Tom Morris

Yes, it's not quite as good as "Mill on Liberty" - Mill had slightly more principles than Mr Blair. Check out this reprehensible piece of doublespeak:

"What about the charge that ID cards and anti-terrorism legislation transgress basic liberties and are, as David Cameron put it, 'unBritish'? Here, we must put a new case about liberty in the modern world. I am from the generation that I would characterise, crudely, as hard on behaviour, but soft on lifestyle, i.e. I support tough measures on crime but am totally pro gay rights. I believe in live and let live, except where your behaviour harms the freedom of others. A society with rules but without prejudices is how I might sum it up."

So, Mr Blair disagrees with legal paternalism? He believes in H. L. A. Hart's theses in Law, Liberty and Morality? Oh, wait, if anybody challenges you on libertarian grounds, you simply have to say "you don't understand the modern world" and that silences all dissent.

How about actually answering our criticisms? If you strongly disbelieve in legal paternalism, why haven't the Nu Labour government done anything to liberalise drug laws, except of course lowering cannabis to a class 'C' rather than 'B'? (And even with that, when even the scantest of evidence turns up, the government are trying to work out the best way to reverse that decision without being made to look politically impotent).

If Mr Blair believes in human rights so strongly, why did he preside over Belmarsh? Much as I hate to say it, it's the House of Lords who are protecting our liberties, and a small gang of judges.

If Mr Blair believes in civil liberties, why are ASBOs being handed out with reckless abandon? Why are people like David Mery being locked away without recourse for, what was it?, wearing a jacket that's too thick and checking his mobile phone.

If Mr Blair believes in civil liberties, why is his government trying to introduce a bill, under the justification of the War on Terror (or whatever bullshit, macho name we've given to killing innocents while we don't sully our hands with the guilty), which will give the Government the power to introduce laws without actually putting them through Parliament.

If Mr Blair believes so much in civil liberties, why am I filmed around 400 times a day on my travels though central London? If this isn't Orwellianism, I don't know what is.

The other thing about Orwell, if you'll recall correctly, was the way that language was always being chopped up for political purposes. When Blair says liberty, he doesn't mean "the right to do what you want unless it harms another". He means "as long as I approve, you can do it, but if I start frowning, you better beat it".

I read a blog quite often called Butterflies and Wheels. The bloggers, Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom, wrote a satirical little tract called "The Dictionary of Fashionable Nonsense: A Guide for Edgy People".

On Amazon.co.uk, it's got a rather amusing review from Ryan:

"Another trite and innocently framed attack on those intellectuals who are trying to decenter the--and here is a phrase they make fun of--dominant hegemonic discourse, that is so corrosive and debiliating to our civilization. The authors of this book hark back to a mythical Baconian age of deductive logic. They insist on the heroic processes of logic and reason. All of this other stuff is just poo poo, lets make fun of it because we know that a.)not only can we make money off it--logically and reasonably in a consumerist world that they admire..."

I just love these types of arguments. Of course they'd say this! I mean, they'd make money!

Of course, Lyotard, Derrida, Susan Sontag, Jean Baudrillard, Deleuze and Guattari, Foucault and all the other academics who B&W and their allies oppose never got a royalty cheque - no never!

Now, as a trainee hermeneut (or at least, someone who spends a lot of time reading Gadamer and Ricoeur), I think there may be some interesting insights in postmodern philosophy, but it does seem that whenever postmodernist types write clearly (as I humbly try to), they reveal the ultimate vacuousness of their position.

I thought it was Winston Churchill who said it, but it's in fact Otto von Bismarck: "Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made." Perhaps it should be "Postmodern philosophies are like sausages."