Monday, March 02, 2009

Bogeyman politics

The true test of whether you believe in civil liberties is whether you believe in them for people you detest – be they Holocaust deniers, asylum seekers, terror suspects, convicted paedophiles… or bankers:

Harriet Harman has said former Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) chief Sir Fred Goodwin should not "count on" keeping his full £650,000 a year pension.

"And it might be enforceable in a court of law, this contract, but it is not enforceable in the court of public opinion and that is where the government steps in."

What monstrous times are these we live in when an Englishman faces deprivation of his legal earnings by politicians arbitrarily bowing to the mob?

I wonder what the Convention on Modern Liberty has to say about this?

(Perspective check: Goodwin’s total £16m pension pot amounts to 0.07% of RBS’s £24bn losses last year, and 0.01% of the £118bn that the Treasury forecasts for public borrowing in the coming year.)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well a scotsman anyway.

Will said...

I don't believe in civil liberties for holocaust deniers -- nor do I believe in the tooth fairy.

I THINK that holocaust deniers should be physically confronted and made to pay in kind and that banker scum of the likes of Goodwin should have their liberty taken from them (by any means necessary).

The percentage game you play is shit as well. He is still a criminal piece of shit walking away with a fucking fortune so fuck your clever clever liberal bullshit.

Tom Freeman said...

Not saying I like the guy, or that he's done a good job, or that I dearly hope he's fabulously rich as long as he lives. I just don't join everyone else in giving so much of a shit. What happens to him is of next to no significance.

Will said...

"What happens to him is of next to no significance."

Rubbish.