Welcome

Welcome to James Hammerton's blog. At this blog you will mostly find commentary on politics, typically British politics and/or civil liberties.

I am particularly concerned at the erosion of civil liberties, which in Britain at least predates Sept 11th 2001 and which has accelerated markedly since then. Of course we should deal with the terrorists, but many measures seem to me of doubtful value (e.g. proposals for a national ID card and overly broad legal definitions of terrorism) for that purpose and designed simply to increase the power of the state over the individual.

In the absence of an archive of blogs from me to review, you can get a flavour of my take on these issues at my website, http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~james and via my essays at www.magnacartaplus.org. I also post regularly to uk.politics.misc.

Finally, I'll add that many things have taken my interest over the years so from time to time I may blog about something entirely unrelated to the above!

James