Up Town, Top Speaking

Last week at the IEA, Mark Wallace of the Taxpayers' Alliance began his speech with this piece of trivia to illustrate modern day state hyper-regulation.

· Pythagoras’ Theory – 24 words
· Lords’ Prayer – 66 words
· Archimedes Principle – 67 words
· Ten Commandments - 179 words
· Gettysburg Address – 267 words
· US Declaration of Independence – 1,321 words
· Magna Carta (including signatures) – 3,856 words
· EU regulations on sale and trade of cabbages – 26,253 words

One lives and learns, eh?

Thanks to skilled speakers such as Mark, the Voices of Freedom debates have thus far been highly entertaining and thought-provoking, and even provocative at times, so I'll be popping up there again tonight for the final event of the series.

Entitled "Who holds the liberal torch in 2010?", the list of speakers is again impressive, featuring James Delingpole (writer, journalist and broadcaster), Julian Harris (chairman, Liberal Vision), Chris Mounsey (leader, Libertarian party), Brendan O’Neill (editor, Spiked!), Mark Pack (co-editor, Liberal Democrat Voice), Paul Staines (aka blogger Guido Fawkes), and Michael White (assistant editor, Guardian).

Hmmm, with any luck there could be an eloquent row in the offing there.

If you're going. mine's a pint in the pub after. If not, here's a little vid for your perusal. Although focussing on US stats, it's still a good illustration of why state restriction/prohibition are the most counter-productive and damaging policies (or aspirations) known to man.

Hasta mañana.