FREE LIFE
A Journal of Classical Liberal and Libertarian Thought
Issue 43, 11th March 2003

Free Life ISSN: 0260 5112 Published on the Internet by Sean Gabb for the Libertarian Alliance
25 Chapter Chambers, Esterbrooke Street, London SW1P 4NN, Tel: 07956 472 199
E-mail: sean@libertarian.co.uk, Web: http://www.seangabb.co.uk/freelife/, LA Web: http://www.libertarian.co.uk/
Free Life Editor: Dr Sean Gabb, LA Director: Dr Chris R. Tame
All material © the Libertarian Alliance and the respective authors. All rights reserved.
The views expressed in articles in Free Life are not necessarily those of the Editor, the Libertarian Alliance, its Directors, Committee, Advisory Council, subscribers, or other authors.

Contents

Editorial:
Make Smoke, Not War
Sean Gabb

On the 14^th of February this year, the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002 came into force. We could, I suppose, regard it as a Valentine present from the rulers who claim to love us. But there is nothing loving in its intent or its penalties. The Act makes it a criminal offence, punishable by a maximum of imprisonment for two years to publish or cause to be published in this country any advertisement for any tobacco product. Section 14 of the Act gives its enforcement officers the right to enter any business premises without a warrant, and to make whatever purchases may be required to prove an offence - that is, the Act enables entrapment of the unwary.

I will not enter into the usual discussion of whether such prohibitions serve their intended purpose to discourage people from smoking. What empirical evidence I have seen indicates that such laws merely prevent those who already smoke from switching to other brands, and that, freed from the need to spend money on advertising, the tobacco companies make bigger profits. But this is beside the point. What is important is that smoking is and ought to be a perfectly lawful activity. Therefore, I see no reason why the manufacturers of tobacco products should not be allowed to encourage us to use them.

At the head of the Act is the following Declaration:

Mr Secretary Milburn has made the following statement under section 19(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act 1998:

In my view the provisions of the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Bill [HL] are compatible with the Convention rights.

This is an untruth. Indeed, it is probably a lie, considering how the projectors of this Act must have known what they were doing. The right to advertise is a necessary part of the right to freedom of speech. There is no essential difference between an encouragement to smoke a particular brand of cigarettes and a declaration that the coming war with Iraq is right or wrong. What is said in any of these cases may be wrong. It may even be a deliberate falsehood with the intention of encouraging dangerous or evil acts. But there is no essential difference between any of them.

Of course, it is claimed that advertising is a special case, because money changes hands. But I fail to see how this is an essential difference. It is not even a real difference, as political speech often involves spending money: the main parties have their advertising budgets just like any private company, and many interest groups hire the services of public relations experts.

What we have, therefore, is an act of censorship. Perhaps it is difficult to feel as sorry for the Directors and shareholders of a big tobacco company than for some political martyr. But this is, even so, censorship. As such, it is to be protested.

Let me, then, encourage my readers to go out and buy a packet of Benson and Hedges cigarettes. These are, in my view, the best cigarettes on the British market. Their smooth yet rich and mellow taste separates them from all lesser brands. Nothing else - nothing, that is, that is legal - can match their effect on my creative powers as I sit at my keyboard fretting over the latest horrors of this age. At only £2.24 for a packet of ten from the Student Union shop in my university, what bought pleasure could be cheaper? If you do not smoke yourself, try them. If you are disinclined to try them, give them as a present to some dear friend, and watch his face doubly glow as he lights one. Do not believe the claims about the danger of smoking them. Most of these claims are exaggerated. Some are willful lies. As things stand, you are probably more likely to die from the consequences of one of Mr Blair's wars than from smoking.

Yes, my dear Readers, make smoke, not war.

In closing, I must add that this endorsement has not been in any way procured by Benson and Hedges Ltd. Nor, since Free Life is no longer offered for sale, is it published in the course of a business. Nor, if I am wrong in my reading of this terrible law, is it published with the authority or even prior knowledge of any other officer of the Libertarian Alliance.

The Problem with the Conservative Party:
A Brief Reply to Steve Davies
Sean Gabb

In issue 41 of Free Life, which is the official journal of the Libertarian Alliance - and as such quite different from Free Life Commentary, from which it is merely fed - I published an article by Steve Davies, replying to my own articles on the Conservative Party. This is an interesting article, quite different from my own in its analysis and conclusions, and I gladly bring it to the attention of my readers. Its main point is that the success of the modern Conservative Party rested until about 1990 on the unity of a coalition dating from the 1920s. This brought together economic liberals with political and social conservatives. They were brought together and held together by a common fear of socialism at home and abroad. Once this common fear was lifted, the coalition began to drift apart. The liberals went partly to New Labour or into political indifference, and the conservatives since have been unable by themselves to gain enough support for another Conservative Government. On this analysis, the failures of leadership and other personnel are superficial matters - symptoms rather than causes of the Conservative decline.

As said, I do urge my readers to look at this article. However, I do not entirely agree with its analysis. Undoubtedly, the Conservative Party is, and always has been, a coalition of different ideologies. Undoubtedly also, one of the main purposes of the 20^th century coalition was achieved with the defeat of socialism, after which its own reason for being was naturally weakened. Even so, this should not have brought the Conservative Party to its present state of ruin. Anti-socialism was not the only connecting thread. The coalition had many other reasons for being. There could have been a rearrangement of the coalition during the early 1990s, and this could have resisted the challenge of New Labour. Even if it had lost the 1997 general election, it could have made a faster recovery. Certainly, it could now be coasting for an easy victory at the next election. We presently have a Government that is hard at work turning the country into more of a police state than it already is, and that is putting up taxes faster than we can earn more money to pay them. It is handing over control of our domestic affairs to the European Commission, and of our defence and foreign policies to the White House. It would at least be nice to have an alternative to vote for at the next election that was neither utterly useless nor just as bad as the present set of office holders.

All those journalists and politicians who talk about the need to "put the Conservatives back in touch with the electorate", or to "modernise" the Party, are right in their understanding that the old assumptions and tactics that worked so well even for John Major in his early years do not work any more. Where they go wrong, however, is in their conclusion that the Conservatives must make themselves into a more sober imitation of New Labour. Perhaps the most notable advocate of this solution is Tim Hames, who writes for The Times. In a closed meeting a few years back, I heard him develop his argument with considerable force. In brief, he argued that, because the middle classes all nowadays had been to university and travelled abroad, they would not vote Conservative as the Party now defined itself, and that it was therefore necessary to make the Party softer and gentler. Mr Hames has brought round much of the Conservative leadership to his view. Therefore, Theresa May and her funny shoes at the last party conference.

But, while change is needed, this is not the kind of change that is needed. What needs to go is the appeal to a sentiment that is no longer shared or tolerated by large numbers of the middle classes. This is the view that good food stops at meat and two vegetables, that long hair is an abomination for men - let alone jeans for women and nipple rings for both - and that Winston Churchill was a great and good man. Rightly parodied for two generations, these views are in rapid decline; and no electoral appeal based on them can possibly succeed. But this is not at all to say that English conservatism itself is in decline. It has changed, but still exists in undiminished force. The modern conservative is either sympathetic or indifferent to the sexual and other personal habits of others, and decidedly friendly to low taxes and regulations and to a reformulation of the public sector so that it delivers humane but economical standards of service to those who cannot afford to provide for themselves - and uncompromising in rejection of the European Union and in concern over other matters of great national importance. To make these conservatives into Conservative voters, it is a waste of time for the Party leaders to present themselves as cosmopolitan or politically correct. Much better is to return to older traditions of Toryism - to combine economic and social liberalism with a firm defence of the traditional constitution and of national independence. This is the new winning coalition of interests and ideas. Give us a Conservative Party that promises to conserve the ancient but endlessly adaptive order of this country, and all the clever talk of a shrinking Conservative electorate will look as silly as those predictions made in the late 1940s that Japan would never manage an economic recovery.

Principles, however, are not enough. Ideas may be conceived and may reside in some Platonic realm untouched by the business of the world. But to have any impact on the world, they need to be articulated and carried into effect by living men. And the problem in the Conservative Party at the moment is that there are not enough men with sufficient firmness of character for the work that has to be done.

Once or twice, William Hague seemed on the verge of taking up a winning strategy. Early last year, I thought Iain Duncan Smith really had. But though much was promised, nothing was done. In part, this was because the Parliamentary Conservative Party is filled with people who despise principles too much even to see the value of pretending to have any. Others see their interest as saying just enough to excite the remaining faithful without openly confronting the leftist hegemony in our public life - a leftist hegemony that they have in any case accepted, whether from conviction or prudence. The rest are simply weak or stupid or both.

Anyone who insists that the Conservatives must sit down and look hard for the ideas that will, in the 21^st century, reconnect them to the majority of people in this country, is wrong. That has already been done, though by activists outside the leadership, and usually outside the Party. The real problem is one of personnel.

What kind of person is the average Conservative Member of Parliament? He begins as someone of middling intellect and great if vague ambition. At university, he involves himself in Conservative politics, but without clear ideological commitment, and with a strong compensating bias towards making friends with anyone who may be useful for his future advancement. After university, he will get a job either working for a present Member of Parliament - the more senior, the better for him - or employed in some professional or business sinecure. His thoughts will be focussed on getting himself onto the list of acceptable candidates maintained by Central Office. Once on that, he will begin the search for a winnable seat. Most fail, and the luckier failures find themselves stuck for life in jobs they hoped would be temporary. Those who succeed get into Parliament around the age of 40. The average Member has little practical knowledge of the world at large, and very little education as this is commonly defined. He knows nothing of history or literature. Any knowledge of economics and political philosophy he may have will have come from skim reading the pamphlets written by others and put out under his name. If he knows any law, this will be the minimum required to function as the lowest kind of practitioner. What he does know is how to read the mood of whatever meeting he is addressing, and how to imply without making the appropriate commitments, and how to make himself useful or agreeable to those above him, and how, with outwardly unruffled charm and grace, to pull and kick others out of his way as he crawls, hand over hand, up the greasy pole towards what nowadays passes for political success. And it helps, by the way, if he can be a closet homosexual, or have some other scandal in his background that can be used to keep him under control should be ever feel inclined to act against his previously observed character.

A party in office, with a clear agenda and a weak opposition, can afford a parliamentary party made up of such people. Indeed, their pliability will make them worth encouraging. The problem for the Conservative Party is that the machine for producing such people became all-powerful in the 1980s, and they began, by virtue of seniority and by sheer lack of any alternatives, to move into the leadership. This would at any time have been a problem. But it coincided with the disintegration of the coalition described by Steve Davies. What was needed now was a reshaping of politics around new issues and with new electoral coalitions. But this needed imagination and boldness. The Party needed another Disraeli or Baldwin. What it got was John Major and William Hague. These coincident facts explain the whole of the past ten years of electoral decline.

Not every problem has a solution, and this may be one of them. At the moment, several Conservatives are looking complacently at the opinion polls. These show that they are just a point or so behind Labour in the United Kingdom as a whole, and therefore probably quite some way ahead in England. Perhaps this Labour Government is beginning to crumble, and all that must now be done is to be patient. I doubt this. The Government is unpopular over the long term for its handling of public services and taxation. I am not sure the Conservatives have anything different to say about these things: I know that the very radical alternatives are off the agenda. At the moment, it is unpopular for its war policies. But, if anything, the Conservatives are more bellicose still. The rise in Conservative support is not because people are more inclined to trust the Conservatives, but because some people are so maddened by Labour that they will support any opposition, and because many people simply do not know what the Conservatives stand for, but are simply registering discontent in ways that used to benefit the Liberal Party. These are not, I think, the foundations on which a Conservative victory at the next election can be built.

So long as the parliamentary party remains as it is, I am not sure that any recovery is possible. Perhaps a leader will sooner rather than later be chosen who knows what to do. He will shut down Central Office and purge the parliamentary party - thereby allowing the diversity of opinion and character that Conservative strategists talk about without knowing its true meaning or how to deliver it. But short of this, I do not expect to see much in the way of Conservative revival.

Steve Davies and Brian Micklethwait are right when they talk about the slow death of the Conservative Party. They are wrong in their various ways when they claim that the problem is of the same nature that destroyed the Liberal Party after about 1910. The votes are there for the gathering. The shame is that there is no one in place with the imagination or the ability to gather them.

The Problem with the Conservative Party:
Steve Davies Writes Again
Steve Davies <steve365@btinternet.com>

Dear Sean,

Thanks for the response. I think we don't actually disagree that much. It's just that I am rather more pessimistic (not my usual role I might add). Like you, I don't think the old 'conservative vote' (which stood at about 40 per cent of those voting) has shrunk. I think it has bifurcated into two increasingly antipathetic sub groups.

Something very similar has happened on the left, we have seen the Strange Death of both Labour and Tory England in my view. I don't disagree at all with the kind of platform you set out, this is broadly similar to the "whig" line of my analysis. Like you, I think such a platform would stand an increasingly good chance in the next few years. The problem is firstly what kind of vocabulary/rhetoric would you use?

This matters much more with voters than policies and the problem for Conservative politicians is to find a rhetoric that will move two groups who increasingly dislike each other at a visceral level, even when they agree on matters of policy. Not beyond the wit of a smart politician however.

That raises my second problem however. That is the malign, even malevolent, role of the Daily Mail, which is unfortunately by far the most powerful Tory paper. The Mail (or more precisely Paul Dacre) has a very particular cultural political agenda (anti-gay, family values, moral panic of the week stuff) which it pushes relentlessly. It will attack and destroy any politician who shows any signs of moving in the direction of social liberalism, because the paper's politics are all about opposing that kind of politics. This is enormously destructive, and guarantees continued divisions. Why does it matter though?

You are spot on in your account of the kind of clones who now make up most of the Tory Party. Trouble is, you can say exactly the same about New Labour, the LibDems, in fact most modern political parties. So we're dealing with something systemic here.

I think the root of the problem is the power of the various media in modern politics, above all the medium of TV (which however takes its agenda from the Press). Politicians now find it very hard to communicate with voters other than through TV. One result is that a small class of media persons act as gatekeepers and decide what kind of people/arguments will be made and how they will be construed/represented. The response by politicians is the kind of inbred professionalism you describe because you need both contacts and long training to be able to handle the modern media.

This in turn makes it very difficult for official parties to adopt the kind of platform you describe, given the incomprehension/malevolence of both 'left' and 'right' gatekeepers. (This isn't just a problem for people with our views, as I say it's systemic). I actually think that the Conservative Party (and indeed other parties) has to go right back to the proverbial square one and build up a network of institutions which will get round this problem. One thing would be to make more use of the many Conservative social clubs around the country.

I don't know if I have explained myself very well, I basically feel that it's a lot more difficult than something that could be solved by a change in personnel - though that would be a great start!

Cheers

Steve

PS I would add a couple of points I forgot to mention last night, firstly that no matter what anyone does there's still the psephological problem I mentioned. Labour is not doing that well in terms of votes but its vote distribution is in "Goldilocks" mode.

Also, the narrowing of the gap between Labour and Conservative does not reflect a Conservative recovery. The Conservative vote is still where it has been ever since "Black Wednesday", i.e. oscillating between 28 and 33 per cent or in other words stable at about 31 per cent. The only change recently has been a shift of votes from Labour to LibDem. This has the paradoxical effect of harming the Tories while leaving Labour unscathed - in terms of seats. An election held today, on current polls would produce a gain of about 20 to 30 seats for the LDs and a Labour overall majority of about 170, despite their getting less than 40 per cent.

For there to be a change of seats Labour has to lose a relatively small number of middle class suburban voters in the South East; and this group, on all the evidence, is becoming steadily less likely to vote Conservative even now. I actually think politics in general is in crisis, not just the Tory Party. We are in a 'becalmed' state where the official divisions no longer reflect the real cultural/economic conflicts in society. This has happened before (e.g c1753 to 1782, 1847 to c1872) but eventually a new division has emerged.

I think the important splits in modern Britain are between those who benefit from globalisation and recent economic change versus those who do not benefit or (same thing in practice) perceive themselves as not benefiting. In geographical terms within England that is greater Greater London plus other cities such as Manchester vs the rural areas and older industrial areas. How this kind of realignment will work out or when I can't guess.

The Problem with the Conservative Party:
A Party Activist Replies
Sean Fear <fear_sean@hotmail.com>

Dear Sean,

Both your article and that of Steve Davies are interesting.

I don't know how things will develop politically over Iraq. I think that allied forces will gain a very quick military victory, but it is quite conceivable that problems will develop from then on. I don't think that even a quick win will benefit Blair politically. He didn't benefit from the Kossovo conflict, and Major didn't benefit from the first Gulf War. Margaret Thatcher benefited from the Falklands but there was real enthusiasm for a war of liberation then which does not apply now.

It is possible that Iraq will split Labour in the way that Europe split us in the 1990s. However, we can't count on it.

With regard to your other points, I think the Conservatives have got to face up to the fact that their likely support must increasingly come from C1 and C2 voters, pensioners, and the self-employed, rather than the socially liberal AB voters who so entrance the likes of Tim Hames and Michael Portillo. I think we are far more likely to regain the Harlows and Thurrocks of this world than the Hampsteads and Twickenhams.

Such voters are likely to feel that they overtaxed, that crime is out of control, to be dependent on the state for health and education and to be fairly nationalistic over issues like immigration, race relations and Europe. People like Andrew Rosindell and Norman Tebbit speak quite authentically for them.

I don't think that a doctrinaire approach to social and economic liberalism is likely to appeal to such voters, however philosophically consistent it might be. We may well have to accept that there are some activities that we can't legalise, and some things we can't privatise, whatever our private feelings.

For me, the most important issues are withdrawal from the EU and the repeal of most "human rights" legislation that effectively turns judges into our political masters. I think it vital too that we end the current open door immigration policy, and ensure that non-white citizens think of themselves primarily as British, rather than as members of ethnic interest groups.

In order to achieve those aims, there are other areas where I would have to make concessions.

The War and Domestic Politics:
A Prayer for Boredom
Sean Gabb

Last Friday the 28^th February, my wife and I had David Carr down to dinner. Of everyone I personally know who thinks war with Iraq would not be against the British national interest, David is the most brilliant and persuasive. He accepts he may be wrong, but honestly believes that British interests at the moment require some support of the Americans. On his last visit, our conversation ended dramatically, as we smoked by his car while, beyond the cold November sky over the sea, the Moon moved steadily into eclipse. This time, he was to stay the night, and we simply sat around the dinner table till three in the morning, drinking a gallon of coffee between us and discussing the sad state of public affairs. We avoided arguing over the external aspects of the war, as our positions are now set, and there is little reason to enter into them until the facts available should decisively change again. Instead, we discussed the domestic consequences of war. This started a train of thought that is continuing. While it leads me to conclusions different from those with which David might agree, they do come wholly from the fact of his company.

In writing about this war, I have thought so far almost entirely in terms of the British external interest, taking internal matters as separate. But it should be obvious that the two are closely joined. Tony Blair has wagered his reputation on the outcome. If he loses in any plain sense, he is finished as Prime Minister. This being so, let us consider the internal consequences of the various likely outcomes. These are success, failure, or no active military involvement by this country.

It always helps to define terms. Bearing in mind the scale and nature of public opposition, I think success now must mean a short and victorious war. David and I agree that victory requires a ten day campaign with not more than a hundred British casualties, and reasonably small numbers of Iraqi civilians dead. It also requires a speedy and honourable British withdrawal from the region - whatever cost and danger may be left behind for the Americans to face.

Give him this, and Mr Blair will be saved and more than saved. His public standing will return to what it was in 1997. He will be the man who stood by his principles, facing down opposition in the country and in his own party. He will be rock on which British world prestige stands. He can rid himself of Gordon Brown and all the other enemies in his cabinet. He will rejoice in the praise of his Conservative opponents and the respect and gratitude of his allies. That he is now opposed by a majority of the electors and at least half the Establishment will then count for nothing. Success in politics is everything. Success in doing what is wrong is worth more than mediocrity in doing right.

Now, if British interests required a victory in war with Iraq, this might be a price worth paying. But the benefits of victory would need to be immense. For Mr Blair is easily the worst peacetime Prime Minister of the past hundred years. He inherited the bones of a police state from the Thatcher and Major Governments, and has spent the past six years putting pound after pound of flesh on that skeleton. He has increased the range of state power and centralised and corrupted its exercise. He has completed our civilian disarmament, and loaded us with hate crime laws, and further relaxed the bonds of due process. He has turned every institution of state into part of a vast patronage machine, in which advancement - and perhaps even employment - go on the basis of ideological conformity. He has further subjected us to the unaccountable rule of the European Union. He has taken us repeatedly into other wars beside this one. All that has restrained him - for the Conservatives have not counted as an opposition in any of this time - is the rivalry of Gordon Brown and his satellites, and more recently the growing contempt and loathing of the British public.

I know that his various enemies on the right are presently reconsidering their opinion of his character. At least he has courage, they are saying, and we must respect that. I disagree. By looking at his known character and his now permanently desperate appearance, I believe he joined with the Americans last autumn largely out of vanity. He wants the adoration of his people and to make a great noise in the history books, and is not worried about his means. He recalled how his Serbian war had been opposed at home - though not by any majority or any organised body of opinion - but how it had turned out after all not too expensive in terms of British lives, and that people had soon grown tired of arguing over its merits. That had allowed him to sweep any number of uncomfortable truths out of sight - about the lack of evidence for Serbian ethnic cleansing in Kossovo, and about the behaviour during and after the war of our Albanian "allies" there. And it had given him a reputation for military resolve among those who value such things. And though it did him little good with public opinion at large, it did him no observable harm. Much the same happened with Afghanistan. I think he believed the same would happen with Iraq. He never thought there would be mass opposition, and that his serial justifications of war would be so thoroughly examined and so contemptuously rejected. What people now take for resolution is no more than the repeated cry of "double or quits" of a broken gambler.

So far, he has seen his European strategy collapse, together with his moral authority within the Parliamentary Labour Party, and his relationship with the media and his general status within the country. His multicultural dream is also crumbing, as the Asianised cities of the north prepare for wild rioting against his war policy, and his own Ministers in response use language that legitimises the electoral appeal of the British National Party. Unless he wants to leave Downing Street some time between now and Christmas, and be remembered as a sordid failure, Mr Blair has no choice but to continue talking firmness in public while privately hoping things will not end in disaster. Perhaps, as people keep telling me, he does know something we do not about Saddam Hussein, and is careless of self and all he has so far achieved in his present service to the public good. But I see no reason to believe this. He is a gambler on an unexpected losing streak.

Give this man victory in war, and there is no limit to what he could then do. If he wanted, he could take us into the Euro. If not, it would only be because the Americans told him not to, or the Europeans told him to go away. He could replace the House of Lords with a body of his own nominees. He could strip the Queen of her ability to get in his way. He could complete the abolition of trial by jury. Wrapped in the Union Flag, he could continue the New Labour project of dismantling all that remains of our free and ancient institutions and the transformation of this country into a New World Order satrapy. And he would get us into further wars. However much justification there might be for this present war - and I still cannot see any - the man has at least an indifference to human suffering. I go further. He has a taste for blood. He raised the cup in Serbia, and will not put it down in Iraq. Give him success in Iraq, and he will gladly follow the Americans wherever they please to go next.

Therefore - always granting a danger from Iraq that he has chosen not to share with us - I cannot imagine a worse outcome for this country than victory under Mr Blair.

But I do not think victory in the sense defined above is possible. Of course, a simple military defeat is hard to imagine. The balance of forces is wholly against Iraq. Intelligent and ruthless use of force must bring victory to the Americans. But are they sufficiently intelligent and ruthless? The Iraqis ought to have realised from their last military defeat that a conventional defence of their country against the Americans would be a waste of time. Whatever positions they take in the open can be seen, and their weapons are as old and useless as the cavalry charges with which the Polish Army tried to stop the Germans in 1939. An effective defence can only be in the cities, where modern surveillance and weaponry must give way to individual courage or desperation and a willingness to massacre civilians. I am not sure the Americans can excel in these qualities. I do not trust the spirit of their soldiers for vicious street combat, or their nerve to fire into the women and children the Republican Guard would certainly drive into battle before them - or the willingness of the American public to watch all of this played out live on television. The battle for Baghdad might turn into another Stalingrad, with the world media playing the part of the encircling Soviet armies.

And then what? I am told by those who think they have access to private information that the Americans really want Iraq as a base from which to control the Middle East, much as we used to control it from Egypt and India. This will give them control over the largest reserves of oil in the world, and with it the ability throughout the present century to coerce every other power in the world that relies on imported oil. It makes better sense than any other explanation I have yet heard, and it sounds feasible in military terms. But, again, possession of military force is not the only relevant calculation. There must be the will to use it. Whatever their money and whatever they can buy with it, have the Americans the will as an occupying power to face down a continual war of terrorist attrition? There are large numbers of Iraqis who can be expected to be less grateful for the destruction of a tyrant than resentful of an infidel occupation. Iraq has open borders with other countries where the authorities will give at least passive support to the terrorists. Moslem clerics all over the world are already crying jihad against the Americans and British. Give us a war, and there will be more than enough of the faithful willing not merely to listen but also obey. And we know now that terrorist retaliations can be carried right into the territory of any occupying power. Looking at their record in Lebanon and Somalia, I really have as little confidence in their will to occupy as in their will to conquer.

It is unlikely that the British forces sent out to war will see much of the fighting. But they will probably be expected to share in the occupation. To look at the human costs of this, look at Ulster and multiply by a hundred.

But long before its human costs could be finally reckoned, such a war would have destroyed its American and British projectors. Considering its public justifications so far given, this war cannot involve serious casualties on any side. Never mind the uproar in Washington, Tony Blair would be finished in London.

But what then? Would the Government collapse? If so, what would replace it? I imagine the most likely replacement would be a reconstructed and much diminished Labour Government headed by Gordon Brown. Whatever he privately thinks of it, he would be able in the event of failure to claim he had always been against the war. He could then clear the Blairites out of government and settle down to making the best of things. The Americans and Europeans would have no time for him. He would have to deal with a serious recession; and he would probably face a revived Conservative opposition. Since Mr Brown has long specialised in keeping all his political options open, I cannot predict more.

How about the Conservatives? I know they have for the past ten years been a joke without a punch line. And they are presently solid in their support of the war. But the near chance of power can breathe life into even the most dispirited opposition. And it is worth recalling that, while leaving it destroyed what remained of Conservative unity and morale, membership of the Exchange Rate Mechanism had been fully supported by Labour, which was able, even so, to profit from the crisis of September 1992. Perhaps the Conservatives would benefit in the same way from a disastrous war.

This being so, the resulting Conservative Government would be in a fine position to do as it pleased. Out of government - and especially in such circumstances - Labour would be too split and demoralised to oppose anything. The Conservatives would have a clear run at reforming the public sector in the ways they are beginning to discuss. They could reverse many of the police state measures they are beginning to denounce. Given the collapse to trust between London and the Paris-Berlin axis, they could simply walk away from the European Union. If they then gave the country to America, it might well be a more cautious America - ruled by an Establishment that had finally discovered the meaning of nemesis.

It sounds rather good. The only problem is the cataract of blood required to bring this about. Here, I should be honest. Though I accept it as a legitimate use of state power, and though I am no liberal idealist where foreign policy is concerned, I do hate war. If I write about foreign policy in very cold terms, it is because I do believe that cold measurements of interest and power, and an indifference to considerations of honour and friendship between nations, are best suited to the prevention or minimisation of war. When the actions of states are as predictable as planetary orbits, collisions become less common, or at worst are made predictable. The cruellest wars are generally those entered into with indefinite aims, or presented in moralistic terms so to inflame national hatred. And I do hate war. Though no pacifist, I do hate war.

I was a boy in Chatham in the 1960s. I played in the bomb sites that still dotted the town. Every day in the streets, I could see old men from the Great War and often still young men from the next - blinded, without arms and legs, with faces horribly scarred. I lived for my first six years with one of my grandmothers. Many of her neighbours were widows from the Great War. She herself had lost her husband when HMS Avenger went down at the Casablanca landings. Because he had been reported missing at Dunkirk, but had stepped ashore in England from one of the last fishing boats out, she only gave up hope in the late 1940s. But from that time, nearly all joy went out of her life. I hardly saw her really happy. I know that she cried to herself on the usual anniversaries. Most of my great uncles on both sides were either killed by the Germans or taken prisoner by the Japanese.

I suppose I spring from a race of heroes. But any glow of heroism that may have attached to my ancestors had faded long before I knew of them. What I most remember is the long, tired regret of those left behind for all they had lost. I remember the Armistice Day parades in the rain, the military bands playing Gustav Holst, looking up and down the endless lists of the fallen. War is not exciting. It is not glorious. It is not about solving the problems of the world in one easy step. It is about young men and civilians blown apart, and mutilated survivors, and grieving widows, and fatherless children. It is one of the greatest artificial evils of this world. It may be sometimes a necessary evil. But it is not something to be casually loosed on the world - certainly not when the only benefit I am able to conceive is the propelling into office of a gang of political cowards and nothings who could have got there by their own efforts two years ago had they only not been what they are, and who might in any event soon throw away all the advantages gained and break all the promises made if they were propelled there. I cannot think it worth inflicting on a larger scale in Iraq the quiet horrors with which I grew up in Chatham.

And so we are left with the third option - of nothing much at all. Perhaps Mr Blair will tell the Americans that his supporters have melted away and that he cannot credibly take us to war. Perhaps the Americans themselves are having second thoughts, bearing in mind the settled opposition of the French, the Russians, and now of the Pope. We are not in a repeat here of the July crisis of 1914. Then it was impossible for any one of the continental powers to cancel its mobilisation orders once given, for fear that the other side would continue with its own, and thereby benefit from the administrative shambles of cancellation. The Americans have moved large numbers of men and weapons to the Middle East. These can be moved back without military danger. All that is needed is the right face saving excuse.

Perhaps some means will be found of saving face. Perhaps the Iraqis will hand over their last and probably feeble weapons for destruction. Perhaps some ambitious minister or general in Iraq will murder Saddam Hussein, and then talk loudly enough about human rights to let Messrs Blair and Bush announce a bloodless victory and pull out.

If this, political life will go on here with a few changes - few but still welcome changes. Mr Blair will be more weakened than otherwise. His European policy will stay in ruins, all chance now gone of our being taken into the Euro. Gordon Brown will remain a powerful disruptive force within the Government, the decline of his own reputation counterbalanced by that of Mr Blair. The Conservatives can, depending on further circumstances, continue their slow recovery or their drift to oblivion. And the rest of us can go back to moaning about the higher taxes we are paying for fewer and worse public services, about the mishandling of macro-economic policy, and about the further erosion of liberties and birthright. It once looked so depressing. It now deserves nostalgia.

On the whole, I doubt if prayers are listened to. But uttering them does no harm. Let us then pray for a return to boring normality, and for an eventual régime change closer than in Baghdad.

The War and Domestic Politics:
A Comment
Andrew Stubbs <andrews@stusoft.com>

Sean

A further scenario is a coup from within once troops start to cross the border. I also suspect that the Special Forces already deployed are doing everything they can to make sure Saddam's location is the first target in the opening salvo.

Although some suggest that the Americans may want to use Iraq as some sort of nexus of power for themselves in the region, recent history in Afghanistan shows they shy from colonial administration. Their influence will probably come from the influx (re-influx?) of American companies to rebuild. The DOD is already lining up potentials.

As long as one despot is not replaced by another and a stable "democracy" emerges the potential for diverting Muslim anger from external enemies such as the US and the possibility of marginalising fundamentalism by creating an example secular democracy in the sea of dictatorships in the region then perhaps the loss of life may be in a small way "worth it".

The creation of a uni-polar world as a result of success by the US is another issue. It may lead to further conflicts, North Korea is a maverick state and the Chinese have not really stepped into the ring in any meaningful way yet.

Success of failure, the changes to fundamental liberties in the name of "combatting terror", the empowerment of fringe groups through voter apathy, changing demographics though mass immigration in order to reverse the population decline and to fund a rapidly increasing aging population, these are long term problems that will not readily go away.

A while ago a web log ran a poll, which European state would be the first to adopt Sharia law - while initially it was a joke discussions erupted that suggested that the possibility was not as far fetched as some would have thought.

As for Tony Blair, success or more importantly, failure, I don't think we can write him off too quickly. Even in failure the Labour Party could disintegrate into so many different factions (unions, brownistas etc) that he may keep his job - he is the ultimate chamelean after all.

Andrew

The Coming War on Iraq:
A Reply to Peter M. le Mare
Robert Nock <Rob@Nock.org.uk>

Where to start with Peter M. Le Mare's confused rant about Iraq? While I share some of his concerns about the threatened war against Iraq's régime this rant just makes the whole anti-war (rather than delay the war) argument seem to be designed by 'useful idiots'.

Firstly George Bush was elected President of the USA. There may have been some corruption (but no evidence that more than usual) but he was elected by the electoral system the US uses and later 'recounts' by newspapers of both 'sides' showed he did win Florida and thus the election.

While I may not agree with the system of democracy we have in the UK or the way it is twisted we do have Parliamentary democracy and the Government and all MPs are elected to govern as they see fit and not as they think the people want. Any march is only a demonstration of feeling and should not be used as a means of making policy.

While there may be no legal grounds for régime change in Iraq there are plenty of moral grounds. Do not get confused into thinking what is legal is moral and vice versa. What is legal is, more of less, a point of fact and what is moral is an opinion. People should only use what is legal as a guide to what is moral and to help them consider things from another angle.

Probably the sanctions are killing lots of innocent people and they may well be a bad idea diplomatically as well but they have been imposed because of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, refusal to fully disarm and its appalling human rights record. Thus the blame mainly lies with Saddam Hussein. It is always unfortunate when the innocent are punished but the innocent in Iraq have been being punished for over 25 years to a greater or lesser degree. It is people like Mr le Mare who would argue that it is alright to shoot an enemy soldier but not to bomb a civilian making the bullets for the soldier. They are both working for the war effort of their country and even though one is not in uniform they are both therefore supporting the enemy and must be stopped. Nobody ever said war is fair and everyone recognises it is unpleasant but those who support the enemy whether enthusiastically or not are also your enemy.

I would be interested to know Mr le Mere's area of expertise such that he can state so categorically that Mr Blair lies about vaccines and WMD. He may be right but some proof would be nice.

War is always the last choice so the fact that we may or may not have enough money to pay the firemen a 'decent wage' is irrelevant. To argue otherwise is to say that war is OK if the firemen, NHS etc are well funded.

To argue that someone must 'be a direct and present threat to us' before we can use force against them is stupid, naive and bloodthirsty. To wait till your enemy is best prepared to attack and indeed about to, will make any conflict considerably more bloody for one's own (and incidentally the other) side. If Iraq is aiming for WMD then we can be pretty sure that any future war in the Middle East will be very bloody.

I agree that Sharon and the Israeli State are dangerous and immoral. Also that Tony Blair thinks 'he is some saint on a crusade' and this is very worrying and is behind much of his support for many New World Order policies such as identity cards, EU, European Arrest Warrants, seizure of property by the state without conviction etc but this does not necessarily mean that he gets everything wrong. He may be wrong with regards to Iraq but please treat the matter seriously and not just as a chance to have an unbalanced and naive rant.

Who Do You Think You Are?
Gerald Hartup <gerald.hartup@btopenworld.com>

Desert Island Discs is a fantastically successful radio programme. Its secret is its distinguished guests whose history and philosophy is teased out of them by an experienced and well briefed interviewer û and their choice of music, of course.

It is no wonder that Britain's self acknowledged chief social commentator, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, who clearly ought to take over the presenter's role as well as becoming chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, has provided useful criticism of its current presenter Sue Lawley.

She chose an edition of the programme for an article in the Independent to illustrate the difficulties facing black boys in our society as a result of negative stereotypes with a carefully composed analysis of the shortcomings of Ms Lawley.

Ms Lawley's interview with poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, she revealed, exposed her as just another liberal interviewer guilty of stereotyping black men. It is worthwhile examining how Mrs Alibhai Brown came to this conclusion and how she expressed this insight.

Mr Johnson was well into the programme and about to choose as his sole example of classical music a Vivaldi piece. This is the transcript.

Lawley: OK. Record number 5.

Kwesi Johnson: Record number 5 is Spring, from Vivaldi's Four Seasons. I'm not a great [interruption by Lawley]

Lawley: Doesn't quite fit in [chuckle] to this whole discussion, or these pieces of music. Where did this come from? [Kwesi Johnson: amused interruption: I know..I know..I know.]

Kwesi Johnson: It's the only piece of classical music that I can hum. I just think it's a fantastic piece of music and it's the kind of thing that one would like to have on a desert island because when you are feeling a bit down in the dumps a tune like this would make you realise how good it is to be alive.

Mrs Alibhai Brown's deconstruction of this conversation follows:

Sue Lawley was knocked off her chair this weekend when he chose Vivaldi to take to his Desert Island. What? You could hear her cultivated mind panicking, a black street man like you? Are you sure? What about something more suitable, you know, Rastaman stuff, or soul, sounds to remind you of what you really are? She was well placated when he did go on to choose Marley.

Mrs Alibhai Brown's ability to get inside the head of Ms Lawley is as impressive as her modified use of the ' black' slang 'well placated', soon no doubt to be familiar around inner city playgrounds.

Her readers can learn so much about Ms Lawley from Mrs Alibhai Brown's analysis of her character and perhaps even more about her own. 'Cultivated mind panicking' is brilliant. I need many more words to express what she packs into these three words. But let's try!

This posh white woman with her narrow middle class and racially exclusive background which sees black people as cleaners and attendants at the BBC or as smiling staff in West Indian hotel resorts is suddenly presented with the shocking realisation that a black man whom she cannot stop herself patronising shares her European high culture. No wonder she had to try to push him back inside her bigoted pigeonhole where he and she would be safe. She's essentially a good hearted woman trying as hard as she can but she will never have the necessary experience to understand and interpret the world that an upwardly mobile, reform Muslim, Ugandan Asian, Oxford educated, aware of her roots both shameful and heroic, campaigning journalist, successful wife, mother and daughter, victim of white, black and Asian racism can bring to bear on any cultural matter with her formidable intellect, instinct and establishment connections.

Less enlightened Radio 4 listeners would have missed all this. They would have heard an entertaining programme where a skilful, worldly journalist clearly engaging with her guest succeeded in presenting to a general audience a gifted and significant poet, enabled in a short programme to give a valuable insight into his life and work.

You need to read the Independent to know better.

Notes:

Yasmin Alibhai Brown is a prolific writer, broadcaster and author. Her book Who Do You Think We Are? is a description and prescription for a multicultural Britain. Her article "Who wrecks the hopes and dreams of black boys?" appeared in The Independent 9 December 2002. Her Independent articles are archived on the Independent website.

Sue Lawley, OBE is the almost universally recognised distinguished doyenne of radio and television broadcasting. Her thirty-year career credits include presenting the Nine o'clock and Six o' clock News, Question Time and Desert Island Discs.

Linton Kwesi Johnson was interviewed by Sue Lawley on Desert Island Discs 8 December 2002

Gerald Hartup is a freelance journalism and the director of Liberty and Law which he set up in 2002. He is a political campaigner with over 20 years experience with the Freedom Association where he was its director until 1999. He is particularly proud of his part in ending the 'closed shop', the notorious British system of compulsory union membership. He is one of the UK's foremost experts on race relations and has appeared many times on radio and television correcting the pessimistic bias of the race relations industry. He is the author of Misreporting Racial Attacks, Hampden Trust 1995.

Poetry for Today:
After Blenheim
Robert Southey, 1774-1843

Dulce et decorum est pro Patria mori