Harriet Harman, Good Manners and The Spring Forum

19/02/2009 by Steve Tierney.

Harriet Harman
There is some talk in the media right now about Harriet Harman being a ‘leader in waiting’ for the Labour Party. I hope so. I really do. Back when Tony Blair was Mister Big and Gordon was trying to oust him I remembering telling everybody it would be the best thing that ever happened to the Conservatives if he managed. (It’s obviously not good news for anybody that he’s destroyed the country, but most of that job was already complete back then, all he did as Prime Minister was put black icing on his rotten cake.) The thing is, whatever you thought about Tony Blair or his politics, there was something like-able about him. He was a good statesman and a good front-man. There is patently very little to ‘like’ about Gordon Brown. While he sat brooding in the background he was fine, but bringing him to the forefront of politics was always going to be a disaster. Well, Harriet Harman is just as bad, if not worse! Substituting her for Brown is a wonderful idea… for the opposition. In fact the only more detrimental figure I can think of as Labour Leader is Hazel Blears. Now if they chose Mandelson… that might be dangerous. People may not like him, but many do respect him. And these days he has more political weight than most of his team put together.Of course, they made him a Lord, so maybe they realised they needed to keep his ambition for the top position untenable…

Good Manners
David Cameron was interviewed by Iain Dale in Total Politics this week. The interview is very well done and extremely interesting. (You can read it here.) For the most part I enjoyed Mr. Cameron’s answers and thought he sounded confident and level-headed. There was, however, one exception, which worried me. This is the extract in question:-

Q: How will you defend the right to offend?
A: This goes back to the ‘do you listen’ question because on the one hand you don’t want someone inciting hatred of gays but on the other hand you want to live in a society where people don’t feel their free speech is restricted if it is about humour. So there is a balance. We all rage against political correctness and there’s lots of political correctness which is ridiculous- silly health and safety worries that stop children grazing a knee on an outward bounds adventure. We have got to get rid of that. But there’s one bit of political correctness which is terribly important and that’s about politeness. I have a disabled son and I don’t want people to call him a spastic. You are a gay man, you don’t want someone to call you a poof. If you have a black friend, you don’t want someone to call them something offensive. It’s about manners and I think what we’ve got to do is frame this debate in a sense of what is good manners and politeness and what is common sense.

Now this seems to suggest that the Conservative Leader (leader of the party I’m a member of and support) thinks that we should ‘legislate’ good manners.  Perhaps I’ve misunderstood his comment.  I certainly hope so.  Good manners are important.  Vital even.  But it’s the place of friends, family and parents to teach and enforce it, not government.  The state should have no say whatsoever in what people are allowed to say, think or feel.  Each one of us has a right to be a jackass if we wish.  Free Speech is not free if you only get to say what people want to hear…

The Spring Forum
The Conservative Spring forum is just around the corner.  I haven’t been before but this year I’ll be attending, along with a considerable contingent of the Fens Conservative Future group.  You’ll know them.  They’re the guys and girls who will be wearing the T-Shirts that say “Putting the Party In Politics”.  I expect a couple of days of political discourse and a couple of evenings of mayhem.  We won’t be painting the town red though.  We’ll be painting it blue.

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