Liberty Alone

On Friday I saw Tom Papworth and recommended Reason. Given we were both somewhat inebriated this may have been forgotten, so I thought I’d mention it here, along with other blogs and sites which I think are essential reading for liberals:

First up is Reason, a US magazine dedicated to ‘Free Markets and Free Minds’ which to me sums up part of the essential core of liberalism. Its a libertarian magazine which covers many areas from Science Fiction to liberal Iranian freedom fighters. It is an American magazine, so it does give a nice view from the other side of the Atlantic and expect some pro-gun arguments. They do publish all the main articles from the magazine online as well as much more, and they have a great blog Hit & Run. The magazine itself is astoundingly cheap to subscribe to (especially with current exchange rates) or it can be acquired in many Border’s stores.

A hop across the Channel takes us to Brussels and the Globalisation Institute relocated there from London. Fighting for a liberal Europe, the hero of the think tank is Richard Cobden, possibly the greatest Radical ever who really should be a greater hero of the modern Liberal Democrats than he is.
The GI is a great resource for liberal, pro-European arguments and should chime well with LibDems.

Closer to home, in Oxford lies my current favourite LibDem blog, that of Jock Coats. His posts are always interesting and he’s really helping me reshape my view of the 1906 Liberal Government and many of its policies, and the way they’ve been perverted. Definitely a true radical, he really aspires for a liberal future for the country. He may be the LibDem version of a gold bug, seeing LVT as a solution to many problems as a gold bug sees a gold standard, but he does make very good arguments in favour, and LVT is something the LibDems need to come back to.

Coming to London, and I think possibly my most controversial choice would be the Adam Smith Institute. Primarily associated with the Tories, I think it is a great mistake for liberals to ignore them, coming as they do from a strong liberal background. Their blog is insightful and definitely has some ideas for liberals everywhere.

Lastly, heading over to Portugal is one of the UK’s best known bloggers, Tim Worstall. Again, there’s much for all liberals to glean from his blog. He’s especially good at trying to expose flawed thinking and lazy statistics. If you don’t read his blog then start.

With all of the above, you will probably find something to disagree with. Perhaps their priorities are not the same as yours, or you think the reasoning is flawed. They are all well within the broader liberal tradition however, and it is well worth considering their points of view, even if its to harden your resolve against them.

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