Minette Marrin: Strange deluded person

Some may have noticed that this blog was recently voted 14th in the top libertarian blogs category at Total Politics. Very proud we are too.

However, it would seem that we must be misunderstanding the term 'libertarian' if Times columnist Minette Marrin is to be believed.

In a Radio 4 debate today, Minette professed herself to be a right raving libertarian. So much so that she considers John Stuart Mill her 'hero'.

Such a committed libertarian is she, that she advocated the following:

- Forcing people to pay for their healthcare if they indulge in unhealthy lifestyles
- Forcing supermarkets to change the layout of their shops
- Using compulsion instead of information as the Change4Life campaign is not working
- Implementing a sugar tax to stop people eating foods they would like to
- Harassing flat-dwellers into not smoking in their own homes
- Banning people from eating food in the street

This in less than an hour, amongst a panel of two other experts, interspersed with phone-in contributors, news updates and trails for future programming.

And to top off a world class performance of exactly why she is anything but a libertarian, she finished with this exceptionally laughable denouement.

"I understand that people don't like compulsion, nor do I"

Really, Minette? You could have fooled us. I think that instead of 'libertarian', the description you were looking for is 'authoritarian' or perhaps even 'totalitarian'.

It's obviously an easy mistake to make. Just ask Alan "We need more nannying" Maryon-Davies, another who professes to be libertarian.

We at Freedom2Choose are well aware of what libertarianism means. We advocate it on a daily basis. It's why we gained that pretty badge on this page after only a few months of operation. We, strangely enough, believe in the right of the individual to choose how they wish to live their life.

That's what libertarianism is, and why you, Minette, have no bloody clue.

Another day, more selfish troughing bigots

As if further proof were needed of the selfish nature of anti-smokers, a couple more holier-than-thou Labour smoker-bashers were exposed today as greedy money-grubbers.

The aptly-named George Mudie has been snuffling around trousering as much as he could get away with.

George Mudie, a Labour MP who has been one of Gordon Brown’s key attack dogs over the profligacy of bankers, claimed £62,000 in expenses for his London flat in four years, while having a mortgage of just £26,000.

He was a bit light on what he could claim for mortgage interest seeing as he is lucky enough to only have a £105 per month bill. So why not just kit out his lavish pad with top-of-the-range gear at our expense instead?

£7,000 for a Moben kitchen
£650 for carpets
£580 on repainting
£929 on tile work
£50 parking ticket for his builder
£249 for sofa covers
£299 for an LCD television set
£169.99 for a DVD player
£1,274 for a dining table and four chairs
£1,750 for a bedroom suite
£249 for an LCD television set (yes, another one)
£546 for a settee and chairs
£325 for a leather armchair

To be fair, he did say he will pay back the £50 parking ticket, so that's all right then.

Pub owners will be interested to know that Georgie-boy was quite happy to contribute to their hardship and the death of over 3,000 pubs while he was living the high life at their expense.

Then we have Ben Chapman, another who voted enthusiastically for the smoking ban. And also another Labour MP being, ahem, creative with his mortgage claims.

Documents seen by the Telegraph suggest that between December 2002 and October 2003, Mr Chapman deliberately over-claimed for interest on the mortgage of his London house by about £15,000.

He's not going to pay it back, either.

However, when asked whether he would repay the money, he said: “The answer is no. It’s all something that was agreed a long time ago.”

These people are selfish to the core. They are the final leg baton-carriers of a tobacco control movement which is purely motivated by getting what they, personally, want.

No amount of pleading as to the harsh financial and social realities a blanket ban would bring was ever going to sway them. They want the world on a stick and are solely motivated by self-interest and greed. A trumped up 'health' trojan horse was exactly what their confirmation bias craved to be able to ensure that every pub, club, bingo hall and hotel in the country would be agreeable to them. Fuck everyone else, they got what they wanted and that is all that interests them.

If anyone ever uses the words smokers and selfish in the same sentence to you again, just point them in the direction of hideous porkers like this louche pair.