One word that is extremely unpopular in aid documents but has great historical resonance on “power to the people” is “liberty.” Neither the 347 page World Bank 1998 “Participation Sourcebook” nor the 372-page World Bank 2006 “Empowerment in Practice” ever mentioned the word “liberty.” The poor cannot have liberty, but they can have lots o...

From ImprimisBy Mark Steyn On August 3, 1914, on the eve of the First World War, British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey stood at the window of his office in the summer dusk and observed, "The lamps are going out all over Europe." Today, the lights are going out on liberty all over the Western world, but in a more subtle and profound way. Much of the West is far too comfortable with state regula...

Pity the satirist. You could hardly make this up: Tony Blair is to be awarded a £100,000 Liberty medal by the National Constitutional Center based in Washington for his role in "bringing liberty to people around the world". Hmm. Let...

"Liberty has never come from government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it." Woodrow Wilson

There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty. - Margaret Thatcher

Some years ago I harangued a meeting on the threat to liberty, and found myself sharing a platform with John Wadham, then the director of Liberty (formerly the National Council for Civil Liberties). I teased him by saying that he...

Gordon Brown has claimed the rest of the world is out of step with his economic vision after the German Finance Minister Peer Steinbruck described Brown's economic measures as 'barking'. 'Britain is uniquely well placed to make a quick recovery from this minor economic hiccough' said Brown 'and I am using my special talent for economic management to save the world.�...

Campaign group Liberty seems more interested in proposing an alternative authoritarianism than defending freedom.

As we all know and have experienced, the world has been in a prolonged economic uncertainty since 2008. Although many countries had economic recoveries starting from the second half of 2009, the world now seems to be falling into further economic hardship with the European Sovereign debt crisis and housing bubble bursting. For the former, I'm referring to the ongoing problems in Greece, Irela...

This. The solution of course, as we so often say, is better people. But to be able to get some, we have to have some liberty. Posted in Liberty Tagged: expenses, Liberty, morality, MPs, rules, scumbags, socialism, troughing