Dear All,

I have just paid the next year’s WordPress bill for the Libertarian Alliance – £288.00. Because I am presently in funds, I can pay this myself. However, I am writing now to give you the chance, if you feel so inclined, to contribute to this payment.

Libertarianism is Britain has been on life support for many years. Liberty is not something in which most of the British population appear to be interested. It is certainly not something in which anyone in or close to political power even pretends to be interested. There was a time when aspiring Conservative politicians claimed to be libertarians. They never did anything very libertarian once elected. But they would show up to libertarian events, and sometimes employ people like me to ghost articles for the newspapers about libertarian issues. Those days are long past. We have three main parties which use the electoral system to apportion jobs within a single regime that never changes. This is a regime that sees England as a trading platform with shops and a few pretty buildings from the past. It is abolishing cash. It is spying on us and censoring what we can say and read. It is making us pay though inflated heating bills for an unjust and unwinnable war with Russia. It is blasting us with propaganda about the joy of eating bugs. You try running a libertarian organisation in these circumstances.

For the most part, I hardly bother. I have mainly retreated into teaching Greek and Latin. This keeps me busy for about seventy hours a week. I used to write fifty or sixty thousand words a year on libertarian issues. I used to travel to universities several times a month to speak. Nowadays, I write perhaps once a month. I shy away from travelling anywhere to speak, and I limit my Zoom appearances. The Free Life website has a couple of new posts a week. Libertarianism as a whole is on life support. The Libertarian Alliance is itself close to suspended animation.

On the other hand, the Libertarian Alliance must be kept in being. In terms of leadership, it stands in direct succession to the great Liberty and Property Defence League of Late Victorian England. It has a large and distinguished archive of publications. It is absolutely free of any party loyalties or affiliations. It is the obvious place from which efforts can be started in more propitious times for the reconversion of England. Keeping it in being is one of the few contributions I can make to a cause that I discovered when I was twelve and to which I remain committed in my declining years.

I have already paid this year’s WordPress bill, plus a few smaller bills that I will not mention. I can swallow these. They are hardly crushing. Some people become active in the libertarian movement with the idea of making a living. Most of us who stay in it find we are spending our own money on the Movement. Speaking for myself, I have never tried to make it pay. Even so, it would bring cheer to my soured heart if others were to make some contribution to these costs. Here are some links, one to the Libertarian Alliance PayPal account, another to my personal Wise account:

director@libertarian.co.uk

https://wise.com/share/seanivorg

Please only contribute if you are yourself in funds. As said, I have already paid the bills, and things will continue for another year without regard to what anyone else may contribute. A contribution would make me happy, but only if it was something you could afford.

Best regards,

Alan Bickley