The Prometheus Post: Issue Two

By Richard Pinder

The main focus of Prometheus this month is on Big Brother.

Big Brother was a term first coined by the author and journalist George Orwell. A term that, even half a century later, is taken to mean the disproportionate use of surveillance.

In this edition of The Prometheus Post this magazine will be doing a profile of George Orwell. It will explain his beginnings, his history and, most important of all, his ideas.
Under Labour, Great Britain was the most watched nation on earth, with more intrusive CCTV in operation in the United Kingdom than even Communist China. Labour justified this mass invasion of privacy on the grounds that we would all have more security.

In the present, a data communications bill is sitting in parliament which, if passed as it is, will lead to the creation of a massive information surveillance network, allowing the state to monitor our calls, emails and web browsing. Again, the government is justifying this on the grounds that it will lead to a safer Britain.

In a breaking report The Prometheus Post will show that Big Brother, the technological systems that intrude on our privacy with the massive claim that they make us safer, is not fit for purpose. The Prometheus Post has solid evidence that these illiberal systems actually decrease our safety: the final justification for removing them entirely. For if these illiberal systems don't even make us safer, there remains no reason to keep using them at all.

One of the main themes in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was that when the news is controlled by the state, it always leads to the state becoming corrupt and acting to excess. It is fitting, then, that in this issue Prometheus will lay bare what Lord Leveson really suggests in his report, and Prometheus will explain that if these suggestions were ever implemented, as Labour and the Liberal Democrats want them to be, they would effectively end press freedom in the United Kingdom, while hampering investigative journalism to such a degree that the news would effectively be suppressed.

The 2015 general election is not as far away as it seems. The Conservative Party, whom Prometheus supports, needs to push a little harder in order to return a Tory majority. In a detailed report, Prometheus will explain what the Conservative Party needs to do to win in 2015.

Also in this issue, Prometheus will expose the democratic deficiencies of the European Union. Prometheus will also explain what refinements need to be made to the welfare reforms of Iain Duncan Smith to best aid the poor, and, as part of this magazine’s business series, will explain what principles can be used to maximise workforce effectiveness.

Richard Pinder - Editor

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Pinder
• Release date: Feb 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301784509

Richard Pinder

Richard Pinder is an author, journalist and business owner. He is the author of the Libertarian's Handbook, an epic length (over 100,000 words) work on civil rights. While he is also the editor and owner of the Prometheus Post. The Prometheus Post is a monthly libertarian-conservative electronic magazine. It stands for the advancement of freedom, justice and prosperity. The Prometheus Post offers serious political analysis in areas such as civil rights, justice, economics and business. It is also actively campaigning for British withdrawal from the European Union, along with offering insight into, and critique of, general political affairs.

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The Prometheus Post

April 2013

Issue Two

Richard Pinder

Copyright Richard Pinder 2013

Smashwords Edition

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Also by Richard Pinder, published at Smashwords:

The Libertarian's Handbook

Table of Contents

1. Editorial

2. In the Defence of Liberty - News and comment on developments in civil rights

David Cameron's stance in defence of press freedom

Eric Pickles moves to restrain council powers of entry

A victory for equality before the law as equal marriage bill passes

The Liberal Democrats unmasked

3. Champions of Freedom - The history and ideas of George Orwell

Early Life

When Eric Blair became George Orwell

The Spanish Civil War

The ideas of George Orwell

4. In the Pursuit of Justice - The means to advance law and justice

Immigration and integration

The government secret justice bill is a step in the wrong direction

Comrade Delta and the need to strengthen the law for rape victims

5. Business 101 - Hands on articles for running a business

Maximising workforce effectiveness

6. The Free Economy - How we can make Great Britain more prosperous

Refining the welfare reforms of Iain Duncan Smith

In support of Douglas Carswell's economic reforms

7. Independent - On why the United Kingdom would be better off out of the EU

The democratic deficiencies of the European Union

New EU legislation to ban some cigarettes and smoking products

8. Special Feature - A critical analysis of the Leveson Inquiry

So does Lord Leveson actually advocate a regulated press?

Ofcom

No appointment of a regulator could be truly independent

The inquiry itself was not free and fair

The problem with the fining system

Licensing means the state can close down papers it does not like

Some editors will face prison for doing no wrong

Why meeting logs would go against the public interest

The recommendations of Leveson would seriously threaten journalists' sources

The Leveson Report in conclusion

9. Special Feature - How the Conservative Party can deliver victory in 2015

Offer a straight in/out referendum on European membership by 2015

The Conservative Party needs to win the battle of words

The Conservative Party needs to engage in small state politics

Implement a tougher immigration policy

A right-headed energy policy will win over lower-income families

10. Special Feature - Why it is time to dismantle Big Brother

11. The Last Word - Comment on general affairs

Labour's war on ... breakfast: the surest sign yet that they have lost it

12. Connect with the Post

13. Also by the Editor - The Libertarian's Handbook

The Prometheus Post - April 2013 Editorial

Welcome, reader, to the April 2013 edition of The Prometheus Post.

The main focus of Prometheus this month is on Big Brother.

Big Brother was a term first coined by the author and journalist George Orwell. A term that, even half a century later, is taken to mean the disproportionate use of surveillance. In this edition of The Prometheus Post this magazine will be doing a profile of George Orwell. It will explain his beginnings, his history and, most important of all, his ideas.

Under Labour, Great Britain was the most watched nation on earth, with more intrusive CCTV in operation in the United Kingdom than even Communist China. Labour justified this mass invasion of privacy on the grounds that we would all have more security.

In the present, a data communications bill is sitting in parliament which, if passed as it is, will lead to the creation of a massive information surveillance network, allowing the state to monitor our calls, emails and web browsing. Again, the government is justifying this on the grounds that it will lead to a safer Britain.

In a breaking report The Prometheus Post will show that Big Brother, the technological systems that intrude on our privacy with the massive claim that they make us safer, is not fit for purpose. The Prometheus Post has solid evidence that these illiberal systems actually decrease our safety: the final justification for removing them entirely. For if these illiberal systems don't even make us safer, there remains no reason to keep using them at all.

One of the main themes in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was that when the news is controlled by the state, it always leads to the state becoming corrupt and acting to excess. It is fitting, then, that in this issue Prometheus will lay bare what Lord Leveson really suggests in his report, and Prometheus will explain that if these suggestions were ever implemented, as Labour and the Liberal Democrats want them to be, they would effectively end press freedom in the United Kingdom, while hampering investigative journalism to such a degree that the news would effectively be suppressed.

The 2015 general election is not as far away as it seems. The Conservative Party, whom Prometheus supports, needs to push a little harder in order to return a Tory majority. In a detailed report, Prometheus will explain what the Conservative Party needs to do to win in 2015.

Also in this issue, Prometheus will expose the democratic deficiencies of the European Union. Prometheus will also explain what refinements need to be made to the welfare reforms of Iain Duncan Smith to best aid the poor, and, as part of this magazine’s business series, will explain what principles can be used to maximise workforce effectiveness.

Richard Pinder - Editor

Return to table of contents

In the Defence of Liberty

David Cameron's stance in defence of press freedom

David Cameron has had a very defining couple of months. He has really shown himself to be a leader of both substance and principle, acting as a strong defender of both liberty and democracy.

For he has managed to secure for the first time ever a reduction on EU payments. He has put on the table a solid in/out referendum on British independence. He has successfully passed through Westminster an equal marriage bill. And finally, he has acted as a defender of press freedom.

Upon the release of the Leveson report, it was highly clear from Leveson's recommendations that he advocated a state-controlled press. Serious suggestions were made by Lord Leveson, in this new order for the media, that the state itself would have the power not only to fine news companies, but also to arrest editors.

A truly disgusting turn of events that would remove power from the people - via the suppression of knowledge - and would end literally centuries of press freedom in this country. Moves which, if implemented, would quite literally be similar to the sorts of press regimes found in Nazi Germany or in Communist China.

A naked stab at one of the cornerstones of liberal democracy itself.

The Prometheus Post will name and shame both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrat Party in being political parties that demanded that Lord Leveson's recommendations should be implemented in full.

These recommendations advocated not only that the state should have the power to fine and imprison news editors - for fundamentally doing no wrong - but also that the partisan and clearly flawed Ofcom should be the axeman.

Other suggestions were made that, very plainly, would seriously stifle principled investigative journalism, against the direct interests of the public good and in defence of only - and Prometheus will be completely plain about this - the truly corrupt.

These powers, if fully in force, really would give the state the power to effectively close down newspapers it did not like. The sort of law proposal that none of us should ever have to see in a liberal democracy.

On top of the other two major parliamentary parties trying to force these full recommendations into law, David Cameron has also had the left-wing media establishment in the BBC and The Guardian attempting to force his hand on regulating the press; with, unsurprisingly, the EU even attempting to end British press freedom, with Brussels demanding that David Cameron should implement these recommendations in full.

David Cameron knew, though, that shackling the press after three centuries was simply wrong. Here in the prime minister we have a leader who understands that you do not remove a central piece of a liberal democracy simply because it is occasionally inconvenient.

Which is why the Conservative Party backs a self-regulating and independent press.

This was a very formative moment for David Cameron: he did the right thing, despite great pressure to do the wrong thing. The prime minister, in short, showed character, just as he showed his support towards the ideas of liberal democracy itself.

While the outnumbered Conservative Party has had to make some compromises in the now, it is obvious as pressure mounts and it will mount, that this threat to three centuries of press freedom, will fail. Even if it takes some time.

Eric Pickles moves to restrain council powers of entry

A person’s home should always be their castle. The home is a person’s private domain and their private property. As such, the state should not be there for reasons that are petty or arbitrary; only ever if expressly invited to enter by a citizen, or for a serious matter such as criminal inquiries.

Under Labour the government had a staggering 1,400 powers of entry. One thousand, four hundred reasons for the government or its officials to enter the home of the citizen.

Such cannot possibly be seen at proportionate. For with so many laws in favour of the state entering a person’s private domain for an absurdly long list of reasons, it has meant in reality that government officials can enter a person’s home for the very pettiest of reasons.

Such powers of entry were not limited to the emergency services either: they were open to many council officials, for the most frivolous of reasons.

Under Labour, councils could barge into citizens’ homes if they suspected the citizens were hunting for rabbits. Or to check that their fridges had the correct energy rating. Most absurdly of all, the then-Labour government felt it had the authority to trespass on the private property of us, the citizens, to go through our very garbage.

When the state can trample on our privacy, enter our private property and pick through our garbage, for reasons as petty as thinking we were chasing rabbits, it is clearly acting in an arbitrary manner. A manner showing contempt for our very freedoms.

This being how Labour treated our privacy. By violating it so casually and so frequently, they showed contempt for our freedom. This being just one example of their illiberal and immoral assault on our liberties.

Our homes represent our domain and are our castles. The government has no right to enter whenever it so pleases. The purpose of the state is to serve us; not for us to serve it and its eccentric whims.

Prometheus thinks there are legitimate reasons for entering a person’s home uninvited, but these boil down only to ones of public safety. Not private intrusion.

The police should be allowed entry if they have evidence of wrongdoing, as that is an action ultimately in the defence of life. Similarly for paramedics and firefighters, as with these brave public servants the only reason why they would be there would be to preserve life.

For hundreds of officials to have the power of entry is wrong. These powers should only be in the hands of the emergency and security services. No one else. And that is because our property and our homes are just that. Ours. Not the state’s.

With powers of entry, though, there is now light at the end of the tunnel.

Before coming to power the Conservative Party promised a serious scaling-down of powers of entry, to make the use of such powers reasonable and proportional; not arbitrary, petty and intrusive.

At present the coalition government has undertaken a much-needed review into all the uses of powers of entry. A review which should be concluded by 2014. While Prometheus would like to see almost all these powers revoked sooner rather than later, he thinks that, with regards to the government, they are being careful in case they accidentally strike down proportional usage of powers of entry.

Both the intention to scrap them and the effort being put into scrapping them are there, however. Prometheus remains confident that when the review is concluded, arbitrary powers of entry will be scrapped and our privacy better protected. This will just take time.

As a positive early indicator, though, Eric Pickles has already motioned to scrap entirely the power of councils to enter a person’s property to check through a homeowner’s garbage; this through the Protection of Freedoms Act.

This is a start, and a step in the right direction; and Prometheus acknowledges such.

A victory for equality before the law as equal marriage bill passes

5th February 2013 will remain an historic date in Great Britain in the establishment of modern equality. For on this date, equal marriage passed through the commons, with full expectations that it will be rubber stamped shortly by the Lords.

This major move in direct support of equality passed in the House of Commons by 400 votes for, to 175 votes against. A decisive victory for civil rights campaigners and for all citizens who believe that all should have precisely the same rights, irrespective of gender, race, faith or, in this landmark case, sexual orientation.

It cannot be right for the law to say that straight couples can marry while gay ones cannot. The law must be consistent for all couples. Now, through this legislation, it is - and about time, too.

Nor is Prometheus surprised that it was under a Conservative-led government that this came to pass. For while the Left talks the talk on equality, it is the Conservative Party that walks the walk.

It was the Conservative Party, after all, who had the first female prime minister, while the Lib Dems and Labour have yet to even get behind a female leader. While the Left sows ideas of class conflict, it is conservatives who believe that it does not matter where you come from, but where you end up.

Prometheus warmly welcomes this civil rights victory.

The Liberal Democrats unmasked

The Prometheus Post is first and foremost a libertarian-conservative magazine. It draws on the ideas of English classical liberalism, traditional conservatism and American libertarianism. The advancement of freedom, democracy and the rule of law is entirely central to what this publication represents.

Historically the strong voices of