POLITICS
Focusing the 5,000: Mr Blair believes that he can work miracles
BRUCE ANDERSON
Nicotine is dangerous to health. It is also powerfully addictive. So there are good grounds for arguing that children should not be allowed to smoke; that they are too young to give their consent to what could prove a fateful decision. There are also good grounds for scepticism; it is always useful to temper priggishness with reality. It would be interesting to know what per- centage of the population smoked a first cigarette before the age of 16, let alone at 16; one would be surprised if that percent- age were much under 100. That said, atti- tudes to smoking have changed over the years, and rightly so. A ban on sales of cigarettes to anyone under the age of 18 would make it harder for children to acquire cigarettes. It seems to me easier to justify that on moral grounds than to justify the persecution of adult smokers, or even the decision to prohibit adults from taking marijuana, cocaine or heroin.
This raises a basic question: in what cir- cumstances is the state justified in making moral choices on behalf of adults? The only coherent position currently on offer would appear to be the libertarian one; that as long as individuals are prepared to accept the consequences of their actions, they should be entitled to make any moral deci- sions which affect themselves alone. Even such a libertarian position would, of course, justify a much less permissive legislative stance than the present ones on abortion and divorce, when children are involved.
But libertarianism does not sit easily with the authoritarian streak in the British char- acter — vide the virtual recriminalisation of adultery in recent years. It also runs counter to a widespread, if incoherent moral intu- ition: that governments are entitled to act in defence of social cohesion. In The Principle of Duty David Selboume argues effectively on behalf of that general proposition, to which Mr Blair would, no doubt, assent enthusiastically. But there is a problem. Even Mr Selboume, who has thought hard about the question, does not define the cir- cumstances in which the state ought to act. Mr Blair is unlikely to remedy that defi- ciency. With Mr Selbourne's doctrines, as with Will Hutton's stakeholding, Mr Blair finds it useful to claim a moral and intellec- tual hinterland, but is far too fly to commit himself to any position which might offend a significant group of voters, as he made clear when it came to abortion. He is against it, he told us, but he would vote for it.
Homosexuality ought to be a much less important issue than abortion. gut homo- sexuals have an advantage over foetuses: they can go on protest marches and lobby MPs. They can also rely on a lot of thought- less support in the new Labour party. Mr Blair seems happy to align himself with this, yet it is hard to see how he reconciles it with his Christianity; the Church of Eng- land clergy who profess to do so are lucky that they are not covered by the Trades Descriptions Act.
Tolerance of homosexuality is one thing; granting it moral equivalence with hetero- sexuality quite another. Without believing that we are imminently threatened with the decadence of the later Roman Empire, many of those whose moral intuitions lead them to believe that the law should uphold certain values would also favour discrimi- nation against homosexuals, at least in the matters of military discipline and the age of consent. Even if homosexuality were not a health hazard comparable to nicotine, they would not be in favour of allowing middle- aged homosexuals to exploit the confusions of teenage boys. Many homosexuals will resent this, especially the proselytisers; the wiser ones ought to see it as the basis for a modus vivendi with the rest of society.
If we seek to understand the divergent stances which Labour has taken on cigarette-smoking and homosexuality, we search in vain for any general principle. But there is an explanation. The contradiction arises from the different ways in which two traditional Labour impulses are operating, authoritarianism and hatred of their own country, and its traditional pleasures. The Labour party has always been the natural home of Macaulay's Puritans, who banned bear-baiting not to save the bear but to punish the audience. These days, the bossy- boots are estopped from venting their authoritarianism on the economy; their forebears would have been planning to nationalise ICI, they have to make do with harassing smokers and hunters.
Most of those who want homosexual equality are no more libertarian than the health-police wing. They take up sexual or racial causes, not to bring relief to oppressed minorities but to strike at and humiliate the respectable majority whose opinions and way of life they despise. That, of course, is not true of Mr Blair (Mrs Blair may be another matter). It is unlikely that he has given much thought to the question of homosexual rights for 16-year-olds, and it will be interesting to see how he reacts if there are threats to the government's popu- larity. It could be an ideal issue for the Lords to challenge the Commons; it is hard to believe that Mr Blair would enjoy the ensuing controversy.
On homosexuality as on hunting, a majority of Labour MPs have allowed their prejudices to override their thought pro- cesses. Their response to any criticism is predictable and it is exactly the same line that Donald Dewar is taking on devolution: with a majority like ours, what need have we of thinking? Fortunately for the health of democracy, it will not work. When Mr Blair next preaches to his colleagues, there is an obvious text: 'Pride goeth before destruction and an haughty spirit before a fall.'
But Mr Blair is trying to safeguard his government's democratic credentials, in a predictable manner. It was indeed predict- ed in this column straight after the election that well within the first hundred days of a Blair government the new focus groups would have been set up, as part of Project Re-election. What I did not anticipate was that Mr Blair would make the taxpayer meet the bill; it would be interesting to have Sir Robin Butler's view on that, and Lord Nolan's. Nor did I expect that the focus group would have 5,000 members.
The focusing of the 5,000 will now con- tinue, even though, in policy terms, Labour has no more than five loaves and two fishes for them to focus on. But Mr Blair and his colleagues still think that they can work miracles.
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