One

I am sure my readers will have noticed that no issue of Free Life has been published now in over a year. This is a most shocking lapse on my part. I can plead in mitigation that I have not been entirely idle in the cause of liberty. Since October 1997, I have written and published 22 issues of Free Life Commentary. This is an Internet journal appearing fortnightly and reaching about 1,000 subscribers and perhaps another 10-15,000 on the relevant newsgroups and distribution lists. Without giving away what my Friend and Proprietor, Chris R. Tame, insists is confidential information, I can say that this is a significantly higher circulation than Free Life has ever managed. It has been a very great success. Thanks to it, I am now regarded on the Internet as the voice of British libertarianism.

I can also claim at least one victory in our cause. Last February, I was leaked details of the Government's proposed encryption ban a few days in advance; and my promptness in revealing its details on the Internet helped ensure that the policy document was never published. Someone from the Department of Trade and Industry telephoned me to say I had got everything wrong. This, of course, confirmed that I had got everything right: would I have been called had I only claimed that Tony Blair was proposing to open Joanna Southcott's Black Box? I think not.

Last weekend, I went to inspect the new branch of PC World that has opened in my area, and was gratified to see copies of PGP Encryption openly on sale. "I did that" I said to Mrs Gabb. "As Editor of Free Life Commentary, I have done my bit to keep England free".

But this is not entirely relevant. Though Free Life is not likely to rival its digital child for circulation and influence in the short term, it does need to appear; and copies will probably be around in various libraries all through the next century. I will not claim this for Free Life Commentary. If I cannot now access the half million words I wrote in the 1980s, because they are stored in an obsolete format, what hope have I that my Internet writings will survive? And that is even without this Millennium Bug, that my American readers all assure me will do to us what the Goths did to Rome.

So here it is, another issue of Free Life.

Two

Now to an announcement. This is the last issue of Free Life that will appear in the present form. Since I was appointed Editor at the beginning of this decade, I have edited and written much of the copy, but layout and typesetting have been left to Brian Micklethwait. Apart from delays in publication that have nearly always been my fault, the result has been very pleasing. However, Mr Micklethwait has found that his other work for the Libertarian Alliance is growing too large for him to be able to maintain the old system of publishing, and the next issue will be edited and produced entirely by me.

There are good and bad things to be expected from this change. Among the bad is that my editorial whims will be freed from all restraint. I never have tolerated rude words, or barbarous grammar, or the referring to people by their plain surnames. But Mr Micklethwait could usually persuade me to leave certain things alone; and his own material was published without any interference from me. In future, I shall be totally in control, and all submissions will be strained through a filter of pedantry mingled with dementia.

On the bright side, issues might come out more regularly. If I have no one else on whom I can shuffle responsibilities, I shall have to make sure that publication deadlines are met.

We shall see.

Three

I suspect that I have not yet written enough to fill a whole page. Therefore, unless I am to fill the remainder with a huge graphic, I shall have to say something political. Here goes:

As some of my readers may know, I have an interest in what happens in Sudan. I even have a personal affection for the country, having visited Khartoum and other parts more than once. I was therefore deeply concerned when the Americans bombed the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum last 20th August.

The claim that this was a chemical weapons factory, and as such a legitimate military target, collapsed within days. It was a medicine factory, and thousands of very poor people will now die of things like malaria and tuberculosis because the Sudanese health services cannot afford to replace the drugs that would have come from al-Shifa with more expensive imports from the West. I hope the Americans will apologise for this act of state terror and pay all necessary compensation.

But leaving aside the destruction of innocent Sudanese life and property, the attack raises disturbing questions about the quality of the American security services. Billions of dollars are spent on information gathering. There are spy satellite cameras supposedly capable of reading a one inch square postage stamp from far outside the atmosphere. There is a sophisticated network of listening stations all round the world capable of monitoring billions of telephone calls, faxes and e-mails. For years now, I have assumed that I am being watched by the Americans - they do this to us as a favour to the British Government, which can they say truthfully in Parliament that it is not spying on us.

Yet when Mr Clinton screams from the Oval Office that he needs public opinion diverted from the Monica Lewinsky scandal, his Ministers and officials order the bombing of a civilian target.

What is going on in Washington? In the past, we could argue whether the American foreign policy agenda was basically good or bad. But we usually assumed that the agenda was based on accurate information about matters of fact. The al-Shifa bombing will eventually be settled - an apology and  compensation will be made from Washington. President Clinton will eventually leave office, or be removed from office. But the new impression of American intelligence gathering will remain.

I used to think that sharing a planet with the Washington Establishment was like sitting in a room with a dangerous psychopath. Every so often, he would start muttering about the need to "contain" some threat while toying with an elephant gun. But a bit of toadying and a few gifts could keep him from pointing the thing in your direction. We now know, however, that it is more like sitting in a room where a blindfolded lunatic is lashing out at random with an iron bar. We are all equally at risk.

My first thoughts about the al-Shifa bombing was that Sudan had a problem. It now seems clear that the world has a problem.