiency? I don’t think so!

From what I understand of the situation, British Energy said that they do not have the skills or knowledge to build the next generation of nuclear power plants, EDF does. What they should have done was ask EDF for help in developing the stations, outsourcing the building of them; not selling the whole company off to an outside firm owned by another country.

I am not a fan of nuclear energy, favoring as I do a more concentrated effort developing wind and tidal power. After all, we’re an island that is one of the windiest places in western Europe. Its just the whole hypocrisy of the government saying that they want energy self sufficiency, then turning around and selling off one of our main energy producers to a foreign company that’s effectively owned by another country.

At the party conference in Bournemouth yesterday, the Liberal Democrats voted overwhelmingly to cut taxes. This means now that we are the only mainstream party who’d help the lower and middle income earners by cutting their overal level of tax. The Tories would only cut taxes for the well off; while Labour want to take an ever increasing amount.

In my opinion, it is about time that the Lib Dems became a tax cutting party, helping those on the lower income bands. Closing those loopholes exploited by the rich to pay less tax is probably the best way to ease the burden of those hard working people who have to pay a greater proportion of their income to the government than the well off do.

This is most certainly a step in the right direction, of decreasing the size of government and supporting those on the lower rungs of the ladder to climb a few levels higher. It doesn’t go far enough, but every journey starts with a single step!

In a recent article it was suggested that Ealing, along with other local councils, were recruiting 8-14 year olds to act as spies. These children would be “rewarded” for informing the council if they spotted any act of littering and or the aftermath of any acts of vandalism. Some of these children are even given James Bond style code names so they can report “anonymously”.

Whilst reading this article the term “Little Spies” kept springing to mind. In case you aren’t aware of what I am referring to; Little Spies is a concept coined by George Orwell in his infamous book 1984. Big Brother used this group of children to spy on their parents (and other adults around them); they would then report to the party of what they’ve seen or heard.

The use of children to spy on people around them is most certainly another step towards cementing the Big Brother society we now find ourselves in. Using children in this way is highly immoral and unethical. Children should be out having fun with their mates; not “bribed” into becoming government informants.

Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, has announced Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate. She is the current governor of Alaska and a mother of 5. She is a conservative Republican who is a life time member of the NRA; is a hunter and opposes gay rights.

From what I know of her so far, she is not someone I would even consider supporting for she holds a lot of views that are directly opposed to mine. Undoubtedly, I’ll be writing more about her, as I know more of her policies.

In a recent article on his blog, Ron Paul describes how a centralized system of government is detrimental to the individual and society as a whole.

He is right. When a centralist state starts to dictate what resources are available to each of its citizens, they believe that they are solving the problems of the very people that they are striving to help. Nothing is further from the truth, as the communist leadership in the Soviet Union found out to their cost.

Being reliant on the state, for the necessities of life, leads you down the slippery slope to serfdom, where they’d tell you what is or is not available to you. Having the thought that “the state will provide for me”, is a strong negative thought; why? It is a negative thought because you are denying your true potential. You become slaves to the system, often living in a catch 22 situation.

Many British people who are on state handouts know that if they find a job they’d loose out on the money the government gives them. Often the sort of job they’d get is only just above the amount the government gives them in the first place. Thus there is no real incentive (to their way of thinking) to start providing for themselves.

The only way that people can be truly free, be true individuals, is to provide for their own needs and that of their family. Once they have seen to their own needs, then they can help those around them. This is true freedom, not that as defined by the state.

Harry Wills has been named as the Liberal Democrat candidate for the Glenrothes constituency. A date has yet to be called for this forth coming by-election, which was caused by the death of Labour MP John MacDougall.

Senator Barack Obama has formally declared who his running mate will be. The Vice Presidential candidate will be Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, a man who has been a long time Senator since 1972.

It is believed that Obama chose Biden for two main reasons; firstly to strengthen Obama’s foreign policy issues. The second reason is because Biden could woo the blue-collar workers, which generally don’t view Obama in a favourable light.

I personally have not heard about this man before, so I am unable to comment on what I think of him; yet! This also means that Hillary Clinton would have to settle for an advisory role in any Obama administration.

The proposed strikes by Swissport employees would have taken place this Monday and on the bank holiday Monday as well, for a period of 24 hours each. Today the GMB and Unite unions have agreed new terms with employers Swissport. These new proposals have now been put to their respective membership, meaning that the strikes will be put on hold until they have got an agreement.

It is good that they have come to a possible solution to the proposed strike action for it would have caused misery for thousands of people going on and returning from their summer holidays.

Today Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, lost yet another deputy mayor; this time Tim Parker who was due to take over the responsibility of running Transport for London. Tim Parker left due to “mutual consent”.

This now throws Boris’ mayoralship into total chaos, as this is now the 3rd deputy mayor that he’s lost in as many months. I know that Mayor Johnson has a reputation for bungling, but loosing 3 deputy mayors? This sure doesn’t bode well for the rest of his tenure.