So Much for Property rights

August 1, 2013 Longrider General News, misanthropy 12

The British government is trying to stop US singer Kelly Clarkson taking a rare turquoise and gold ring once owned by Jane Austen out of the country.

Does the British government own this artefact? No. Who does, then?

The star, who won the American Idol TV show, bought the jewellery at auction last year for more than £150,000.

That, frankly, should be that. She bought and paid for it fair and square. It is hers to do as she pleases with it.

But Culture minister Ed Vaizey has put a temporary export bar on it and has appealed for UK buyers to come forward.

It is none of Vaizey’s concern. It belongs to its new owner who wishes – perfectly reasonably – to take it home. That is what you do with property that you have bought and belongs to you, not the government. And if the egregious Vaizey feels that it should be bought by a UK buyer – then he should have put his own money up and bought it at the auction. He didn’t. Too bad. What we are seeing here is the nasty, vile politics of spite and envy usually reserved for the leftists. That it is a Tory just tells us how far to the left this current crop have drifted.

And, just to remind you all – as if you need reminding – when it comes to property rights the usurping of; the state is not your friend. Frankly, that we even have a culture minister is an obscene waste of taxpayers’ money.

12 Comments

  1. I’d hire a jeweller with a portable forge and position myself outside Downing Street having invited the press to watch me have it melted down for scrap!

  3. This is one of those occasions where I could almost wish that Ms Clarkson had the money and the temper to have the ring melted down, moulded into a small gold penis, and then send it to Ed Vaisey with “fuck you” attached on a post it.

  5. But banknotes, national icons, feminism, heritage, twitter, Jane Austen…

    …can I say it here again? I hate Jane Austen…overhyped, gossipy, gold-digging literature. How the feminists got so charmed by books that are essentially about girls trying to snare the richest bloke defeats me.

    But hey!

    • How the feminists got so charmed by books that are essentially about girls trying to snare the richest bloke defeats me.

      Actually, you are doing her a disservice here. She was satirising the social conventions of her time. This was particularly clear in Pride and Prejudice to the point of it even being in the title. That said, I find her work tedious and uninspiring. She could have learned a thing or two from Mary Shelley about storytelling.

      I feel the same about Charles Dickens as Julia does about Austen and for the same reason. I had to wade through David Chesterfield for my A level exams. Tedious and turgid to the point where I nearly gave up with it. He could have leaned a thing or two from Bram Stoker. I won’t read Dickens these days because his prose is so dull and his plotting so dreary – yet he was doing exactly the same as Austen – making a comment on the social contentions of the time.

  7. I agree with you 100% I read this article this morning whilst doing my usual trawl of the news pages and thought “What a bloody nerve” this government is more to the left than the left is. Who does this pompous little man think he is …with a name like Vaizey one wonders what he knows about`culture to start with. Ms Clarkson bought it in good faith, there was no addendum to the auction notes saying ps. if you buy this item it must be kept in the UK. This country and it’s successive governments are far our stepping their authority.
    I suggest Mr Vaizey puts his hand in his pocket if he’s so bothered,but has he even asked Ms Clarkson if she is willing to sell, or has he put the ban in place to attempt to force her selling.

  8. The legacy is in the literature, like it or loath it, and it can be read and enjoyed anywhere, not the artifacts. Who has Shakespeare’s second best bed these days then? And indeed who had it away with the best one?

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