A Gap in the Market

Your libertarian and open-minded Pedant-General, who is noted for leading from the front with dauntlessness and little apparent fear of breaking with conformity, begs the forgiveness of his immensely tolerant audience. I am behind the curve.

Unity, muttering darkly in his lair, has spotted a rather large gap in the market: no political party is based seriously upon the premise of upholding the civil liberties that were gained with the Enlightenment and defended through two world wars etc, etc. To a fairly large degree, he has been prompted as the full horror of the proposed Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill has emerged. There have been further dark mutterings about this across most sections of the (not actually barking mad) blogosphere regardless of left/right political persuasion. Indeed, this very fact demonstrates clearly that the left/right axis is profoundly misleading - a fact known and understood well by most (not actually barking mad) political bloggers. The big issues of the day revolve more around the social freedom axis, not that of economics.

With remarkable deftness for a self-declared socialist, he has moved to fill this gap with a "Coalition of the Willing" and we expect a smart new salon in which to plot the overthrow of this totalitarian monster of a government. It will be called "Liberty Central".

A non-partisan grand coalition of the British people with a uniform objective - a new constitutional settlement with all the trimmings; a written constitution, bill of rights, electoral reform, the full works. Think the Levellers, the Chartists. Think John Locke, J S Mill and Thomas Paine.

He can count on the fulsome support of the Pedant-General.

On this bright note, I should also like to temper my request for forgiveness. It appears that I have beaten young Johnson to the fray. Late though I may be, he is later. With that gentle poke in the ribs, I shall commend him to you. He is bright, ascerbic, sensible and has a pleasing prose style. But then, what else would one expect from a Wykehamist Aularian?