As libertarians, we believe in freedom of speech. You are welcome to join in discussing the articles we publish on this site. Please feel free to disagree with them – even to disagree very strongly. This being said, we do not and cannot allow our visitors to leave whatever comments they please. Our policy on moderation falls under two headings:

1. Britain is a police state. There are many things that cannot be said in this country, or cannot be said without careful choice of words. Indeed, given a careful choice of words, there are things that can legally be said, but are still inadvisable to say. Because we have jobs and children, and because we like having our bank accounts and PayPal and Amazon accounts, we choose to play safe. This means that we will not allow any comments that may get us into trouble. If you are reading these words with a contemptuous sniff, you have come to the wrong blog. You need to find another blog, based in a free country, or run by people who have much more money or less morally to lose than we have. Bon voyage!

2. After more experience than intelligent adults should ever need of doing the opposite, we have decided not to allow anything that strikes us as trolling or spamming or persistently disruptive behaviour. This is not to say that we will intervene in every heated debate, or bring down the guillotine on single or occasional instances of behaviour that we do not wish to see. So long as point 1. above is kept in mind, we are generally tolerant. Even so, we will act firmly in those cases where any reasonable man would accept that someone was making a nuisance of himself. Think of this blog as a party to which you are welcome to bring as many bottles as you please, and to behave in ways that you would rather not have filmed and played back to you the following day. It is a party, though, with loose common sense rules. Do not have sex in the toilets. Do not vomit behind the settee. Do not urinate in the fishbowl. Do none of these things, or things like them, and you will not find yourself sat on the pavement staring ruefully at a closed front door. Please consider yourself warned.