Right, being the one-man think tank that he is, Rod Liddle has decided to troll the internet with a nasty piece of insinuation about the ‘human filth’ that is young afro-Caribbean men living in London.

Behold and tremble as Brain-trust speaks:

The overwhelming majority of street crime, knife crime, gun crime, robbery and crimes of sexual violence in London is carried out by young men from the African-Caribbean community. Of course, in return, we have rap music, goat curry and a far more vibrant and diverse understanding of cultures which were once alien to us. For which, many thanks.

Let me count the ways.

First Rod, okay, crime is not a ‘white’ issue, it’s a ‘human’ issue, okay? Inner City slums are always crime hotspots whoever happens to be living in them at the time, which means that people who live there are also most likely to be victims of crime. It’s a ‘living in a shit hole dominated by unemployment, under-education and deprivation’ issue, not a race issue.

Second, your main assertion about the crime rates – that the ‘overwhelming majority’ of certain types of crime are committed by young Afro-Caribbean males is, basically, wrong. Even if you cheat and just focus on London, the overall number of crimes committed by whites is 53.1%.  In fact, the only category of crime in which black people commit the most crimes is in robbery, for which they account for 58% in London. This, Rod, is not an overwhelming majority by any stretch of the imagination. Are you now going to qualify your claim further by limiting yourself to specific districts of London? By the way, as a curious aside, whites commit 63% of the burglaries..  Did you know that, Rod?

In order to support your implication that there’s something inherently criminal about black people and that this proves Multi-culturalism is a terrible idea, you picked London and you picked specific categories of crimes to support your ‘overwhelming majority’ claim. You gave yourself every chance..  and yet you’re still wrong. Read it and weep.

What makes the mind boggle though is that you might actually believe that this counts as a valid argument against multi-culturalism. Surely not… surely? You’re not that stupid are you?

Yes. Yes, I think you are.

Major H/T to Alex Massie of the Speccie.

Angela Epstein. You’ve never heard of her, but she’s made history as Britain’s first owner of a ID card.

But wait! There’s more!

She’s a journalist, you see. She got to the front of this “queue” after being personally invited to do so by the Government, and in return for this good fortune all she had to do was write a puff piece about it in the Manchester Evening News about how thrilled, proud and happy the whole experience made her.

Forget all this nonsense about politics, civil liberties and all that. No, ID cards, it turns out, induce almost orgasmic levels of pleasure:

I’M so proud I could almost burst I haven’t felt this good about cradling something small and pink since my daughter Sophie was born.

*Squeeee!!* WHERE DO I SIGN?! Oh, and could I possibly leave out..

I won’t rehash all the arguments in favour of ID cards – that they are a small, convenient and portable way to prove identity [Ed. That counts as rehashing]. Nor will I try and convince opponents that they are not an infringement of English civil liberties. Everyone is entitled to their view.

Hear that? We’re entitled to our view. Lovely. Thank you.

After this I was taken to a curtained booth to have biometric particulars taken down: not as saucy as it sounds but simply my photo, prints and electronically recorded signature.

Saucy! Yes, having your biometric particulars measured is like being pampered in a salon, or luxuriating in a hot bath whilst eating Flakes. Get away from the day to day stresses of the world and have those lovely people at the Identity office look after you.

As I’ve said before I understand why people have their reservations, but I personally can’t see what there is to lose if you’re a law abiding citizen with nothing to hide. And if it’s another weapon in the fight against identity fraud, illegal workers and terrorism, then that can only be for the good.

Well, Ms Epstein, you stand to lose your privacy. But hey, what’s privacy? Not as awesome as a piece of plastic with your name on it or having all your personal data on a giant computer database that far, far, far too many people have access to, and run by people with a track record for losing and leaking data. No, it’s not as awesome as those things. Privacy? Pah! Fuck it, who needs it? Perverts! Ne’re do wells! Terrorists! Immigrants! Pah!

But I genuinely felt proud and excited when I was finally handed my card. I loved seeing my name, face and the words British citizen on this tiny piece of plastic. That’s who I am, and why shouldn’t anyone know?

You loved it? You loved seeing your name and your face on a piece of card? You loved it? Really? This season’s must have accessory, ID Cards! Oo, it makes you feel all tingly! And why shouldn’t anyone know? Ah yes, we’ve established that ‘privacy’ was so last season.

And when I had a shmooze with home office minister Meg Hillier on Monday she wouldn’t say whether I’d get my 30 quid back if [the Tories scrapped the scheme]

And suddenly it all makes sense. Schmoozing with Government ministers one day, writing a ‘ID Cards are nearly as good as having babies’ piece the next.

If Angela Epstein’s name is to be remembered, it may well be as the world’s most gullible and most buyable journalist ever. Now, can I get my ID card in purple, please? I want it to match these shoes…

/ht @Benjaminglass via Twitter

I‘ve been invited to comment on whether or not I think the Government should call the bluff of the RBS board who are, it seems, threatening to resign en-masse if they’re not allowed £1.5 billion worth of bonuses.

Funnily enough I think the Government should call their bluff. I don’t really care whether or not RBS staff, of whatever level, get bonuses. I’d say if they did everything expected of them then I can’t see why they wouldn’t be entitled to the same bonus they’d get if they remained in completely private ownership.

But the board resigning? Ah go on then. Why? Because they’ve been suckling on the teat of the state knowing full well what the consequences of that would be – Government stooges on the board and political interference.  The promise that the Government wouldn’t interfere in the running of the banks it took over was always an utter fiction. It was always, always inevitable that this promise would be disregarded at the slightest hint of conflict between Bank and State.

Barclays, for example, knew this all too well. They went to extraordinary lengths to find alternative sources of funding – turns out they went to the Middle East. Their funding was more expensive than that offered by the Government, and because of that they hurried to pay it back. The result was that Barclays didn’t take taxpayers money, protected their shareholders and kept the Government’s mitts off their business.

RBS, on the other hand, took the money. They shafted their shareholders completely  - and the taxpayer – and for the life of me I can’t quite work out why they haven’t all fallen on their swords long before now.

Do I approve of the political interference? Of course not. But as Lib Dem Blogger Tristan Mills once said, “People forget that in Atlas Shrugged most of the villains were businessmen.”

I want our money back, and if there’s £1.5 billion going spare there’s only one place it should be going.

Far, far, far from from the fantasy of libertarians as gun totting survivalists, brazen cads in the form of Alan B’Stard or the pristine and prodigious builders of railroads, engines and buildings lies the reality: Libertarians are mostly rebellious geeks.

How do I know that? Well, the clue is in the incredibly skewed gender balance in favour of men (many of whom seem to be IT professionals) and the copious amount of reading that seems to be required. There’s libertarian support groups, libertarian political parties, and of course libertarian blogs – but the hierarchy is remarkable – the more outspoken and naughty you are the more accolades, plaudits and readers you get.

The only conclusion to draw is that the time of the evil dork may well be here. They run the frickin’ internet and they’re going to use their advantage on the internet to affect change in the real world. Well, that’s the plan.

Look, it’s not a criticism. I’m a nerd myself – I stayed behind at work a few days ago so I could build a robot out of the office Lego Mindstorms kit, so I ain’t throwing stones here.

But here’s the problem: If libertarianism is going to escape the political blogosphere (which is itself one mighty orgasm of geeky self-pleasure) it needs to be something that non-geeks can relate to.

So Chris Mounsey’s election to leader of the Libertarian Party is fantastic news for fellow “evil nerds”, but can Chris reach out to a more broad audience? Chris runs the infamous and fantastically sweary Devil’s Kitchen blog, and because he’s one of the naughtiest geeks (second only to the incredibly, incredibly naughty Guido Fawkes) he’s right at the top of the evil dork hierarchy.

Perhaps it’s too early for the Libertarian Party to be worried about reaching a more mainstream audience, but it’s got to be one of the biggest and most pressing matters on that party’s to-do list. Winning elections demands it, and winning power demands winning elections..

But see, all joking aside, the Evil Dorks are still onto something. You have to be outside of the mainstream to be able to see what other people don’t, and sometimes you need to go beyond what is classed as a ‘normal life’ to discover where the boundaries and barriers really are. If you never look up from the X-Factor you’re not going to notice anything wrong at all.

Sadly political change doesn’t come from a small hardcore niche of political obsessives though – at least, it doesn’t end there. It starts there (and you can argue that the internet has made that easier) – but movements either go mainstream or they remain in the shadows like mental state socialist and communist groups of old.

So the challenge for Chris – and all libertarians – is to find a way to communicate a libertarian message to non-geeks, to ‘normal’ people. I know I’m stumped on this, and have been for some time – but still doesn’t change the fact it needs doing.