What has sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll come to?

I see that one of the organisers of the Glastonbury annual rock festival is insisting that folk who attend carry – wait for it! – identity cards with their photos on. Well, given that no-one is forced to attend the festival, I cannot see a principled stance on liberty grounds although it does appear symptomatic of a broader obsession with ID these days (as if we needed reminding, Ed).

Not very rebellious, is it? My kid brother, many years ago while a student, spent several happy, half-stoned days in the mud accompanied by the music of Van Morrison, the Undertones and many others, while all the time enjoying the ministrations of 6 lovely young female undergraduates of a similar outlook on life.

Now they want to turn the whole thing into what: a frickin’ traffic wardens’ convention?

Be there…for Freedom!

Will you? Found via Samizdata.

Forest burns it up at the Groucho

Forest held its annual awards bash at the Groucho Club last night. I attended, naturally, cigar in hand at this rally against the smoking ban. In attendance where Joe Jackson and several other celebs like Madsen Pirie of the ASI. There will be shots on their web-site soon I suspect; once their hangovers wear off. There was generous amounts of wine on offer, sponsored by the awesome restaurant Boisdale. The Groucho was S.R.O. for the affair. They may have lost the fight in Parliament; but Forest have not given up the fight; that is for damn sure.

Parliament and its annoying little habits

Lib-Dem member David Howarth has written a good piece about attempts by the government to further curtail Parliament’s powers in scrutinising and debating legislation. What is rather boringly called the Legislative and Regulatory Reform bill – I bet that got your attention – contains a controversial idea of letting ministers alter any law passed by Parliament. That’s right. You read that correctly. A law passed by Parliament can be tweaked by Ministers if they happen to think that is justified, although we are told that certain terribly important laws will not be affected. I am not in the least reassured and neither is David Howarth.

Some of we libertarians get a bit of stick for claiming that Blair & Co is trying to emasculate Parliament. Don’t be so paranoid, we are told. Well, this process has indeed been going on for decades. Well, the evidence keeps mounting up that Blair regards parliament as a frightful nuisance.

The broader issue for me is that Parliament is clearly not up to the job of scrutinising bills. Far too much legislation is rammed through, often badly drafted, and the law falls into disrepute. The recent law, for example, banning acts “glorifying” terrorism is only likely to prove a happy hunting ground for lawyers and various trouble makers. The actual process by which bills get turned into laws is broken. I have heard it said by a senior politician that a huge proportion of the laws that affect our lives are not even debated at all but put through on the nod via secondary legislation.

If David Cameron wants to restore any lingering hope that he believes in limited government, he could do a lot worse than push for a serious restoration of Parliamentary power and capability. It would be a good issue for him and play well with the public.

Another dubious bill

And Rightlinks has all the info on it; including a list of questions to write to your MP. It seems Blair is rather upset with too much meddling in the creation legislation.

Will you join the chain?

Quote of the week

Sir - If you carry a banner inciting the beheading of innocents and scare the police with your militancy, you’ll walk free. Peacefully read out a list of war dead by the Cenotaph, and they’ll arrive in force to arrest you. What cowardice.

Cyril Berkeley, Kuala Lumpur

This great letter on double-standards is from todays Telegraph.

A great satirical voice is stilled

Michael Wharton, who created the wonderful Peter Simple column running for decades in the Daily Telegraph, has died at the age of 92. He conjured up a world of mad colonels, trendy vicars, eccentric psychologists and race relations conmen. He tried to get a grip on the trends in British life through excellent satire and some of his lines, such as “We are all guilty!!!” stick in my mind. He was a Tory reactionary and not in sympathy, I suspect, with my own more libertarian views. But he was a wonderful thorn in the flesh of the left, a mocker of utopianism, a despiser of the worst of the modern movement in the arts and architecture, and above all, pricelessly funny.

An idea worth checking out

Britain could use a version of the U.S. First Amendment, according to this interesting article via the Civitas thinktank. They have a point. We live at a time when the right not to be offended, by any remark, however trivial, seems to trump the importance of free speech. Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.

My problem with rights, however, is ensuring that they are enforced, or else they are, to use Jeremy Bentham’s expression, nonsense on stilts. Until and unless our political masters and judiciary rediscover some backbone, any right to free speech will not be worth the paper it is printed on.

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Making the point

The Daily Telegraph has what amounts to a rather lukewarm piece about new Tory leader David Cameron here. I think that parts of the right-of-centre media are already beginning to wonder whether the Conservatives, in their desperation to elect a young, telegenic man, have also chosen a lightweight.