To remove the defence of “I did not know”from those running the Inquiry, I have sent a fascimile copy of Morgan letter to the PCC to every barrister employed by the Inquiry via their chambers and to Leveson at the House of Lords

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To:  Counsel to the Leveson Inquiry Robert Jay QC, David Barr, Josephine Norris, William Irwin, Toby Fisher, Heather Emmerson, Carine Patry Hopkins

In November I supplied the Inquiry  with a copy of the letter Piers Morgan sent to the PCC when he was editor of the Mirror . In the letter he admitted receiving information illicitly from the police, almost certainly by paying the police officer involved.  A copy of that letter in text form is below. The  attached word document has the letter with all the formatting intact including showing the Mirror letterhead on which it is written .

In his letter to the PCC Morgan wrote “The   police  source of our article (whose  identity  we have  a  moral obligation to protect) gave  us  the  detail of the  letters  that  we  then published.”

Under oath before the Inquiry Morgan denied ever having obtained information illicitly from the police whilst editor of the Mirror.  Consequently he has almost certainly committed perjury.  I  brought that fact to the attention of the Inquiry in December.

Despite the clear evidence of the illicit supply of information by the police to the Mirror,  the Inquiry legal team is refusing to investigate either Morgan’s admission to the PCC or his probable perjury. This brings the Inquiry into disrepute and places any person working for the Inquiry in a legal capacity in  professional jeopardy if they allow to continue this failure to investigate serious crimes which go directly to the  core of what the Inquiry is supposed to achieve, namely, the exposure of press misbehaviour with a view to controlling it in the future,

To give you the details of how we have reached present state of play, I enclose below Morgan’s letter my recent email exchanges with the Inquiry solicitors.

I ask you all to get the refusal to investigate the evidence I have given relating to Morgan overturned.

Robert Henderson 18 February 2012

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Lord Leveson

House of Lords

London WCI

20 February 2012

Dear Lord Leveson,

I write to you directly to ensure that you have sight of Piers Morgan’s letter to the PCC in which he unambiguously admits receiving information illicitly from the police by writing “The police source of our article (whose identity we have a moral obligation to protect) gave us the detail of the letters that we then published.” A copy of the letter is enclosed, together with copies of my recent email exchanges with Miss Brudenell and her staff on 15 and 18 February.

The legal team servicing the Inquiry are refusing to use this information which shows that Morgan lied under oath to the Inquiry. This failure to act seriously undermines the integrity of the Inquiry and suggests that the any evidence which will bring anyone with serious power, wealth or influence within the confines of the criminal law will be suppressed.

I ask you to use the information I have provided to expose Morgan’s doubly criminal behaviour of receiving information illicitly from the police and perjuring himself before your Inquiry.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson 

The Leveson Inquiry are refusing to use my evidence of press, PCC and police misdoing. They will not even take up the matter of Piers Morgan’s perjury before them despite the fact that I have given them a letter from Morgan to the PCC  in which he writes “ The   police  source of our article (whose  identity  we have  a  moral obligation to protect) gave  us  the  detail of the  letters  that  we  then published.”  (http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/piers-morgan-lied-to-the-leveson-inquiry/) . My  latest exchange of emails with the Inquiry is below.

I am in contact with a published  author who intends to expose such behaviour by the Leveson Inquiry.  He would like to hear from anyone else who has submitted evidence to the Inquiry and believes that it has been excluded for illegitimate reasons, for example, because   it would cause political embarrassment or require criminal proceedings to be taken against those with power, wealth or influence.

Anyone who wishes to expose such refusals should email me on anywhere156@gmail.com and I will forward them to the writer.

RE: FTAO Kim Brudenell - UrgentWednesday, 15 February, 2012 13:02

Dear Mr Henderson 

I write to confirm that your submissions are currently being considered by the Inquiry.  In relation to the letter from Mr Morgan, I would be grateful if you would confirm if you have a signed copy, and if so, please send a signed hard copy to the Inquiry.

Sharron Hiles

Solicitor to the Inquiry

Leveson Inquiry

Royal Courts of Justice

Strand

London WC1

14 February  2012

Dear Miss Brudenell,

Confirming our telephone conversation of 14 February, you stated:

1. That my email to you of 27 January was received despite no acknowledgement being sent .

2.  That my various submissions to the Inquiry are currently being reviewed.

3.  That no decision as to whether I will  be called as a witness has been made.

4. That it is probable that  you  will write to me with answers to the questions  raised in my email of 27 January  within 14 days.

We agreed that if I have not received a written reply from you within two weeks I will  phone you again.

I think it would be useful if  we have  a meeting to allow me to explain fully  the extent of the  press abuse I have experienced,  the blatant failure of  the PCC to act even when presented with the most persuasive evidence of breaches of the PCC  Code of  Conduct and the shameful  refusal of  the police to meaningfully investigate instances of the press receiving information illicitly from the police which I have referred to them.

If I am not called to give evidence  it will be scandalous. Not only  am I an exemplary witness for all of the abuses the Inquiry is investigating bar phone tapping, but I have provided you with a letter from an editor  to the PCC admitting receiving information illicitly from the police. As that editor has already appeared before the Inquiry and under oath denied any knowledge of receiving information illicitly from the police, that constitutes an  unambiguous act of perjury.

Please acknowledge receipt of this email. You might like to note that I have yet to receive an acknowledgement  at the first time of asking for any of the emails I have sent to the Inquiry.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

See also http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/leveson-inquiry-robert-hendersons-application-for-core-participant-status/

Robert Henderson

In November a 34-old woman Emma West was recorded on a tram in Croydon (near to London) expressing her very no-pc views of  the effects of immigration on England even though she was surrounded by ethnic minorities.   Since her public complaints were recorded by a passenger and put on YouTube other instances of such behaviour have come to light, the most recent to hit the national media being another youngish white woman (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2097142/Woman-filmed-hurling-racist-abuse-Tube-passengers-ANOTHER-video-rant-London-transport.html#ixzz1lgvuUjuO).  I put a few URLs for videos of such behaviour  from England at the end of the article. The examples are all of people who are under the age of 40. Nor does it take long for instances of such behaviour in the USA to be found on media hosting sites.  This goes against the oft made claims by liberals that what they term racial prejudice is restricted to the older generation,  who it is implied “don’t know any better”, while the young are race-blind.

Such outbursts are surprising  because of the risk they carry of assault by the ethnic minorities listening to them. They are doubly unexpected because present day England (and Britain)  is rigid with political correctness.  As  Emma West’s case vividly shows, the authorities are ever more penal in their  repression of dissent.  After her arrest in December 2011  Miss West was kept for weeks on remand in a high security prison for what the authorities coyly called “her own protection” http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/emma-west-immigration-and-the-liberal-totalitarian-state-part-2/) . She  has since been charged but not as yet tried (she appears at Croydon Crown Court on 17 2 2012) with a serious criminal offences  which carry a potential jail sentence of two years. (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/emma-west-immigration-and-the-liberal-totalitarian-state-part-3/).  All of that for simply expressing her anger at the consequences of mass immigration.

But even if people are not charged with criminal offences, to be publicly labelled a racist in England is to risk the loss of a job or accommodation if rented, a campaign of media abuse and social ostracism.  The risk of losing a job is particularly high for public service employees.  In extreme cases such as those accused of  the murder of Stephen Lawrence the persecution may be officially generated and sustained and  last indefinitely and include  the holding of trials which are manifestly unfair because of  hate-campaigns conducted against the accused by both politicians and the mainstream media. (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/stephen-lawrence-gary-dobson-david-norris-and-a-political-trial/).

With these very considerable disincentives to expressing honest views about race and immigration under any circumstances, what is it that drives people to express them uninhibitedly in situations which objectively place them in physical as well as legal danger?  After all the instinct for self-preservation lies at the core of human behaviour   and people are generally media savvy enough these days to realise that  anything they say in public is likely to be recorded and placed on sites such as YouTube.  So why do people like Emma West ignore all these formidable barriers to behaving in this way? Drink or drugs you may think, yet the noteworthy thing about most of the examples caught on mobile phones is that they  show no signs of being seriously intoxicated by either.  These are people who are doing it in the full knowledge of what they are doing and its likely effects. But  even if they were intoxicated with drink or drugs all that would mean is that the brakes of sobriety were removed and the true feelings of the person released.

A clue to what is happening can be found in the fact that their complaints gather around the same theme: that England is being invaded and colonised to the point where, in places such as parts of London,  it  scarcely seems to be England in anything in name.  Their  complaints are not about the particular ethnic minorities with which  they are surrounded when they make their public complaints or against individual immigrants generally,  but the general effects of mass immigration.

These people are suffering from what I call the  claustrophobia of diversity.  They feel that they are being oppressed by immigrants, that the land which is ancestrally theirs  is being colonised to the extent that parts of the country are no longer part of England . Worst of all they see themselves as helpless to prevent it because the colonisation is being facilitated and encouraged by their own elite who  all, whatever their ostensible political colour,  subscribe to the treason and viciously support the suppression of  dissent to the betrayal.  This mixture of the act of elite-sponsored colonisation by foreigners, the failure of democracy through the tacit conspiracy of the political elite  to ensure that no meaningful alternative policy on  immigration is offered by any party capable of forming a government and the inability of the native population to even voice their  protest at this betrayal of their most pressing interests  in the mainstream media produces an ever growing sense of rage, a rage made all the more terrible and onerous  by  the feelings of impotence engendered by the ever more oppressive  restrictions on public expression which British governments have imposed.

These feelings are with the English all the time. If someone  English lives  in an area which  does not have a large ethnic minority population the anger and frustration may  remain bubbling below the surface most of the time, although they will be exacerbated by reports of their fellow county men and women elsewhere being harassed and bullied by the liberal elite into towing the multiculturalist line while ethnic minorities are pandered to ever more grotesquely  with bizarre interpretations of what constitutes a human right and  the constant growth of  interest groups which cater solely for ethnic minorities, for example,  the Refugee Council (http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/about/board).

But those who live in an area which is heavily populated  by ethnic minorities  will face constant triggers for the anger and frustration to come to the forefront of their minds. Every time someone in such an area walks the streets they will be reminded of how the demographic balance has changed and is changing. Every time a native  English  parent seeks a school for their children they will be faced often enough with choices of schools where many, quite often a majority, of the pupils are from ethnic minorities.  A visit to their GP or hospital will find them sitting in waiting rooms outnumbered by ethnic minorities.  When they go for a job, especially if it is low-skilled or unskilled, they are likely to find themselves being asked to work, if they can get such work at all,  in a situation where they are in the ethnic minority and English is  not the common workplace language.  If they go into a shop, cinema or café they are increasing likely to find themselves being served by foreigners with inadequate English for the job.

Everywhere the white English man or woman in an area with a large ethnic minority population looks  it seems that their world is being changed utterly and that they can do nothing about it because of the elite complicity in what has happened and is happening. That is why the public outbursts of frustration such as that of Emma West occur.  They are the bursting of the emotional  dam.  The fact that the episodes recorded so often occur on  public transport  is  unsurprising because it is here that the proximity with those who trigger the feelings of rage and  betrayal is greatest and there is the  least opportunity to escape from these reminders of the surreptitious elite-sponsored conquest of England. The physical claustrophobia of being on a crowded train or bus marries with the social claustrophobia of diversity.

The people recorded in the urls at the end of this essay are white  working class Englishwomen. They of course are  from the class  who had to and have to suffer the main brunt of  mass immigration. They live cheek-by-jowl with the immigrants and their descendants. They send their children to schools where their child may be the only white English child in their class. They live in the tower blocks where they are the only white English family in the block. Not for them the middle class white liberals escape through white flight to the suburbs or countryside or the gentrification of once working class areas such as Islington. It is small wonder that people such as Emma West should feel deserted and betrayed and eventually lose all patience with public silence.

But uninhibited racial language and complaint is not restricted to those without status, wealth, influence and power. Two well know and recent examples are the fashion designer John Galliano  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CQO8q3FSH0) and the actor and director Mel Gibson (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50_qMJSPtqY&feature=relatedso – go in at 1 minute 17 sec). There is far more to these public displays of anger at the fact of mass immigration and the behaviour of the political elite  than simple desperation. It is entirely natural behaviour.  Public expression of dissent can be  partially successful but it will never be entirely complete. Even in extreme autocracies such as the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany there were still voices raised in  opposition. The English have been subject several generations of ever greater elite propaganda and censorship of dissent about immigration and its effects but this has not made them race or ethnicity blind, merely increasingly reticent, fearful and stressed  about immigration and its consequences.  Not only that, but the oppression arising from mass immigration is different in quality from the oppression  of a native  elite which merely tries to enforce its will on the masses. The effects of mass migration are around people all the time. There is no respite.

When people are asked to  suppress their normal feelings  stress occurs. Where the suppression of feelings relates to the most fundamental social and psychological structures  stress is at its greatest. That is what happens when an elite tries to  recreate society by asking the population to override the behaviour which makes a society strong and stable.

Social animals have two universal features: they form discrete groups and within the group produce hierarchies – although both the group and the hierarchy vary considerably in form and intensity.  Why they do this is a matter of debate but it is a fact that this what invariably happens.  Human beings are no exception; whether they are hunter-gatherers or people populating a great modern city they all have a need to form groups in which they feel naturally comfortable and within that group form hierarchies.

But the sense of being separate, of belonging to a discrete group with identifiable characteristics is of a different order of complexity than it is for any other social animal because homo sapiens is high intelligence, self-awareness and most importantly language.  Where an animal may simply accept another member of the species as part of the group through simple and obvious triggers such as scent, markings or imprinting, human beings judge by wide variety of criteria who is and is not part of the group, the most potent of which are racial characteristics and cultural differences. In some ways that makes acceptance of the outsider easier – at least in theory -  but in  others much more difficult than it might be for an animal,  for there are  many more reasons for human beings to accept or not accept someone into the group than there are for a non-human social animal.

Social animals form hierarchies  almost certainly because otherwise there would be no way of the society organising itself to accommodate the differing qualities and abilities  of individuals which arise in any species. Societies which consist of various human groups that  see themselves as separate  from each other disrupt the creation of a healthy hierarchy. Instead of there being a single hierarchy within an homogenous group (defining homogenous as a population in a discrete territory  which sees itself as a group), there are  hierarchies formed within each group and a further overarching hierarchy formed from the various groups themselves with  each group hierarchy competing within the population as a whole.

Man is also a territorial being.  Homo sapiens  need the security of a homeland. Remove that and insecurity is perpetual.  That is why mass immigration is the most fundamental of treasons.  That which  is called racism by liberals and their ethnic minority auxiliaries is simply  political protest of the most fundamental kind. When someone resorts to complaint  based on race, ethnicity or nationality  in their own country they are saying “This is my land, you will not steal it from me without a fight”.  The time to worry is when there are no public demonstrations of dissent to the policy of mass immigration and its consequences.

The package of emotion transmuted into conscious thought we call  patriotism is an essential part of maintaining a society (http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/patriotism-is-not-an-optional-extra/).  A society which forgets that is doomed.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pONVYjAd1wc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTocvGIEqOU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfGqwtn3GZY

Paul Dacre, the editor of Britain’s largest selling newspaper the Daily Mail, appeared before the Leveson Inquiry into press abuse on 7 February 2012.  He made the  astonishing  proposal that in everything but name journalists should be licensed. Here is the thrust of what he said from the transcript of his evidence (pp 28/29 http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Transcript-of-Afternoon-Hearing-6-February-20121.pdf)

“As you’ve said, there have been several calls to  your Inquiry for the licensing of journalists. It is clearly unacceptable. However, I do believe there’s an opportunity to build on existing haphazard press card system — there are 17 bodies at the moment providing these cards — by transforming it into an essential kite  mark for ethical and proper journalism. The key would be to make the cards available only — only – to  members of print news-gathering organisations or magazines who have signed up to the new body and its code.

“The public at large would know the journalists carrying such cards are bona fide operators, committed to a set of standards and a body to whom complaints can be made. Reporters and photographers would use the cards as proof that they are responsible journalists.

“There would, however, be universal agreement that briefings and press conferences by government bodies, local authorities and the police, access to sporting, royal and celebrity events, material from the BBC and ITV, and information from medical and scientific bodies would only, only be given to accredited journalists. It  would, after all, be in the interests of those bodies to agree to this, as many of their members make complaints to the PCC. Indeed, such bodies would have — or shouldn’t have access to the new regulator if they dealt with a non-accredited journalist.

“It is my considered view that no publisher could survive if its reporters and writers were barred from such vital areas of journalistic interest. It would be part of the civil contract, if you like, that the ombudsman figure would have the right to recommend that accredited journalists guilty of gross malfeasance have their press cards cancelled, as the GMC strikes off doctors.”

What Dacre is proposing is a quasi-judicial body which is run by the press which can restrict the right to be a professional journalist in much the same way that the showbiz union Equity try  to control entry into the entertainment business by restricting employment to Equity members. Dacre was unclear about  how the ombudsman for the press was to be appointed, although he did not rule out some form of government involvement:

“Q.(Jay Counsel to the Inquiry)  You say it would require the universal agreement of a number of bodies, including governments, don’t you?

 A. (Dacre)  Mm-hm.

 Q. (Jay) So the industry does it, but government would have to agree to it; is that right?

A. (Dacre) I think it would be in the governing — for press  briefings of ministries and lobby arrangements, I mean, why shouldn’t they subscribe to that? If journalists abuse those systems, then they should have right of  redress against those journalists.” (http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Transcript-of-Afternoon-Hearing-6-February-20121.pdf – P31)

There are two dangers. One is that government could be directly  involved with the potential to be the dominant player in who was given a press card or who had one withdrawn. Because the new regulatory body could be represented to the public as being self-regulation, government could have its regulatory cake and eat it: control the regulation  while not being thought by the public to do so.

The other obnoxious outcome would be this:  such a system  would allow the mainstream media to both control rigidly who was employed by them and hold the threat of the withdrawal of the press card  over the heads of anyone who did not toe the corporate line.

Whether it was the government or the mainstream media itself wielding the power, anyone with views which were at odds with the prevailing elite ideology could find themselves excluded if they are judged to have “wrong” political opinions. It is worth adding that there is a great deal of collusion between the media and politicians already, with many riding the two horses at different times and some, like the Mayor of London Boris Johnson, riding both at the same time.

Dacre argued that his proposed system would not be licensing  because people without press cards could still write and broadcast. Those are weasel words because to be excluded from the mainstream media is effectively to be silenced in the overwhelming majority of cases.

Anyone who believes in the freedom of the press should understand that we want no regulatory body including the PCC, let alone one which licenses journalists. The remedy for media abuse is  a  statutory right of reply (RoR). This is the  thing of journalistic nightmares. That tells you it is the best remedy for those who cannot afford to sue for libel. But the media is looking a gift horse in the mouth for a RoR would provide the strongest guard against any government desire to formally regulate newspapers and to further interfere with broadcasters, because an effective cheap means of rapid redress available to everyone, including politicians incidentally, capsizes the prime argument for state regulation. A RoR is the perfect non-political remedy for media abuse because it is a self-sustaining and self-regulating mechanism.

Costs could easily be kept low. First, by making libel the only reason for refusing a RoR and then only for that part of a proposed reply which was libellous. Second, by empowering Small Claims Courts to decide whether a claimed libel exists and, if the court does not agree that it does, to order the newspaper or broadcaster to publish the disputed reply. There should be no higher court appeal against the Small Claims Court’s decision unless the appellant pays both sides’ costs. This would allow justice while preventing those seeking a RoR from being intimidated out of their right by the threat of heavy costs.

How would it work?

The qualification for a RoR would be simple and objective: a media outlet has printed or broadcast material about an individual.

In the case of newspapers I would give a respondent 300 words as an automatic right and another 500 words for every 1000 words published about him or her over 1500 words. The respondent’s reply should be printed on the same page as the story to which they are responding. If the newspaper responds to a reply then the person responded to would get another RoR.

Broadcasting is more problematic but a written reply by the person criticised could be read out on air. Where the person has the confidence to speak for themselves, they should be allowed to broadcast their reply.

Practical fears

The media will say that this is completely impractical, that their papers and broadcasts would be full of nothing but replies. In fact, the general experience of the introduction of new opportunities offered to the public is that there is an initial burst of activity which soon settles down to a hard core of those willing to make the effort. If the introduction of a right to reply proved the sociological odd man out and the media was overwhelmed, the system could be reviewed.

A narrow RoR would be worthless. A RoR should not be limited to inaccuracy. There is often no easy way of proving the truth or otherwise of ostensible “facts”. If a RoR was restricted to inaccuracy, the media would assuredly undermine it by arguing interminably.

Then there is opinion. This is often more damaging than inaccuracy. Moreover, there is no clear distinction between fact and opinion. Suppose I write of an actress that “she is a whore”that is a statement of fact which, in principle, can be tested objectively. But what if I write “she has the morals of a whore”? Is that fact or opinion?

The present non-legal remedies

These are both cumbersome and unfair. For example, the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) is comprised entirely of people drawn from the media or from those associated in some way with the media, and the organisation is funded by the press. Unsurprisingly, a non-celebrity complainant to the PCC rarely succeeds.

But this misses a larger point. No matter how formally honest any media regulating body was, it could no more serve the public generally than the legal profession can serve the general public in actions for libel where there is no legal aid.

The numbers of complaints actually considered formally by the PCC and the broadcasting authorities is minute, running into a few hundred a year — most complaints never get a full hearing or investigation. If the public began to use these bodies enthusiastically they would be overwhelmed.

The effect on the media

Faced with an immediate published response to any inaccuracy or abusive opinion and the possibility of having to submit themselves to public examination in a small claims court, journalists and broadcasters would cease to be cavalier about what they write.

The present relationship between the media and anyone they choose to criticise is analogous to someone who binds a man then punches him. It is not a contest but an act of  profound cowardice.

If there was ever an essay title  which begged questions it is this one. What is a libertarian and what  a conservative? What is liberty? What is  Left, what is Right?  The problems of definition run so deep that they efficiently sabotage the question “Can a Libertarian also be a Conservative?”

Take libertarianism. The range of views which huddle under the libertarian banner range from the absolutists who want no government  at all  with everything decided by  voluntary agreement, to those who accept varying degrees of state intervention from a minimal state comprised of justice, police, defence and the tax raising powers needed to fund such a  state, to those like Hayek who accept that the state should provide a bare level of subsistence for those unable to work.

But the confusion does not stop there. Question any libertarian closely and  you will invariably find that they are inconsistent in their beliefs. For example, a libertarian will often claim to be  absolutely opposed to censorship  in the abstract but then start making exceptions for the difficult cases such as child pornography or racism.

Or take the central tenet of libertarian thought , the primacy of property, a concept which  for libertarians stretches beyond the common use meaning of the word to such things as the property a man has in his labour or his right to have a say in any government which taxes him. At the level of common usage – goods and services which a man owns – property  is underpinned for the libertarian  by a commitment to laissez faire economics , both within the domestic market and for international trade. Yet many, probably most,  libertarians  accept without question such gross interferences with a free market as anti-monopoly laws, limited liability and copyright.

Nonetheless there is a general thrust to libertarian thought; that   individuals should live lives largely untrammelled by government  and  society should be primarily arranged on the basis of agreement between  individuals. Institutions, culture  and  history are not a necessary part of a libertarian’s  life although they may contingently form part of it.

With conservatism the immediate problem of definition is the pedantic fact that a  a conservative is one who wishes to maintain the status quo. If a libertarian lived in a society which was already thoroughly libertarian, they would presumably wish to maintain the status quo and hence be  a conservative in that context.

But of course conservative has a particular political connotation and that is infinitely  more problematical. We have a party called Conservative in Britain but it is not  a party which would have been recognised as conservative two centuries ago. Semantic drift over the past two centuries

while libertarianism and the natural tendency of human beings to find ideologies imperfect  and to consequently wish to amend them.  However, although no objective certainty is possible, an examination of  the terms will reveal what they share and if there is any absolute bar to their mixing.

The Duke of  Wellington epitomises the mentality of the Ancien Regime.  He objected to the practice of   private soldiers cheering their officers because it came close to the expression of  an opinion. He believed that his private soldiers were the scum of the earth but admired them. He was resolutely opposed to any extension of the franchise – he described the first post-Great Reform Act House of Commons as containing “more bad hats than he had ever seen”.

In 1809 when the party we today call conservative or Tory  was known only as Tory, a thorough going conservative (if the term had existed as a political denomination)  would have been someone who supported the landed interest against the Whig commercial interest,  was for the Old Colonial System and against the idea of free trade, both in the domestic market and with the rest of the world,  looked with a jaundiced eye at  British foreign adventures  and  thought the British Constitution  a model of perfection,  which perfection nullified the need for any  reform of rotten boroughs or expansion of the franchise.

But if that was the feeling of the natural Tory in 1809 there were ideological rats gnawing away at the innards of the of the Party.  Pitt the Younger had been in sympathy with the idea of free trade but his plans were thwarted by the French Revolution.

Once lodged within some supposedly Tory hearts the idea lay there like  a dormant disease for the better part of 40 years, every now and then flaring up but never seriously challenging the existing Tory order.  Then came the Great Reform Act of 1832 and  a newly bourgeois House of Commons changed the balance of political power. With that came the opportunity of laissez faire.   Surprisingly the man who gave it practical effect was a supposedly Tory Prime Minister  Sir Robert Peel . He for the second time in his career  (1) broke a solemn promise to his party and began a series of reforms – of which the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 is the most famous – which gradually  emasculated the Old Colonial System until it was finally died at the  beginning of the 1860s.

The effect of Peel’s embracing  of laissez faire policies was to cause a split in the Tory Party which kept them out of power for more than twenty years.  During that time the Whigs, who were in the process of evolving into the Liberals,  avidly embraced the policies of  laissez faire and free trade. (2). Just as Old Labour transmogrified into NuLabour and the Conservatives into NuTory  during long spells in the political wilderness  through a desperation for office so did the Tories in the mid-nineteenth century.  The  party split after 1846  but  the party which was left and which developed over the next 25 years saw  laissez faire  firmly ensconced within it without becoming utterly dominant. It was a party divided between  Tories and Conservatives.

Because it has been melded by practical politics and the Conservatism traditionally sees institutions, culture  and  history  as vitally important because they are the priceless artefacts of the organic development of society, the repositories of the collective wisdom of  the evolution of society.

At the same time the party which was now called Liberal was split between  Whigs and the new liberals

But just as libertarianism and conservatism has mutated over time and are both broad ideological churches today , so have other political ideologies. Socialism can run from meaning any state intervention beyond the minimal state -  socialist and  commie are  common epithets directed at Obama in his attempt to provide universal healthcare in the USA – to Marxist-Leninism.

There is a profound practical difference  between the two ideologies. Conservatism has been put to the test of being encased within serious political parties which have formed governments while the libertarian cause has  been more of an aspiration than an organised  political movement. Indeed, there is an inherent difficulty in the idea of  libertarianism being enshrined within a party because. a party implies not only a set menu of policies but the need for enforced discipline on party members. Even more problematic is the idea of a libertarian government because that would mean libertarians forcing their will on those who were not libertarian, a direct contradiction of the idea of voluntary association which lies at the heart of libertarianism.

The worm at the heart of the concept of  liberty is the division between negative and positive freedom. Libertarians eagerly embrace negative freedom but thrust positive freedom firmly away, because negative freedom is simply the freedom to do whatever is not forbidden, while positive freedom requires the intervention of state authority to impose  measures such as a re-distribution of wealth or the  favouring of the poor when it comes to the provision of state-funded education. Indeed, many libertarians would deny that positive freedom is a  semantic fraud akin to “positive discrimination” .

The  consequence of  libertarians denying the need

Negative and positive freedom are not of course concepts which are peculiar to libertarians. Conservatives, even of the “old order” were great supporters of negative freedom. The last thing they wanted was an intrusive state for it interfered with their  social and political power. Nor did the entrepreneurs of the Industrial Revolution, who were all for the state allowing them to run their mines and factories as they  chose without such encumbrances as the Factory Acts.

The roots of libertarianism lie in the natural bias of  human beings to follow their own will.  But because Man is the social animal par excellence that will has to be filtered through the will of others. This necessitates, for any viable society, a degree of general concord. That is turn raises problems of  how such concord is reached. In simple tribal societies agreement is reached partly by  accumulated custom, partly by the natural formation of hierarchies and partly by general discussion and agreement.  These three things apply  to more sophisticated and larger societies but other forces come into play in such societies: the need for delegated authority and representation and the magnification of  the power of individuals through their control of ever greater resources  whether privately held or state acquired. This invariably restricts the freedom of the individual. It is consequently pointless for the libertarian to produce a blueprint for a libertarian society which is intended to fit any society regardless of its size and sophistication.

In principle, the libertarian ideal of a society based on individual agreement can be most closely approached at the level of the small tribal society, because it is only at that level that it is practical to have a society which can be run entirely on the basis of personal contact.  The fact that tribal societies are in practice far from the libertarian ideal is another matter, although  in some at least the reality is  probably closer to the libertarian ideal of individual determination and agreement than is any more sophisticated society because  circumstances force all the members to interact with one another.  What matters  is the  practicality of libertarianism within the society.

Once the

There is of course a great deal of difference between  theoretical political  positions and their practical realisation. A naturally authoritarian government  with very limited resources  may impinge far less on  the lives of those it governs than a government which has avowed libertarian intentions but a  much larger treasury, An Englishman living in the first half of the nineteenth century would have had his life little brushed against by the state provided he did not fall into criminal ways or need great enough to drive him to the Poorhouse. What could have impinged upon his freedom were poverty, lack of education,   the still surviving social dominance of landowners, the virtually unrestrained power of employers, especially in industry, and the general restrictions of  the class structure.

There is a lesson for libertarians there. Freedom is not simply  the absence of state control. It is also freedom from  the  tyranny of  those who are  powerful without the support of the state,   whether that be as a group or an individual,  That raises the problem of how libertarians are to create a society which minimises  both state intervention and non-state social control.  Clearly both cannot be realised so that there has to be a trade off between the two. If this is not done, all  the realisation of libertarian non-statist aspirations will achieve is the rapid creation of a plutocracy, a form of society which is antithetical to libertarian ends because it would reinforce and  enlarge the natural tendency within societies to

The honest answer to the question posed by the competition’s essay title is simple:  it cannot be meaningfully answered because there is no such thing as a perfect adherent to libertarian or conservative ideology  or an objectively certain  definition of Libertarian or Conservative. The same applies to any  other political ideology.  That being so it makes no sense to argue whether a libertarian can also be a Conservative even if a conservative is defined as  it has been  defined politically for the past few centuries.

What can be said is that most people who sail under the Conservative flag today  share much with libertarians, at least in their theoretical policy positions. They favour  a minimum of state interference in most aspects of  national life, the main areas of policy where this does not apply being policing and penal policy. Such people  are supporters of laissez faire economics,  although they often oppose completely free movement of labour.  They are for low tax.  They  support the idea of the family, something which a libertarian should support because the family is a bulwark against the state. They favour strong defence, something acceptable at least to libertarians who are not absolutists.  They support private healthcare and  private schools and ideally would wish universities to be independent of government.

A  card-carrying Libertarian could not be a card carrying political Conservative in any of the words’ historical or present senses. What he can be today is someone who embraces those aspects of  modern political conservatism  which accord with or at the least come nearest to meeting libertarian desires.  In theory at least, there are plenty of those.

But there is more hope for most libertarians than merely making do with aspects of conservatism,  for as pointed out above  few who call themselves libertarians are thorough going believers. They, like every other person, can  choose political ideas which are deemed to be politically incompatible  according to a particular creed or the  traditional  Left-Right political classifications.

Political ideas at bottom are simply conveniences  which human beings accept or reject insofar as they find them useful and congenial. Logical necessity extrapolated from an ideology counts for nothing.  For example, the more extreme believers in laissez faire economics build a theoretical construct which insists that free trade must logically include free movement of labour. The logical necessity exists only within their man made and self-conscious ideology, and is irrelevant  to real life  because it is self-evidently possible to operate a political policy of free trade in goods and services while preventing mass immigration.

There is no shame in  ideological eclecticism, merely an acknowledgment of  the impracticality or impracticality of political ideas and a recognition that  all ideologies are inadequate descriptions of reality and contain contradictions.  Political ends should be aspirations  towards the ideal.

For only liberty, only a free market, can organize and maintain an industrial system, and the more that population expands and explodes, the more necessary is the unfettered working of such an industrial economy. Laissez-faire and the free market become more and more evidently necessary as an industrial system develops; radical deviations cause breakdowns and economic crises. This crisis of statism becomes particularly dramatic and acute in a fully socialist society; and hence the inevitable breakdown of statism has first become strikingly apparent in the countries of the socialist (i.e., Communist) camp. For socialism confronts its inner contradiction most starkly. Desperately, it tries to fulfill its proclaimed goals of industrial growth, higher standards of living for the masses, and eventual withering away of the State, and is increasingly unable to do so with its collectivist means. Hence the inevitable breakdown of socialism.   Murray N. Rothbard

Cicero quotes Cato as saying that the Roman constitution was superior to that of other states because it “was based upon the genius, not of one man, but of many: it was founded, not in one generation, but in a long period of several centuries and many ages of men. For, said he, there never has lived a man possessed of so great a genius that nothing could escape him, nor could the combined powers of all men living at one time possibly make all the necessary provisions for the future without the aid of actual experience

and the test of time.” Chapter Four, Freedom, Reason, and Tradition; The

Constitution of Liberty ISBN 0-226-32084-7, University of Chicago Press | 1960 | Friedrich A. Hayek

There are many things specifically in laws and governments,” wrote Chief Justice Hale in the seventeenth century in a critique of Hobbes, “that mediately, remotely and consequentially are reasonable to be approved, though the reason of the party does not presently or immediately and distinctly see its reasonableness…Long experience makes more discoveries touching conveniences or inconveniences of laws than is possible for the wisest council of men at first to foresee. And that those amendments and supplements that through the various experiences of wise and knowing men have been applied to any law must needs be better suited to the convenience of laws, than the best invention of the most pregnant wits not aided by such a series and tract of experience…This add to the  difficulty of the present fathoming of the reason of laws, which, though it commonly be called the mistress of fools, yet certainly it is the wisest expedient among mankind, and discovers those defects and supplies which no wit of man could either at once foresee or aptly remedy…It is not necessary that the reasons of the institution should be evident unto us. It is sufficient that they are instituted laws that give a certainty to us, and it is reasonable to observe them though the particular reason of the institution appear not.”

Libertarians are excluded from the ideological category not because they lack ideology  but because libertarianism it is not a neat, single set of ideas. It is not even, as Marxism or Christianity are, a system of thought which has started from a central point of authority and then worked itself into various forms. Rather, it is a multitude of  different and frequently contradictory ideas which arise from the simple human aspiration to take responsibility for your own life whilst living as free as possible from the suffocating attentions of both the state and overweening private authority . In all its forms libertarianism is the pursuit of the ideal of freedom not the mechanistic working towards exact ends such as is found in Marxism.

Because freedom is essentially subjective – one libertarian’s negative freedom may be another libertarian’s positive unfreedom and vice versa. – and because the means by which even a defined and agreed free end may be realised is uncertain, the variety of movements which fall within the libertarian fold is legion. To take only the major divisions, there are the  rights theorists (who eschew force) and consequentialitists (who permit it), the Right and Left Libertarians who dispute over property, minarchists (minimalist state) and anarchocapitalists (no state), those who call themselves libertarians and those whom others call libertarians but who repudiate the term themselves, most notably Objectivists.

Any ideological libertarian party would be faced with two choices: either produce a mish mash of ideas which wholly satisfied few if any libertarians or  allow itself to be captured by ideologues who would tolerate only their form of libertarianism, which behaviour would be the antithesis of libertarian ideals.

The reason why libertarians cannot go down the road of vague expediency is simple: libertarianism is the pursuit of an idea, the ideal of freedom. A party which did not have that ideal at its heart, which did not frame its policies with the intent of realising that ideal, would by definition not be a libertarian party.

There is also the nature of those who are attracted to libertarianism . As a philosophy (in all of its strains) it will tend to attract those of independent character, people who are naturally unwilling to compromise their beliefs and will tend more than the
ordinary run of humanity to want their own way even in non-ideological matters such as party organisation. . The propensity for fission within a libertarian party would be great and this trait, together with the diverse nature of libertarian ideas, make it probable going on certain that if one libertarian party was formed others would arise to compete with it.

Still not convinced? Very well, let us suppose that a libertarian party was formed. On what policies would the party run for office? Well, a “pure” libertarian party could seek power with the intention of disbanding the state entirely. A middle-of-the-road  libertarian party would remove from the state responsibility for health, the provision of benefit for disability and employment, education, the roads and railways, power generation. All that would remain is a minimalist state providing police, a justice system, armed forces and possibly a skeleton diplomatic representation. A moderate libertarian party would accept the minimalist state and in addition attend to basic infrastructure such as roads and take the Hayek line on subsistence support, viz.: “We shall again take for granted the availability of a system of public relief which provides a minimum for all instances of proved need, so that no member of the community need be in want of food or shelter” (The Constitution of Liberty Routledge pp 300-301).

The implications of having no state or even a minimalist one would seem to most Britons to be at best dangerously naïve and at worst a philosophy designed to promote the interests of haves. (A thorough-going libertarian party would be asking the British electorate to go into the unknown because no such party has ever obtained a seat in the Commons let alone formed a government). It is unlikely any party putting forward no state or a minimalist state would be treated as anything other than political eccentrics.

Even what I have defined as a moderate libertarian party would tend to scare the electoral horses. The public would be asking what would happen to the poor or the unfortunate? Who would pick up the social pieces in an emergency? What would happen if parents cannot afford to pay for their child’s education? Doubtless when pressed during an election representatives of a moderate libertarian party would say, because no electorate would begin to listen to them otherwise, “we would not be so extreme, we would take care to ensure that a bare minimum of welfare was available to stop people starving or dying from cold, we would not allow the infrastructure of the country to be left at the mercy of market forces, we would ensure every child was educated“.

The problem with such responses from libertarians is that they sell the pass on the minimalist state. Instead, they have become part of the mainstream political debate. The only question left for them to dispute is how much should be spent on welfare, education and so on. The argument that there should be nothing spent by the state, that it should all be left to private charity, has gone.

Democracy presents an insoluble problem for libertarians because most people are not wholehearted libertarians. In fact, most people are anything but libertarian, hence the depressingly frequent polls which show large majorities in favour of identity cards and CCTV, the banning of personal weapons, restrictions on free expression and  ever more draconian restrictions on drugs. But the reluctance to embrace libertarian ideas goes far wider than those iconic libertarian issues. . Most people in Britain enthusiastically approve of the Welfare State; and it is a fair bet that most would approve of protectionism and closed borders. if they were ever asked to vote in a referendum on such matters because it is a natural human instinct to protect one’s own territory and “tribe”.

There is also the practical difficulty of a new party succeeding within the British political system. In the three centuries or so in which parties have existed in the modern sense only one new party has managed to form a government, the Labour Party. Moreover, they managed it in the highly unusual circumstances of the aftermath of a World War in which members of their Party had been co-opted into Government and thus gained a public profile. It is noteworthy that no new political grouping since the extension of the Franchise to universal manhood suffrage in 1918 has succeeded in gaining permanent representation in the Commons. It is most

In opposition the position of the party would be simple: it could act as a platform for disseminating libertarian ideas: in power it would have to deal with the ugly realities of making decisions. It would have to force those who are not libertarians to live in a libertarian world., thus negating the idea of libertarianism being built on voluntary association. The fact that governments of a different colour force libertarians to live in ways they do not wish to live is neither here nor there, for that is something done to libertarians by those who are not libertarians. Libertarians cannot respond by treating  non-libertarians in a non-libertarian manner for that would negate their libertarian ideals.

Does this mean that libertarians should eschew political action? Not a bit of it. They should make every effort to promote libertarian ideals through other parties, especially the existing mainstream parties which have a chance of power. They should join such parties and argue from within and lobby individually and as groups. They should try to obtain jobs in the mainstream media. They should lobby the mainstream media. They should In short, they should attempt to do what the liberal internationalist left has done over the past sixty years, infiltrate the positions of power and influence.

Being a libertarian should be about ends not ideology because what the libertarian wishes to achieve can be reached by more than once means. Any person who imagines there is a set of objectively necessary ideas to be a libertarian is by definition not a libertarian because they wish to reduce the world to their black and white version and exclude all other voices. The sort of self-described libertarian who believes such a thing is the type of person who can be heard wondering to themselves “what is the correct libertarian position on this?” sadly oblivious to the fact that they echo the mentality of the Marxist.

Even amongst those who describe themselves as libertarians there are few  who subscribe to the “pure” libertarian menu. Most recognise that a minimalist state is necessary, that society cannot be left entirely to voluntary association and agreement. Many go further than the absolute minimalist state and recognise that some state intervention beyond the basics of defence, justice, policing, public health and sanitation and foreign policy is necessary for the maintenance of a stable society.

Most libertarians have something in common with the mass of humanity: they are libertarian on some issues and not others. Let me take myself as an example. I am pure  libertarian on issues such free expression (no censorship at all because it is an absolute: you either have it or you do not), drugs (legalise them all), the ownership and carrying of weapons (you should be able to buy a gun as easily as a pound of carrots) and self-defence (you should be able to use whatever force you choose if attacked), public surveillance by the state or others (an outrage), petty state interference with private life (an absolute no, no).

On other issues such as immigration and free trade I take a non-libertarian position because I believe the ultimate consequences of these  policies is to undermine the ends which libertarians seek because they create circumstances of pernicious competition, both ethnic and a simple scramble for scarce resources. The more fractious a society is the less libertarian it will be because when a society becomes more disordered those with power seek ever more authoritarian means to control the disorder. Libertarians may wish this was not so but it is a contingent fact that it always happens. .

These views provoke a considerable variety of responses from those who call themselves libertarians. Nor is the response of any individual libertarian I have ever encountered consistently libertarian. . One person may disapprove of drug legalisation while being utterly opposed to surveillance; another be in favour of free trade but against open border immigration. Interestingly, the most general resistance I have encountered is on the issues of freely available drugs and weapons, support for which one might have imagined would be naturally close to all libertarian hearts. .

The fact that few libertarians do follow a wholeheartedly libertarian ideological line means that most will not find it emotionally impossibly to engage with other parties. They will have even less difficulty with single issue movements. The individual libertarian will be able to pursue his or her particular libertarian passions within such contexts.

Should libertarians be downhearted at the idea that there should be no libertarian party or any likelihood of a full-blooded libertarian programme being brought to reality? Most certainly not, in fact, they should rejoice. Libertarians should never wish for a perfect libertarian society because one could only exist if all other competing forms of political thought and action were suppressed by authoritarian means, for it is certain that never would there be circumstances where most let alone all would subscribe to the full gamut of libertarian ends. That inescapable authoritarianism would undermine the principle at the heart of libertarianism: voluntary association. All that would exist would be a perfect libertarian society in form not content and even the form would be ephemeral for all tyrannies fall sooner rather than later.

“You needn’t worry,”

Said Mr Heath in ’72,

“You’ll be as British

As you ever were!”

And smiled through his lie.

“The British people,”

Tromboned Mr Wilson in ’75

“Must choose” -

But only on our terms

Said the creatures in the shadows.

“It’s only a market -

And markets are good!”

Said Mrs Thatcher in ’85,

Seduced by a word.

Mr Heath grinned.

“Subsidiarity means,”

Said Mr Major in ’92,

“We may still do some things

We’ve always done. It’s a triumph!”

Mr Heath laughed  out loud.

“We’re winning the battle,”

Chanted Douglas Hurd in ’95

“Things are moving our way.”

Sir Edward lay replete

With his long betrayal.

“We’re at the heart of Europe”

“Thinbgs are going our way”

Trilled Tony Blair

And the whole of Europe laughed

As it closer sheared the sheep.

We’ll give you a referendum

Said Cameron and Clegg

If  Britain has not been sold again

Before we get to number 10

As Brown scurried  to his treason.

I’ve used our veto  brags Cameron

And Europe drops the veil

Of democratic pretence

And  functionaries devour

The elected.

————————————–

And the liberal said

And the liberal said,

With a moron’s profundity,

All men are the same.

How strange that they

Should fight in our new world.

And the liberal said:

How ridiculous,

This is the twentieth century!

But the mass of men acted

As they always had.

And the liberal said:

This is mediaeval,

Reason will prevail.

But the mass of men shouted reason down,

As they always had.

And the liberal said:

It’s only a matter of time,

Of men being shown the way.

But the mass of men refused to sit

On one legged ideological stools.

And the liberal said:

Just a little more time

Or another way.

But the mass of men refused to be

Bound in the ways of reason.

And the liberal said:

We know best, man can evolve,

Nurture is all.

But the mass of men still moved

In predestined genetic ways.

And the liberal said:

We need more money,

It’s just a matter of education.

But the mass of men heard their words

And thought them empty vanity.

And the liberal said (privately):

How infuriating!

What lesser men are these!

But the mass of men refused

To see their fault.

And the liberal said:

These are but children,

Give them time to learn.

But the mass of men rose up

And no longer let the moments pass.

And the mass of men said:

What a thing is freedom!

How painful, so burdensome a state!

And oppressed the liberal

As he had oppressed them.

——————————————————–

The internationalists

Men who do not understand

What is beyond

The satisfaction of plodding reason

And mundane wants and needs;

Men who do not see

That a land is more than

Rocks and rivers, trees

And fields or the

Atom called a man,

But a myth of oneness

Which a people has,

Where rich and poor

Live half separated lives

Yet still believe

Themselves a part

Of something greater

Than a vulgar mass of

Coldly counted men.

——————————————————–

Heresy

A man says forbidden things,

Then another  and change

Filters through single

Grains of courage.

What was blasphemy

Becomes the commonplace,

And men are as lions

Who once would have lighted

The way to ignorance

With the tallow

Of their thoughts,

Sent heavenwards

By stinking faggots,

Damp with hate and fear,

To leave an ash

Of unrequited curiosity,

Which like the phoenix

Is never truly killed.

——————————————————–

Cumulo-nimbus

Twenty twenty one

And the pogroms come

Because no Public One

Would heed the thrum

Of Nature’s drum

Saying ever on

Before each one

The tribe must come.

——————————————————–

Too late, too late!

Bend your mind towards the wind,

All around is heard the whisper -

Our rulers are effete

And none new to be found.

Soon the world will shake

Before never altered truths

Of blood and  land

Which hide behind

The scapegrace clothes

Of selfish fools

Who mewl upon an idea

Thinking wishing is reality.

Robert Henderson

I attended a directions hearing  for the decision on whether I would be designated  a Core Participant.  I shall not be Core Participant (unless I can somehow persuade Lord Leveson  otherwise), but I could be a witness.

Regardless of whether or not I end up as a witness, the hearing was far from being a waste of time.   I was able to put my case  before a sizeable number of people (probably 50), including  lawyers  representing various people  who have been mistreated by the media, other applicants for core participant status and members of the public, some of whom were  mediafolk.  In addition, the negligent  and superficial way the applications for core participant status were treated showed the Inquiry in a bad light.

Leveson began the proceedings by blithely announcing that he had not read any of the submissions  for core participant status.  Consequently, he made his decisions purely on the oral testimony given at the hearing by the applicants for core participant status.   This was not only odd in itself,  but became doubly so when placed in the context of the advice given to Core Participant applicants before the directions hearing:

“Dear Sir
You have made an application for Core Participant status for module 2. The Chairman will consider your application at the directions hearing which is listed for 2pm on Wednesday 25th January.  It is not necessary for you to attend the hearing, but you may do so if you wish.  If you do propose to attend, please let me know by 2pm on Tuesday 24th January.
Regards
Sharron “

If an applicant had chosen not to appear, it is probable their application would have been dismissed without their submission being considered.

Leveson  further hamstrung  the applicants by saying that he would not get into the detail of individual cases. I did manage to overcome this restriction  but as a method of proceeding it was absurd for an inquiry into press misbehaviour. The final shackle he  put around the applicants was the  danger of  jeopardising   legal action outside of the Inquiry.  Although there was no question of sub judice  because no charges had been brought, I decided not to name  the ex-editor who had committed perjury before the Inquiry by denying any knowledge of receiving information illicitly from the police.  I did this because  I wish Leveson to refer  to the police the perjury, the receipt of information illicitly from the police and the failure of the police to investigate meaningfully the receipt of information illicitly given by a police officer and illicitly received by the ex-editor and his staff.   If I submit the complaints the likelihood is that the police will repeat their behaviour and refuse to investigate meaningfully or at all.  Nonetheless, if I do not get a positive indication from Leveson I shall submit the complaints.

Despite all these seeming grave handicaps to free expression I managed to get a good deal of embarrassing material  into my testimony.  This included the Blairs’ attempt to have me prosecuted in 1997 (that produced a real murmur); the Mirror’s libelling of me and failure to offer me any right of reply and  the PCC’s abject failure to deal with my complaints honestly .  I also, without giving names,  described the perjury of the ex-editor, his admission of having received information illicitly from the police and the police’s refusal to meaningfully investigate the ex-editor’s admission that he had received information illicitly from  the police.  I emphasised that the Inquiry had been in possession of all these facts for more than a month and that if I was not to be a core participant I certainly wished to be a witness.

All that ensured that there are now substantial numbers of people who know that the Leveson Inquiry  has facts which by definition must fall within  the ambit of the Inquiry. Leveson himself acknowledged that  the receiving of illicit information from the police was  indisputably pertinent.

After the hearing  I discussed my situation with the Chief Solicitor to the Inquiry Miss Kim Brudenell.  I got her to agree to a number of actions.  These are:

1. to ensure that my submissions are brought to the notice of Lord Leveson.

2.  to advise me if a formal witness statement  is required after you have reviewed what I have already submitted.

3. to advise me  when and  how  the evidence I have of  the ex-editor receiving  information illicitly and his subsequent perjury before the Inquiry should be  reported to the Metropolitan Police.  I am  willing to make the complaint myself, but  I think it would be most appropriate for the this to be done  under the auspices of the Inquiry, not least because the perjury was committed at the Inquiry. (I wrote to the Inquiry on 22 December advising Lord Leveson of the perjury).

4.  to  advise me when and  how the failure of the Metropolitan Police to meaningfully investigate my complaint to them that the ex-editor had admitted receiving information illicitly from the police – the investigating officer told me that no one at the paper  had been interviewed – should be reported to the Metropolitan Police as a complaint of a perversion of the course of justice.

American liberals have a problem. They wish to remove the constitutional right to bear arms from the American people.  Their problem is the Second Amendment. To honestly achieve their aim they would have to amend the Constitution. But such amendments are difficult going on impossible.

To initiate amendments, either two thirds of both houses of Congress must vote for them or two thirds of the State legislatures must call for a convention for proposing amendments. That is just the proposal process. This is followed by acceptance by the individual States. In the former case, three quarters of the States must ratify the amendment individually: in the latter three quarters of the convention must vote for the amendment.

Those are stringent terms to meet in any political system, but particularly so in a state as vast and diverse as the USA and with such a strong tradition of regional government. Add to those structural difficulties the existence of widespread gun ownership and powerful lobbies such as the National Rifle Association and the mountain becomes practically  insurmountable by honest means. So what does the liberal do? What he always does when he wants to ban something which is permitted by the Constitution: he pretends that the Constitution does not mean what it manifestly says.

In the case of the Second Amendment the attack takes the form of pretending that the Amendment was merely meant to provide for a militia rather than affirming and protecting the right of people to arm themselves individually. Happily, there is plenty of ammunition with which to shoot down this claim: in the Constitution itself, in the historical circumstances in which the Constitution and Amendment were drafted, in the very logic of a militia.

The claim that the amendment is simply to safeguard the right of America’s military forces to keep and bear arms is self-evidently absurd. If true all the amendment would mean is that the federal government could not disarm the militia soldiers who represented the majority of its armed forces. It would be practically a redundant clause.

The fact that the Amendment states that the right is not merely to bear but to keep arms might be thought by most honest folk to be a pretty clear indication that the private
ownership of weapons was what the framers of the Amendment had in mind. Moreover, what would be the point of the Amendment if it was not to confer such a right to the
individual? Any other permission to keep and bear arms must of necessity be dependent upon permission from those with political power and authority. It would thus again be a futile and redundant clause. It is noteworthy that nowhere in the Constitution, amended or otherwise, is any instruction on the exercise of such state power given or hinted at.

When judging the intent of the framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (which contains the Second Amendment) it is necessary to know the general social and intellectual backcloth against which they worked. They were heir to the English tradition of liberty and government by consent rather than pure tyranny. The Americans who rose against the England of King George 111 did so because they considered themselves part of the tradition of English liberty. In seeking independence, they were not repudiating that tradition but in their own minds returning to what they imagined was the true path of English liberty which had become corrupted in England. It is against this ancient English tradition that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights must be set.

What does the unamended Constitution of 1787 say about the protection of the newly formed United States? Section 8 of Article 1 grants to Congress the right:

To raise and support Armies, but no appropriation of Money for that Use shall be for a longer term than two years.

“To provide and maintain a Navy.

“To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.

“To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.

“To provide for organising, arming and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.

The first point to note is that the Army and the militias are clearly distinguished as separate entities. The second is the time limit on the power to raise money for armies. This is highly significant. There was a very long tradition in England of professional standing armies being heartily mistrusted as the tool of despots. It was the attempt to
institute a standing army of thirty thousand men which was one of the main reasons why King James 11 was overthrown in 1688. Armies were raised for wars, but in peacetime militias were the order of the day. Indeed, until the first world war England never had a great standing army. (The English tradition is also echoed in the absence of any time restriction placed on the funding of a navy by the Founding Fathers. The English never feared a strong navy as such because it could not be used against them).

With this English mistrust of standing armies and reliance on militias went a tradition of not merely allowing weapons to be generally held, but of such a practice being  positively encouraged to ensure the defence of the country. Feudal military obligation was in fact built on the private provision not merely of men but of arms and equipment. In late medieval times statutes were enacted to encourage long bow practice. The Spanish Armada which attempted to invade England in 1588 was repulsed by a mixed English fleet of private and Royal ships.

Perhaps the strongest single circumstantial reason for dismissing the liberal’s interpretation of the Second Amendment are the well attested motives for those promoting
the Bill of Rights. Those who pushed for the first ten Amendments did so because they believed that the rights and liberties of the individual were not guarded explicitly
enough by the original Constitution. Thus ,if we are to believe the liberal, we must accept the truly fantastic explanation that in the case of the Second Amendment the
protection of individual liberty was utterly cast aside without reason, public acknowledgement or, most compellingly, any contemporary comment, adverse or otherwise.

There is also a question of simple practicality. When the Amendment was passed (December 1791), the infant federal government simply did not have the means to finance the arming of militias. Thus, they can only have envisaged private arms being put to the service of the state, a tradition which as previously mentioned had a long history in
both England and the Thirteen Colonies. Moreover, subsequent history bore this out, for the greater number of troops employed by the American Union in its wars against Britain and Mexico in the first half of the 19th century came from militias. In an age of minimal government, the Second Amendment underpinned the whole scheme of national defence.

Does the Second Amendment allow for any government abridgement of the right to keep and bear arms? It might just be possible to sustain an argument that a register of guns would not breach the Second Amendment provided there was no restriction on the right to own and bear weapons, that is no person could be denied the right either to appear on the register or bear arms. But even here it could be argued with some force that the registration of weapons – particularly if it required complicated bureaucratic procedures – was an interference with the general right to bear arms. Moreover, if a right is general and absolute, it is by no means clear how any procedure initiated by and insisted upon by the state could be legitimate because by definition there can be no legitimate restriction of the right.

Americans produce a multitude of reasons for retaining their guns. They argue on the grounds of personal liberty. They argue on the grounds of deterring crime. They argue on the grounds of personal protection. They argue on a dozen and one grounds. This to my mind is a mistake. Good causes do not need to be bolstered by a battery of  arguments. Good causes need but one argument. The only necessary argument for private gun ownership is in the Second Amendment: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.” The key words here are “a free state”. That phrase cannot mean solely to maintain the state in its independence from other states, because that could as well apply to a dictatorship as well as a democracy. In the context of the reasons for the American War of Independence ”a free state” must also mean the maintenance of the freedom of the citizens from the oppressive power of the state. That after all was what the whole breach with England was about. Moreover, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are written in a manner which actively extols the individual over the state, viz: “We the people of the United States in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” (preamble to the Constitution).

The general motivation for demanding gun control is not the saving of lives. (Its only effect in England has been to leave guns predominately in the hands of criminals and the state). Liberals wish to remove the general right of gun ownership in America for the same reason that they wish to interfere with peoples’ lives generally: they are natural authoritarians. They know that their philosophy (such as it is) conflicts utterly with human nature and are thus driven to suppress any resistance or dissent through the intimidation of political correctness and the practical control of public life. The disarming of the American people is part of this oppressive strategy.

The desire to restrict the holding of arms has always come from those who wished to not only monopolise power but to do so on their own terms. When the crossbow was invented, the medieval nobility attempted to ban it because it reduced the effectiveness of the armoured and mounted knight. Failing in that, they attempted to restrict, with some success, its ownership to people they could control. The Samurai in Japan enforced ruthlessly their rule that only Samurai should carry swords. When the demobbed conscripts of British Army returned to Britain after the First World War, the British government passed the first serious laws regulating gun ownership not because they feared that the British would begin to murder one another in great numbers but because they feared Red revolution.

If Americans wish to retain what is left of their freedom, they will do well to keep the Second Amendment intact. This means not merely retaining the status quo, but the mounting of legal challenges to every restriction on the holding and bearing of arms in the United States. The plain and hideously inescapable fact is that every attempt to restrict both gun ownership (or indeed any other weapon) and the bearing of arms made since the inauguration of the United States has been illegal. That applies whether or not the interference with the Constitutional right was undertaken at the federal or the state level. I suggest that legal action should consist not merely of Constitutional challenges, but civil actions for damages against the federal and appropriate state governments by those actively and personally denied the right to bear arms.