For us heartless capitalists, can be truly thankful we don’t live in North Korea or Cuba, where the free market is a demon to be slain with all due and undue haste. However, in the words of Ron Paul, “Capitalism should not be condemned, because we’ve never had it.”

The idea that we live in a fully-fledged market economy, abiding by capitalist principles, has been severely dented in recent times by the government’s reaction to the Northern Rock crisis. It started off with the government throwing £24bn at the bank in a misguided attempt to restore confidence, and has continued farcically for the past month.

In today’s PMQs, we had Gordon Brown refuse to answer a perfectly valid question by Lib Dem acting leader and Orange Booker Vincent Cable about whether the government had indeed spent £24bn propping up Northern Rock. And Brown astonishing refused to explain or justify such a massive expenditure of taxpayers’ money.

As far as Northern Rock is concerned, matters about what is actually happening within the company are obviously of commercial confidence. I gather that the stories in the newspapers this morning are about papers unrelated to the Treasury, the Bank of England or the Financial Services Authority, and only to Northern Rock itself. I cannot comment on those confidential papers.

But, since the government just paid Northern Rock £24bn - with the expectation that it’ll lose £2bn of it - the taxpayer would be quite justified in arguing that we own Northern Rock’s arse. If we want them to jump, they’d bloody well jump. And if we want to know how Northern Rock is getting itself out of trouble, the government had better tell us. Either that or the crooks should give us our £24bn back.

It’s another tale of the government being secretive about state business, following the disclosure that the government didn’t tell the public about the employment of illegal immigrants to guard Metropolitan Police sites because they didn’t think it would play well with the voters (the issue that David Cameron raised in PMQs today).

Equally bad for government-voter relations would be the collapse of a high street bank, so the government decided to do something fundamentally stupid by guaranteeing a business that frankly shouldn’t have been operating as it was. Mervyn King has said:

What we want to do is to give incentives for people to behave properly, so in judging the interest rate at which we lent to Northern Rock we asked ourselves the question: “At what interest rate would they have to pay in borrowing from us today that would make them regret not having taken out an insurance policy as Countrywide did before the 9th of August?”

But they should have asked, “How the hell can we make them regret it more than making them go out of business?” That would cost the taxpayer nothing, and create a pretty darn strong disincentive for companies to act that irresponsibly in future.

Instead, this government rewards irresponsibility by loaning them taxpayers’ money at below commercial rates. That is, they rob from those people that made the right decisions, and reaped what they sowed, and gave it to people that made the wrong decisions. They should have been made to reap the whirlwind.

Former astronaut Frank Borman said, “Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell”, and, as CEO of Eastern Air Lines - which itself went bankrupt - he should know. Capitalism can’t work without the incentives; if there are no incentives to succeed, no disincentives to fail, the market resorts to socialist lethargy: encouraging bad behaviour and cutting off the invisible hand in an orgy of Sharia retribution.

Here we have a government hell-bent on taking the ’sharp corners’ off capitalism, when it’s those ’sharp corners’ that are the cutting edge of capitalism, and its actual purpose. We need, instead, a government that doesn’t despise the free market. On that doesn’t rob taxpayers blind. One that isn’t afraid to take tough decisions or stand by as others make them for themselves. We need a government that’s open and honest. Sadly, in the vein of Ron Paul, we can barely condemn this government’s dishonesty, because we’ve never had one that has shown a shred of decency.

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond has finally gone public on his long-held desire to rename the Scottish Executive to ‘Scottish Government’. This troubles me for a number of reasons.

First, this move reaks, as all moves by the Tartaned One do, of nationalism. Nationalism implies that one has greater ethical responsibility for those of the same race than to those that happen to be born on the other side of lines along the ground: lines that would be entirely invisible if the state didn’t post soldiers along them. It is racism, and a collectivising philosophy that runs contrary to the worth of the individual.

Second, we already have a government. It’s called Her Majesty’s Government. That one government is authoritarian enough, without the uppity local politicians in Scotland engaging in a pissing match with Westminster to see who can have the greatest impact on the people’s lives. The only result will be more government, at a time when we desperately need less.

Third, and here’s something that the Taxpayers’ Alliance should be livid about, it’s costing the taxpayer a bomb. £100,000 just for the design - and that design is simply the word ‘Government’ and a plain Scottish Flag. Moreover, it’s not even a real name change, but actually little more than a rebranding exercise. Only the UK Parliament can rename the Scottish Executive, and there’s no sign of that happening any time soon.

Until the Sassenachs do what Salmond’s nationalists demand, he’ll be left presiding over the same-old Executive from behind a desk adorned with expensively-redesigned stationery, business cards, and paperweights, plotting how he can spend even more taxpayers’ money trumping Gordon Brown and turning Scotland into his own personal spending fiefdom. The SNP’s little renaming fun does nothing to help the people, only to boost their own egos. Actually, maybe ‘government’ is the perfect word for them.