[Boiler]

I'm tempted to apply for a Crit'Air vignette for my car just to own the twats...

[Spoonman]

Infestation of clean air.

Funnily enough, schemes like the ULEZ and others like them are otherwise championed by right-libertarians on the principles of people paying for the results of their activities having put such externalities on to others (i.e. polluting the air everyone uses, where even the hardest of libertarians zealots are not idiotic enough to try and claim that the air we breathe could be "privatised") as well as violating the non-aggression principle in the same manner.

Of course, what a lot of libertarians talk about and what they actually want to put into practice tend to be quite opposite things, turning the non-aggression principle on it's head into might-makes-right. At least a few headbangers (even by Libertarian standards) like Hans Hermann-Hoppe don't hide their dreams into having their political wishes lead towards a neo-reactionary or even neo-feudal society, the rest are either too naive or dishonest to openly admit it - including think tanks like the Bruges Group.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Road pricing certainly used to have some rightwing support, in terms of efficiency of markets, and I think there's a fair bit to be said for that view. It doesn't really get much of a run because lots of people think it's nuts to talk about them driving to work in terms of a market, and for the right, it falls under war on the motorist.

[Andy McDandy]

Libertarian, if understood correctly, is one thing. These people are not so much libertarians as they are selfish bastards.

[Watchman]

My take is that within most of Europe, the car isn’t king, people are able to make use of efficient public transport. Which enables greater understanding and engagement with climate issues

[Andy McDandy]

Might have something to do with an attitude of being part of society rather than just dipping in and out. The absence of Murdoch from public life might be a factor too.

[Bones McCoy]

Libertarian, if understood correctly, is one thing. These people are not so much libertarians as they are selfish bastards.

To repurpose Aristotles propositions of Brexit.

Not all selfish bastards are libertarians, but ...

[Andy McDandy]

More that your actual libertarian will accept that ultimate freedom includes the freedom to take the consequences, and not owing anything to anyone means not expecting anything from anyone either.

Most of the people we're talking about here subscribe to a very much "good parts" version.

[Youngian]

Human rights are for Johnny Foreigners who would cheat at cricket if they played it

[Tubby Isaacs]

Britain First all over the Notting Hill Carnival, predictably.

Looks a bit dangerous, but I'm not offended morally, I must say. Nor would Paulie be if it was a bunch of his base doing this at the football.

[kreuzberger]

Thankfully, we don't have that many censorious Nazis in Berlin, these days. I doubt that they would enjoy a night in Kit Kat, Darkside, or the Tiergarten park.

That's why we have shitty Irish pups, I suppose.

[Tubby Isaacs]

There aren’t many of them in London now either. Hence they’re reduced to what Paul’s doing. Scanning for bits of camera phone from an event attended by 2 million people and talking like the Taliban.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Incredible effort from the "professor" here.

Even allowing for the fact that Americans (Canadians too?) use "Asian" to mean East Asian, not South Asian, like we do, that doesn't make Mehdi Hasan "Caucasian" by any stretch of the imagination. Or was the point just for the fanboys to go "Hasan calling everyone racist, na na"?

[Bones McCoy]

JP has overreached in the fields of Lobster Biology and Human Anthropology.

Why not finish the hat-trick with some Jungian bollocks in the field of Geography.

[Bones McCoy]

JP has overreached in the fields of Lobster Biology and Human Anthropology.

Why not finish the hat-trick with some Jungian bollocks in the field of Geography.


<Kermit>It depends what you mean by "not".</Kermit>

[Tubby Isaacs]

[Watchman]

"Where drastic measures are necessary"...sounds a bit, you know, Wannsee Conference

[Andy McDandy]

A few years ago the people behind "Benefits Street" planned a series based on Leicester's Narborough Road - apparently the most racially/ethnically/culturally diverse street in Britain. Having lived just off it, I can vouch for that. My neighbours on one side were Eritrean, on the other Latvian. And jolly nice they were too.

That was the reason the series never got made - everyone just got along. With no aggravation or conflict to record (or stir up), it was just a documentary about a street*.

And I suspect that Leicester's secret is a fairly obvious one - there are no ghettoes. No white enclaves, black neighbourhoods, no-go places for Asians or anything else. Rather than being othered through isolation, immigrants become simply your new set of neighbours, with the same concerns about the bins, potholes, parking restrictions and so on as you have. And funnily enough, you start to see them as fellow people.

I'd love to see Murray's idea put into practice. Rather than the horrified screams of the middle classes confronted by the reality of - gods forbid - a foreigner! - I suspect you'd get something closer to Narborough Road.

*I think Stuart Maconie wrote something similar about an area of Birmingham - King's Heath maybe? - in his book "Hope and Glory".

[Abernathy]

*I think Stuart Maconie wrote something similar about an area of Birmingham - King's Heath maybe? - in his book "Hope and Glory".

.
IIRC, Stuart was writing about the Soho Road in Handsworth.

[Youngian]

Most illegal immigrants come here legally on tourist visas, abscond then work on the black economy. The headbangers don’t want to play when you suggest practical measure to tackle this crisis; Fingerprints ID cards and the end cash payments, no ID, no wages or spending. And a down payment bond of up £50,000 for any overseas visitors. That would mean reciprocal measures on UK citizens but we all want to do our bit to tackle illegal immigration, right?