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Dr Fox loses my vote
One of the better things about British politics is that it is, or was, rather different from American politics. The United States is a wonderful country in countless ways, but it is hardly inspiring in its politicking and its electioneering.
To many people here the whole thing seems very alarming, from the spendthrift, vulgar razzle-dazzle of campaigning to the astonishing clout of the commercial lobbies, from the blindness of single-issue passions to the scary power of the authoritarian religious Right. It would be good to think we don't go in for that sort of thing over here. But we do, or are beginning to; most things American turn up here in the end, and some British politicians have been determined to hasten the process.
The Labour Party has been at it for some time, drinking deeply at the well of American political intoxication, with very cheering results. I suppose it was inevitable that the Conservatives should have a go too, but it is depressing. Things took a turn for the worse with the shadow health secretary's call last week for a "huge restriction, if not the abolition, of our pro-abortion laws". It sounds so unmistakably American. It is true that Dr Liam Fox did not say that Conservatives would make this official party policy, and it is true that William Hague has always said that there should be a free vote on matters concerning abortion. All the same, it looks very much like an attempt to exploit abortion for political ends, exactly as all sides do in the United States, particularly on the religious Right.
Otherwise I cannot imagine what Dr Fox was doing, in making his pro-life call in the form of a prayer, in a book put out by the Conservative Christian Fellowship. This fellowship, which now has offices in Conservative Party headquarters here, is in close contact with the Right-wing Christian Coalition in the United States, and with the alarming Marvin Olasky, an immensely important figure on the religious Right in the Republican party, and a close adviser to President Bush. Dr Fox appears to be well up on American politics; it was he who arranged the first meetings between Mr Hague and Mr Bush. Dr Fox's prayer hit the news very soon, and very opportunely, after Mr Bush's announcement that he would withdraw state funding from pro-abortion charities overseas.
Dr Fox is absolutely entitled to his views on abortion, but if the party leader has promised a free vote, keeping this an issue of conscience as it always has been here, why is the shadow health secretary so publicly inflaming the hopes of the anti-abortion lobby? Why did he say anything at all?
It looks very much as if he calculates that if the religious, anti-abortion Right can deliver conservatives votes in America it could do so here. In the recent US election, voting was extremely closely correlated with church-going: the more church-going the more anti-abortion, and the more church-going the more a vote for Bush. Perhaps Dr Fox feels the Conservative Party has little to lose and much to gain from imitating the Republicans and repositioning itself accordingly.
Let's hope not. Conservatism here, as opposed to over there, is about less government, not more. It is about personal freedom, and personal responsibility; the less state intrusion, the better. Having a baby is one of the greatest personal responsibilities one can take on - hence the enormous importance of the freedom not to take it on. It is perhaps the most important freedom that women have. It is not as though anybody likes having an abortion. There may well be a case for restricting the period in which it is legal to abort a baby. But there can be no case for even hinting to the electorate that a Conservative government would see the anti-abortion lobby right. In the traditions of this country, that is un-Conservative.
It is not right, it is not Right and I don't think it is politic either. People in this country do not like religion in politics; we fear religious dogmatism and we don't like the Government trying to make windows into our souls. Plenty of Conservatives, Christians and those who loathe abortion will feel that it is neither Conservative nor British.
The Sunday Telegraph | Sunday, January 28, 2001 | Comments (0)
Internet adoption isn't wrong: it's our own system that is at fault
Anyone who saw the 1960s television film Cathy Come Home will be unable to forget the scene in which the screaming heroine's babies are torn away from her by social workers. It was shown again this month, on a programme about the 100 greatest moments in television.
It was indeed an outstanding moment. Its power came not only from the terrible anguish of the mother, whose single fault was poverty, but also from the knowledge that this cruelty was absolutely unnecessary, and yet all too common in real life.
I was reminded of the horror of it again this week, by the television footage of social workers carrying away the tiny so-called internet twins in matching carry cots. The babies were seized on Thursday night from their new adoptive mother by Flintshire social services - it is not yet clear why - and taken into what is called "care".
Removing a baby from its wretched mother and father, without the most urgent necessity, is bad enough. Putting it into care can sometimes be even worse. The fate of children in care in this country is a national disgrace. A 1998 Social Services Inspectorate report about children in care found that, although children in care make up only 0.5 per cent of the country's population, they sooner or later form a staggeringly high proportion of young people in serious trouble.
Young men who have been in care make up 22 per cent of the prison population, and 39 per cent of prisoners under 21. One in three of the people sleeping rough in London has been in care. One in four children in care aged over 13 doesn't go to school regularly. And so on.
According to the report, no local authority social services department can be confident about its services for children in care. The report was truly damning about management, in every way; as Frank Dobson, the former health secretary, said at the time: "The system doesn't work."
Even the twins' biological mother in America appears to know that letting our social services have them is not a good idea. Their would-be adoptive mother now claims that she is afraid that two of her other children, her own natural sons, may be taken into care. She may be right. Flintshire social services says, rather ominously, that it plans to monitor the wellbeing of all the couple's children.
One can only gasp. This has a nasty whiff of the police state. Of course it is possible that Alan and Judith Kilshaw may somehow be unfit to be parents of their own natural children, as well as of the twins, and therefore that their boys' "wellbeing" does need "monitoring".
But, if so, how come it is only now that social services has somehow become aware of it? How come monitoring wasn't going on already? And given that the Kilshaws, whatever their personal foibles, have managed to bring up four other children, how can it be right to take away the baby twins in such a rush, and subject them to yet another move?
Such constant movement and change is very bad for babies. Apparently they have already been christened twice, as well as having travelled thousands of miles. And now another change, as well as further changes ahead during the inevitable legal battles.
So what was the urgent necessity for interfering like this? What was the justification for causing so much anguish and upset? Flintshire social services applied for an emergency protection order under the 1989 Children Act; this legislation provides that social services can do so if they believe a child is likely to suffer "significant harm" unless removed, or if inquiries into a child's welfare are being frustrated by the "unreasonable refusal" of access.
It is not clear on what ground Flintshire social services was granted an order to remove the twins, and it is not saying. It is clearly a very serious business; these orders are rare, and significant harm is supposed to mean just that: serious emotional, physical or sexual harm - not merely the ordinary risks of life with ordinary just-about-good-enough parents.
Of course, it is possible that there may be something terribly wrong with the Kilshaws as parents, but we have seen no evidence of this. And the simple point is that social services ought to have discovered that long ago, if that is the case. Equally, if they were good enough for their other children, why aren't they good enough for the twins? They are married, they are educated, they have money, and they have committed no crime.
If it weren't for the Sun and the posturings of the Prime Minister, who has let it be known that he is "horrified", in an entirely typical attempt to extract feel-good publicity out of other people's misfortune, no one would have taken the slightest interest in the Kilshaws.
It is also, I believe, absurd to object so violently to adoption adverts on the internet. We already have adverts for such children in newspapers in Britain, put in by social services; the internet is merely a more efficient form of advertising.
What is wrong is not advertising for adoption, but the adoption system, both in America and here; over there, it is much too speedy and lax: over here, it is far too intrusive and slow. This has been, from every point of view, a sickening story, and it is entirely due to the obstacles that social services have repeatedly, and perversely, put in the way of adoption in this country.
The Daily Telegraph | Saturday, January 20, 2001 | Comments (0)
Charities should use a long spoon to sup with Labour
The Chancellor has just discovered charity. Imagine! On Thursday, Gordon Brown grandly called for a massive army of charitable volunteers to work in schools and hospitals, and promised the biggest transformation for a century of the relationship between the state and what he calls "voluntary action" - I notice that the word "charity" still seems to stick awkwardly in the Labour gullet.
He proudly announced several new initiatives, including a pounds 300 million "package" of measures to boost volunteering, explaining that the Government intends to "empower the forces of compassion and care in our communities". For too long, he said, "politicians have thought that the man in Whitehall knows best. Now we understand that the woman from the WRVS, the mother from the playgroup movement or local volunteers with their own expertise might know better." (Understandably, he did not mention the woman from the WI.)
Oh dear. One of the many punishments of getting older is having to watch the pendulum of fashionable ideas swing needlessly, wastefully, back and forth. It is maddening to have Mr Brown lecturing us on the virtues of voluntary work, when Labour has done so much for the past 100 years to undermine the very idea of charity.
The forces of socialism did everything they could to nationalise charity, by nationalising personal responsibility and compassion and replacing it with the promise of total Whitehall support from womb to tomb. They were very successful, especially as this attitude took permanent root in the state sector generally and predominates to this day, whatever any government may try to do.
Worse still, Labour has actually despised charity. Until recently, it saw charity as demeaning and do-gooding; if tender loving care was needed, it was for the state to provide it, not self-appointed and over-privileged Ladies Bountiful.
Now Mr Brown admits the error of believing that "politicians once thought the man in Whitehall knew best". If he were honest, he would acknowledge that it was in fact only Labour politicians who believed that. Conservatives have always been in favour of independent charity and community spirit; Edmund Burke's "little platoons" of society were and remain a central Conservative idea. Mr Brown is most welcome to the notion, but he might at least acknowledge that it was Labour that did its best to disband those little platoons.
Long ago, while waiting to join a BBC training course in the late 1970s, I did two months' voluntary work in the then Brompton hospital. My job was to do various small errands for patients, or just to sit with anyone who wanted to talk. I would have liked to have done more, but the unions prevented me from doing anything, however menial, that might otherwise be paid work. None the less, some of the (heavily unionised) staff were actively unpleasant to me, muttering about do-gooders.
That didn't surprise me, upsetting though it was. What truly shocked me was that, when at last the patients discovered that, for all my little pink uniform, I was unpaid, several of them were very angry with me. Their reasons were standard Labour claptrap. The woman in charge of recruiting volunteers told me, sadly, that very few stayed long. Now Mr Brown is positively anxious to have armies of volunteers providing services in hospitals. I don't suppose the unions will wear it now, any more than then.
I remember the decades following socialist ideology in schools, when teachers actually told parents not to interfere, in their amateurish way, with their children's reading at home, but to leave it all to the professionals. So what did we get? A massive decline in literacy. Last year, the Government appealed to parents to spend time each day reading stories with their children, lamenting how few still do. One can only groan. And now Mr Brown says he wants volunteers in schools to help children with their reading.
Of course, we must welcome Labour's change of ideological heart, and not inquire too curiously about the reasons: charity must never look too closely into anyone's motives. What's more, we must try not to snigger at the failure of every single minister to live up to his promise to do a day's voluntary work as part of the Government's Millennium Volunteer Scheme. It is good that the Government means to respect and support the voluntary sector. But all the same there is something very alarming about it.
Closer co-operation between the state sector and the voluntary sector might sound like an excellent idea. My direct personal experience, over many years, has been just the opposite. Charities that get involved with the state, and that accept state money, get taken over by the state.
I have found it heartbreaking to watch this happen. Any charity that wants to stay charitable, to stay independent and to hold on to its ideals must steer clear of the state. It may be that Mr Brown does not know this, or cannot understand it. But it ought to be obvious; charitable impulses are too idiosyncratic, too personal and too varied to be caught and held down by the heavy hand of the state.
Can't you see it now? The latest, government-issue Love Thy Neighbour Starter Pack, with new, improved Mission Statement and EU Guidelines. Health and Safety regulations for Doing As You Would Be Done To By Outreach Mentor workshops. Mr Brown may just have discovered the advantages of a closer partnership with charity; charity should be even more wary of it.
The Daily Telegraph | Saturday, January 13, 2001 | Comments (0)
The obsession and hysteria that a single word ignites
We quickly get used to things the way they are. We soon forget how things used to be. That is why this country's neurotic attitude to race no longer seems, as it has actually become, extremely odd; in my adult lifetime, we have moved astonishingly fast from a time when we were all innocent of racism until proved guilty, to a time when we are all assumed guilty, whether we acknowledge it or not.
I am glad to think that this mass neurosis does not seem to extend to our private lives; most of us, I believe, have normal relationships with people of all colours. But, publicly, there is a clammy miasma of anxiety, sometimes almost of hysteria, which would seem ludicrous if it did not obscure so many important questions behind a fog of angry misunderstanding.
This fog seems to be getting thicker. William Hague was disgracefully, and wrongly, attacked by ministers for "playing the race card". Last week, there was an outcry against Michael Heseltine for allegedly playing it, too, when he made some perfectly reasonable remarks about asylum seekers; the reaction was all too predictable, and only the most recent in such misguided liberal outbursts.
Before that, we had the Parekh report, which was deeply racist precisely because of its obsession with race, and put forward what I think are race libels: the comment that the British "have an iron-jawed disinclination to recognise equal human worth and dignity of people who are not white" is one.
The Macpherson report also struck me as deeply neurotic. When a society turns on itself and accuses itself of monstrous thought-crimes (Macpherson was followed by a lemming-like rush of public institutions, all beating their breasts and crying mea culpa) and when those crimes are not just personal, nor even institutional, but committed whether the guilty are aware of it or not, and when thinking people are somehow shamed into acquiescence, then one must look for explanations in the area of the irrational.
It must surely be, in part, a neurotic over-reaction to the nightmare of real institutionalised racism, as in Nazi Germany. Sadly, the pathological obsession with race in this country is decadent and self-destructive. Meanwhile we have seen an extraordinary growth in public and private bodies of race-awareness rules and regulations; the emphasis, detail and pettiness of which defy both belief and common sense. To call them obsessive and irrational would be an understatement.
To say this is not to deny that racism exists, nor that it is evil. It rightly arouses contempt and anger. But in their zeal, anti-racist activists, imagining racism everywhere, see it and denounce it where it doesn't exist; for inflammatory hyperbole, try reading the Guardian, where Polly Toynbee called the editor of this newspaper a racist.
Their wrath should not be heaped, as it regularly is, on any and every body who questions contemporary orthodoxies about race and ethnicity. Paradoxically, and rather tragically, the misplaced indignation of the race relations industry serves only to create racism.
The debate about asylum seekers has been obscured by the noxious vapours of this obsession. That is entirely the fault of all those bullies and cowards on all political sides, who, for the past quarter of a century, have deliberately obscured or ducked the real issues. Actually, the issues are very simple and not in themselves controversial.
Obviously, there is nothing in itself wrong with someone trying to escape misery and find a better life, whether that misery takes the form of torture, persecution, poverty or the fear of a clitoridectomy performed with a rusty knife by granny. Any of us would try to escape to somewhere better. That is hardly "bogus".
There is nothing wrong - in fact there is everything right - with the ideal of political asylum, however we define it. There is nothing wrong with immigration. We need immigrants, or at the very least we need skilled immigrants, to support our ageing and infertile population. Besides, immigrants have contributed very richly to this country. And this is perhaps the least racist country in the world.
At the same time, there is the serious problem of numbers. (It is yet another contemporary libel to say that talk of numbers is racist.) This country is very small and very crowded. It may have the fourth largest economy in the world, but it is also the third most densely populated major country in the world. Its hospitals and schools are on the point of collapse. Its green fields are disappearing under housing. Yet there are many millions of entirely genuine political asylum seekers all over the world; we could not possibly take all of them. We cannot take very many immigrants of any description. The question is, how many?
The genuine anger in this country about asylum seekers has nothing to do with the cost of supporting them each year, which, at roughly pounds 1.2 billion a year, is arguably not so very great. It has not even to do with the chaos and incompetence with which this Government has lost control of the situation; the Home Office does not even know how many asylum seekers are now here.
It has to do with the knowledge that the Government is overwhelmed by this, that it has not got an overall immigration policy and is incapable of forming one, or even of discussing the subject at all. All this is, as I say, very odd.
The Daily Telegraph | Saturday, January 06, 2001 | Comments (0)
