January 17, 2006
It just ain't what it used to be
Over at Samizdata Guy Herbert quotes Lord Rees-Mogg in the Times:
In Parliament, particularly in the House of Lords, there is a growing reaction against such social control [as identity cards]. Most of us think policemen should not be turned into busybodies, warning people not even to discuss adoption by homosexual couples; arresting them for any trivial offence; threatening smokers and publicans; and galloping after fox-hunters. We resent this on behalf of the public, but we also resent it on behalf of the police.One would like to hope but no one can take any great solace from the Lord, or indeed any Lord. The proposition that social control is on the rise and that freedom in many respects is in decline (and by freedom I do not mean the spin doctors definition of freedom from the fear of crime or some such) is, to my mind, true. However, and it is a big however, relying on the House of Lords to do anything about it is like trying to build a bridge from the charcoal of a bridge that was burnt down in haste for less important matters.In the history of Britain there have been many periods when liberty was threatened. The immediate threat is a government with a lust for control, with little respect for liberty or for the House of Commons, but enjoying the opportunity of using new technologies for social control. The British are certainly less free than we were in 1997 or 2001. The fightback will be laborious and difficult, but there is a new mood.
The glee on the faces of ministers, MPs, and their supporters in the general public must have been something to behold when the Labour government pushed through the bill to ban fox hunting using the parliament act. I wonder how many of them now are hoping that the House of Lords will gallop to their rescue?
And let us not forget those in opposition to that law were not insignificant in number. If half a million marched through London one can only gawp at the true number that must have been against the ban it in principle, dwarfed only by the number that couldn’t care either way or who thought the whole thing was a waste of time and their tax payer’s money.
The argument that it is right and proper that in a democracy the will of the commons must be obeyed for something like fox hunting must also be true for all other items passed from the commons to the Lords that are of at least the same importance to the nation as removing one method of pest control from a list of methods used to control that pest. A Labour mandate for a resolution of the issue either way is not an argument that can bolster either side.
What proposed legislature does Lord Rees-Mog think falls below the radar of that particular precedent?
Any growing reaction against such social control must come from the commons. The Lords, if one is to judge the use of the parliament act by precedent, must be as ineffective from the point of view of the lover of liberty as the ban of fox hunting must surely be from the point of view of the fox.
