Odds and Ends

PRISONS

The prison shortage is getting lots of space of course and I had this to say on the Iain Dale blog:
One problem no one has yet mentioned is that now all the long term mental health institutions are closed, most of those who were once the inhabitants end up in prison. This has been a disaster; on the streets, in prisons and now, outside prisons where real criminals will be left at large. The answer is simple, reverse this stupid and damaging policy by reinstating proper enlightened custodial mental health care.

There is a wider context to all of this which is a tax system that makes getting a job for some classes far less attractive than any sort of undetectable economic activity. Crime is not separate from other employments and decisions made about committing crime are as rational as any other .

Most criminals literally retire

.How badly we have been served by the Labour Government the Liberal elite .Amongst the groups to suffer are those encouraged to become criminals and the mentally ill.

TAX

Aha the first mention of tax. It is highly unlikely to be the last! They are test driving a property value based local tax in Northern Ireland . The progressive principle creeping into local taxes is a horrifying development . As we know the Liberal party are suggesting a local income tax and this version is an open invitation to Coucils to treat a few residents in large houses as cash machines.

How Labour must hate the visibility of local tax, so hard to quietly change. I have plans for an ongoing top ten invidious stealth taxes.Todays candidate is IPT ( Insurance premium tax) . This slithered under the door a few year ago and is currently at 5%. Its rationale is simple . Brokers and Insurers have to collect it ,so this cost, passed onto consumers, is entirely invisible . The tax itself gets overlooked and its clear anti social effect similiarly escapes attention. Thankyou Mr. Brown for actually discouraging people to Insure their homes , their liability to their employees or their cars. Can you guess what the marvellous reasoning was at the time? "We are merely cominginto line with comparable European counties " Words fail me .

That is the first mention of Europe and again will not be the last.I have hopes that local intellectual giant Jonathan Thurgood will be tempted to educate us all on the iniquities of the EU in this blog. Words never fail him on this subject.

A NEW GREENY KIND OF BLUE

I am not ever happy when I see the Conservative Leader appearing on the same bill as King Ken Livingstone. There they are though, both prattling on about "Plant a tree for London". I must resist the temptation to criticise the boy David, who I support, but he does talk some nonsense on enviromental issues . Allow me to explain

Yes the enviroment is a very serious issue . Thats why we need a serious debate and not a lot of green tinged posturing . Petrol in America is about one cent for a Lake Michigan`s worth. The emerging economies are growing exponentially and we are not in a position to tell them to stop. Taxing air travel at its enviromental cost would limit travel to the rich. Global decision making requires a global authority for which their is no imaginable democratic accountability . In other words tough questions have to be asked and until they are , to quote the wonderful Boris , we are "farting in a hurricane" . Incidentally those little green buckets we all have, were imposed on us by the EU. Shame on you for thinking our elected government still held the reins. The more you know the worse it gets.

FREEDOM

Following Straw man`s veil complaint , with which , ho hum , Emporor Prescott the corrupt ,disagrees . Janet Daley had an unusually weak stab at philosophising about "Liberty".I think I managed better today after a Troll attacked my beloved Boris site . After several obscene postings he was removed and to everyones relief civilised consversation resumed. We had been discussing tongue in cheek whether a certain Idlex was better than Shakespeare. With typical wit and self deprecation Idlex humourously "improved" on a speech from Hamlet. I posted thus .

How infinitely pleasant to be chuckling to myself, in my cosy nook, at an IDLEX contribution. Shakespeare has been "improved "many times most notably in the Victorian period when King Lear was famously given a happy ending by Thomas Bowlder. He has been considered a paradigm of misconceived politeness ever since but I feel strangely friendly towards him today:
To Bowdlerize
To remove material that is considered offensive or objectionable from [After Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825), who published an expurgated edition of Shakespeare in 1818.]
Where do you draw the line? Conservatism is about Liberty but also against anarchy, itself a prison, .Conservative debates often turn on this issue. Freedom is a more slippery notion than simple Libertarians sometimes seem to suggest and some order is , in my view; essential.

So there . Behave yourselves!