Sean Gabb
1) This is short notice, but there will be a Libertarian Alliance meeting on Monday the 9th March 2009, starting at 7:00pm. The meeting will be in the upstairs room at The Coach and Horses on Great Marlborough Street, Soho, London. To find out who the speaker will be, and to ask any further questions, send e-mail to David McDonagh mcdonagh10@yahoo.com
2) The Chris R. Tame Memorial Lecture will take place on Tuesday 17th March 2009 between 6.30pm and 8.30pm at the National Liberal Club, One Whitehall Place, London SW1 (nearest tube Embankment). Professor Kevin Dowd will speak on “Lessons from the Financial Crisis: A Libertarian Perspective”. For further details, contact Tim Evans tim@libertarian.co.uk
3> Here is a video of my speech to the Marlborough Group on the 22nd February 2009. In this, I take issue with those who claim that British law and the British Constitution have been breached by New Labour. Constitutional lawyers like Michael Shrimpton are wholly correct that whatever goes through Parliament has the force of law. He is also right that the Queen cannot be held to have broken her coronation oath – any Act that conflicts with the words of her oath are taken to have altered the meaning of the oath. My reply is to ask “so what?” The law and Constitution exist to enable ordinary people to live in peace and freedom. They draw their legitimacy from the extent to which they achieve this purpose. When they stop achieving this purpose, or when they begin to frustrate this purpose, they become illegitimate, and can rightly then be overthrown and replaced. Where the Monarchy is concerned, I argue that, whatever the lawyers may claim, there is a contract with us. We agreed in 1688 to regard these people as the Lord’s Anointed, and they agreed to respect our rights, and also to protect them. Since the present Queen has broken her side of the bargain, she had no right to our deference. This speech was given in the heart of England to a meeting of rather elderly conservatives. There was barely a single person there who had not been made by circumstances into a fan of Oliver Cromwell. Here is the speech link:
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-1760896777516663004
4> My speech to the Oxford Union on the 26th February 2009 went very well. I will write a full report of this in the next week or so, but am very busy at present.
Best wishes,
Sean