Since when was giving people a choice a good idea?

The coalition’s obsession with self-determination, whether on schools or GPs, penalises the least able

In short, no one should have choice because some are too ignorant to make use of it.

If uncertainty about preserves is a problem one can probably live with, or possibly enjoy, a similar helplessness in the face of big, irreversible decisions is, to judge by a new study, State of Confusion by Professor Harriet Bradley of Bristol University, something that should worry a government that advertises choice as an unmitigated good…….After surveying 3,000 people on their attitudes to choice, Bradley says: “I believe most people want the state to make these big decisions for them.” This is not only because, in many cases, consumers are well aware that the choice of, say, school or hospital is – unlike a commercial selection of jams or phones or holidays – an utter fiction. The process of choosing is itself oppressive when the issues are life-changing, relating to health, money or careers.

An obvious question presents itself. Did Professor Harriet Bradley choose to become an academic? Work, strive, to become a Professor? Decide to write a book?

Wouldn’t she be happier stacking shelves in the supermarket if that’s where the State would place her to relieve her of the anguish of having to make a decision?

And if not, why not?

Is there perhaps some special class of people who both should decide for themselves and also decide for the peons? Those special enough to cope with the difficulty of choice and to alleviate others of it?

Because if that is the argument then they can all go fuck themselves quite frankly.

For the sake of Germany and the wider eurozone, Angela Merkel must stop playing domestic politics with the Greek issue.

German politician must stop doing what the German electorate want.

So much for democracy then….

For the past couple of days it’s been difficult to load a page. Keep getting “Connection reset” page.

“connection reset while this page was loading”.

Is this something on my machine? Or further down the line at my ISP?

Hitting “try again” four or five times usually loads the page.

Any ideas?

Update: All fixed now. Something weird that I don’t understand but still, all fixed.

Homosexuals deserve to be executed or tortured and possibly both, an Iranian leader told British MPs during a private meeting at a peace conference, The Times has learnt.

Mohsen Yahyavi is the highest-ranked politician to admit that Iran believes in the death penalty for homosexuality after a spate of reports that gay youths were being hanged.

Bombing’s too good for them, of couse.

Those bastard war veterans, arrogantly assuming that the liberty they risked their lives fighting for includes the right to participate in $5 cribbage games.

But this also casts an odd light on the labour movement and on trades unions. Through their adherence to the ideas of jobs for life, and their demands that working class people be able to depend on benevolent and paternalistic forces, be they employers or the state, or both, and take the consequent lack of freedom that results from this they not only stand in direct line of descent from Roman slaves, but they also demand that they be able to remain as slaves. The dignity of labour is no more than the degrading comfort of the steel slave collar on the neck.

And for all their Pooterish, John Major, Little Chef aspects, the lower middle classes have this in their favour: they came from there. They would not accept the collar. They aspired to independence and freedom.

Until the psychology of the working class disappears, Britons will always include some slaves among their number.

The Metropolitan Police told organisers of the Stop the War Coalition that no march would now be allowed “within one mile of Parliament” while MPs were in session.

The organisers, who are expecting thousands of people to turn up for the protest march from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square, said that this was a “totally different” interpretation of the regulations, and accused Gordon Brown of reneging on a pledge to liberalise the laws on demonstrations.

“One moment the Prime Minister is supporting the right of Burmese monks to demonstrate in Rangoon, and yet here in London we’re being stopped from marching on Parliament. It’s hypocrisy,” Lindsey German, convener of the Stop the War Coalition, said.

German, who is I think one of the raving Trots known as the Socialist Worker’s Party, would find I disagree with just about everything he (or is it she?) says on just about any and every subject under the sun. However, I do think that he and his equally deluded chums should be allowed to have a day out in London. Even, to make known their misguided views. It’s one of the things that would make us a free and liberal country, that people were not prevented from exercising their natural right to express themselves.

We really are ruled by scum, aren’t we? And will any of them be alert enough to appreciate the irony?