A young woman has been murdered because of the way she dressed.

Is this time for another law or is murder adequate?

Esteemed sister Hak Mao has decided to have a pop at the “Libertarian Party of the UK”. And rightly so given that grouplet’s steaming hypocrisy when it comes to the liberty of vegetable picking and office cleaning Johnny Foreigner and his mates.

If I were unemployed, unskilled and living in Peterborough, I would gladly join our Polish immigrant friends and pick squash for £7 an hour. And if I worked at the Job Centre in that godforsaken hole of an East Anglian town, I would happily withdraw dole benefits from those white non-working class chavs who tell BBC reporters: “I prefer to sign on than do that.”. Let the lazy fuckers feed from the bins out the back of Tescos.

But Hak’s post has set me thinking. My knowledge of the British “Libertarian” right goes back a few decades, and this diminutive and somewhat bizarre cult has always struck me as being a bit stiff-armed and big-booted.

Take its iconography, starting with that of the UK’s “Libertarian Alliance”. Not only is this organisation’s logo almost Nazi in its angularity, but it displays a total lack of aesthetic sense. The image doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the political philosophy espoused by the group.

And then there’s the new “Libertarian Party” thingy, with its feudal griffin. It is a peculiarly English thing: this dull, quasi-fascistic imagery masquerading as wadical anti-statism.

Elsewhere in the world the image of “Libertarianism” is a little different, though hardly much of an improvement. For example, the “Libertarian International” is for my liking much too fond of pictures of smiley happy “Libertarians” in uniform polycotton suits. They remind me of Scientologists.

I cannot be doing with that kind of thing myself. It’s all very culturally conventional, with 2.2 kids (gifted, of course), immaculately-groomed dogs and suburban box houses.

Now this elegantly-dressed and cultured chap is THE business:

Beards of the world unite!

On a related subject, there was an excellent programme this morning on Radio 4 about the London Poll Tax riot of March 1990. This was late 20th century anarchism’s finest hour, and I hope the Beeb posts a recording of the documentary on its Listen Again thingy.