Lincoln Allison on the Benefits of the Cane
Lincoln Allison poses a reasonable question:
‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’ was a maxim in Greek, Latin, Anglo-Saxon and a hundred other languages. The abandonment of a principle which had served humanity well from pre-history until fairly recently should at least be subject to some rigorous, bottom-line, questioning. Why did we abandon it?
Government Increases Spending on TV Advertising
More government propaganda advertising to enjoy in the run-up to the General Election. What a coincidence!
Television channels are likely to record an increase in advertising revenues in March. The sudden surge of government campaigns, likely to hit television by 21 March, prior to the General Election, is expected to cause an 8 per cent rise year-on-year.
About £255m, roughly £20m more than what was spent last March, is likely to be spent on television advertising alone. The government’s ads will form the chunk of these advertisements.
Still, it’s only taxpayers’ money: plenty of that to throw around alerting us to the dangers of chlamydia.
Barber Threatened with Legal Action for Recycling Hair
Big Brother Watch is reporting a story from the Blackburn Citizen…
A hairdresser called Jeff Stone has taken home the cut hair from his salon for 40 years, to use on his compost heap. The council has now said that this is against the law, because it is ‘trade waste’. He and other shop-keepers have been forced to pay the council £100 for trade waste sacks to be collected from his shop to comply with recycling guidelines, with the bags going into landfill rather than being used in the sensibly and environmentally useful disposal he has used for so long.
…and is rightly angry about it.
Mr Stone has also been told that he cannot take home newspapers he buys for his customers to read, since they were bought with cash from the till.
Some days I think that we are on a national suicide mission.
Muslim Bus Driver Stops to Pray
The wonderful world of multicultural Britain:
A Muslim bus driver knelt in the aisle to pray for five minutes leaving bemused and anxious passengers trapped in their seats.
Of course, the driver was sacked. Not.
An English Lesson for America
I should, of course, have written ‘A British Lesson for America’, but that wouldn’t have made such a good title.
Anyone who seriously wishes to see where current programmes of massive spending will lead the US economy and American society need only study what has happened in Britain. High taxes and low growth are the inevitable outcome…
Robin Harris, a member of Margaret Thatcher’s Policy Unit, on the lessons America can learn from Britain’s recent past. He seems to think that the impact of Margaret Thatcher was only temporary. Sadly, he may be right.
The Thatcher years had a profound effect on Britain, but not profound enough to expunge the legacy of socialist thinking. After she left office, the British political class relaxed and Britain itself reverted increasingly to the mentality which had dominated Britain in the post-War years. The so-called Welfare State, characterised by cradle-to-grave social provision and state monopoly, has never been finally discredited. It is the subliminally accepted goal of many, perhaps most, British politicians even today.
Adam Afriyie: One of the Good Guys
A fascinating profile of Adam Afriyie in the London Evening Standard. One of the good guys: when asked about Margaret Thatcher, he replies simply: ‘She’s one of my heroes.’
I learned from my mother that self-help is the route out of poverty. Labour has this terribly patronising attitude. They see you as helpless and in need of a handout, and their policies breed dependency. It’s a terrible trap.
A Vision of England’s Past
This isn’t how I remember ‘postindustrial England in the Thatcher years’:
Slate reviewing the Red Riding trilogy.
Red Riding’s mood—gritty, anguished, and unremittingly bleak—is a persuasive vision of the particular hell that was depressed postindustrial England in the Thatcher years.
Geert Wilders Trial
National Review Online on the significance of the Geert Wilders trial, a subject about which the British media seems notably reticent (with the distinguished exception of Douglas Murray.)
