The more eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed that all references to the Libertarian Party have been removed from the blogroll and little clicky bits. Why?
I’ve only met Anna in passing the once, but she’s had to put up with a whole barrow load of shit. I trust her more than many people for one simple reason; she never asks for anything.
Draw your own conclusions.
Sad news this morning, Obo, who is currently on self imposed suspension at best or complete retirement at worst, has reported on Facebook that Anna Raccoon has decided to cease blogging and has taken her excellent blog down.
A real shame, Anna and her cohort were superb, I devoured every article that appeared on there. Blogging at its absolute best, and she got results. She’s a sad loss. One can’t help wondering if her dealings with the big hitters of the MSM over the Sheila Martin/Sandwell Council affair have led to the big nationals trying to exact some measure of revenge against her. I hope not.
Anna, you’ll be sorely missed, and I tip my hat to you.
There are some ideas which are a bit stupid. Like trying to unscrew a plug with a paring knife.
There are some really stupid ideas. Like sitting on the branch of the tree you are about to cut off with a chainsaw.
Then there are some catastrophically stupid ideas. You know, the sort of idea which starts with Pa Prescott looking at his missus and saying ‘I’m feeling frisky, let’s have an early night.’
Then you transcend that level of stupidity and get an idea which is so monumentally, incomprehensibly bad, that it defies all belief.
This idea is thoroughly fisked by Thaddeus over at Anna Raccoon’s place, and involves the idea that obviously the current PAYE system isn’t working, as evidenced by the recent balls-up. The solution? Even though the Revenue is responsible for the chaos, it is clear that it isn’t their fault, so the whole thing has to be changed. This is a good one. Rather than having your employer taking the tax from your salary and passing it on to the treasury, your employer will cut out of the system and your wages will be passed, in totality to the revenue who will remove their cut and pass the remainder on to you.
What could possibly go wrong?
Do head over and read the whole thing. It’s kinda important.
I’ve not had the opportunity to fly a proper sortie over Blogland for the last few days, still haven’t this morning to be honest.
This from Anna Raccoon is a wonderful piece of work, important, blood pressure raising and heartening in the response to it.
I’ve nothing to add to what Anna has written. Please do go and read it.
Libertarianism won’t work. People will only look out for themselves. The vulnerable and needy will be cast aside to fend for themselves.
Wanna bet?
It was with the greatest pleasure that I was able to telephone Denise Hogan, his wife, a few minutes ago, and ask her to go and collect her husband from the Forest Bank jail in Pendlebury.
The indefatigable Old Holborn had moved heaven and earth, above and beyond the call of duty, to arrive at the jail with £8,664.50p in cash, to exchange with the Custody Officer there in return for Nick Hogan’s freedom.
Nick was jailed as an example to us all, that when the State barks ‘jump’ you only question ‘how high’.
He didn’t. He said ‘Why’?
The State made him pay a high price for his temerity; they harassed him, hounded him, bankrupted him, and finally forcibly removed him from his family and friends and jailed him for six months.
His crime? No longer the original charge that he had failed to prevent two customers from smoking on his premises. No. He was actually jailed for being unable to pay the £11,600 in fines and prosecution costs resulting from that charge. He had managed to pay off £1,600, but incomprehensibly to the State, he was not able to put his hands instantly on the £10,000 balance.
The State is so used to having a bottomless pot of Taxpayers money to dip into whenever they feel the need, that they have literally lost the ability to comprehend what the recession means to ordinary people.
I blogged about this affair on the afternoon of 28th March. My primary concern was, and always would be, Nick’s wife Denise.
Nick objected to the smoking ban. He was part of a group of people, unsurprisingly largely publicans, who violently objected to the smoking ban, both regarding choice and their viability as a business. That is both his right, and his concern. He hosted a demonstration on the day the ban came into force. He stood up to be counted. He was willing to challenge the law.
He eventually paid the price for doing so.
Did Denise? She stood in the background, the loyal wife. She is not a ‘campaigning person’. She is not macho. She is just a wife and Mother.
When the Bolton Evening News story came out, I tracked Denise down to interview her. She was ‘shell-shocked’. Having run a busy restaurant and hotel myself, I was only too aware of the position she had been left in.
‘Put a smile on your face girl; keep the show running’, while the posturing idiots make their political point. Not her choice.
Within minutes of my blog appearing kind hearted people were asking how they could help, where could they send money? I asked Old Holborn if he would let me use his Paypal function and cross post the story onto his web site. Unwittingly I had lured him into a nightmare situation where he would be abused, vilified, threatened, and harassed himself. One day I shall blog about the back ground events to this saga, but today is a day of celebration.
Within 36 hours over £5,000 had been raised. A further £1,200 was donated over the next two days before the campaign received a crucial helping hand from political blogger, Guido Fawkes, who publicised it on his influential site.
Money came in from all over the world, the International Blogosphere had reacted in a truly heart warming way, outraged at the behaviour of the State.
Four days after my story first appeared, Old Holborn’s Paypal account held in excess of £9,700 in assorted currencies. We had to ask people to stop sending money! Then began the battle to persuade Paypal that we were not part of an International money laundering cartel….
Today we succeeded, and with the good wishes of thousands of ordinary men and women, equally battered by the recession, Nick Hogan is once more in the bosom of his family, able to support his wife Denise and their children, instead of being locked up with drug dealers and murderers.
Thank-you Blogosphere – and well done.
The fact that so many of you responded is a powerful message from the voting public that politicians would be well advised to heed. The Blogosphere will not be controlled by politicians, bound up in regulations, throttled by impenetrable legislation. It is not a single target that a ‘D’ notice can be fired at. We are not beholden to advertisers.
“We are the authentic, unfiltered, voice of your electorate”.
Be afraid, ye righteous, ye Statists. We don’t need you. We don’t need you to grant us permission to act in support of those we deem deserving. We don’t need you to guide our actions or to make sure our actions are ‘fair’ or ‘appropriate’. We don’t need you to tell us who the deserving are.
We don’t need you one little bit.
I have shared a drink and a smoke with Old Holborn on a number of occasions, and was fortunate enough to meet Anna Raccoon on the most recent ‘little walk’.
I am hugely, ridiculously and pathetically proud of them, their actions and my small association with them.