Mr Townend isn't brave and he isn't right, but he must be allowed to express his nasty opinions

MATTHEW PARRIS

Thou'st heard the knave abusing those in power,' wrote the poet John Clare in his ode to an axed elm, composed during the Enclosures:

Bawl freedom loud and then oppress the free Thou'st sheltered hypocrites in many a shower That when in power would never shelter thee

And it sticks in the throat that anyone should shelter John Townend.

In particular, it sticks in mine, for people like me would get short shrift from people like him. To those who have come only recently to an appreciation of the unsavoury opinions that this minor Gradgrind of an outgoing Tory MP espouses, we parliamentary sketchwriters bid welcome to a wellestablished club. Townend has been one of the supporting goblins in our Commons pantomime for years.

Yet I will say something in his support. I don't like the idea of thought-crime, or speech-crime. I don't like witch-duckings, show-trials and recantations. Mr Townend has a right to remain a Conservative MP for the few days left before he retires, and to hold as many idiotic and nasty opinions as he pleases.

One supports him while holding one's nose. Depressing, in a columnist's trade, are the friends we make whenever we attempt a limited defence of horrid people's right not to be lynched. After writing a Times column expressing alarm about the witch-hunt mentality surrounding child-abuse, I opened half-a-dozen letters expressing gratitude in terms chilling to read. One of the big disappointments of my journalistic life came when I asked Enoch Powell, who had seemed to me to have some sort of greatness of spirit, whether, given that he had never in his life expressed hatred of any race, it ever dismayed him that so much of his support came from those who did. I thought he would say Yes. He said, 'No. One takes support wherever one finds it.'

I don't. So if you are a racist, do not write to me saying 'Good on you for supporting dear, brave John Townend.' He isn't dear, he isn't brave and he isn't right.

But he has a right to be wrong, and to stay in the Conservative party. That in his heart William Hague would not disagree with that statement makes the Conservative leader's floundering around in flight from a few bad headlines these last ten days all the more dismal. It isn't 'decisive' to spray out ultimatums in a crisis: it is the mark of

someone anxious to appear so. What would have been truly decisive would have been for Mr Hague to say that Townend was talking complete tosh and that if those were his opinions he was welcome to them. Full stop — no further comment. Had he done so, the storm which would then have raged would by now be over.

As it is, the storm continued for much of last week and there is every prospect that it may return. During the coming election campaign in which the Conservative party will be fielding more than 600 candidates, including some very rum chaps indeed, someone is sure to say something beastly sooner or later. The trick of demanding that the Tory leader then 'do' something to repudiate offensive remarks has been welllearned by Labour and the press, who will point out that, if the offhand remarks of an obscure backbencher who was not even standing in the election merited official repudiation and disciplinary action, how much more must remarks from a running candidate? By way of response, the Tories have now denied themselves the possibility of replying that candidates must be responsible for their own views, but if elected must vote the party whip.

Standing up for freedom of opinion is never easy at the outset. Though the principle of free speech meets ready acceptance when expressed as an ideal, and the principle of open debate within a political party is — as an abstraction — equally approved, we are quickly in difficulty when we try to translate such cloudy notions into anything approaching a rule. For the best of reasons people start hesitating, making qualifications. I should answer the most persuasive. There are two.

First, it is said that race is different. The subject is so inflammatory, the offence it is possible to give so deep, and the definition of an 'unacceptable' opinion so obvious to all right-thinking people, that it is both right and feasible to outlaw certain views.

I doubt both assertions. There is an indefinite number of areas where it is possible mortally to offend. Religion is one — especially as regards Islam; the feminist debate is another; so are abortion and euthanasia. Lord (John) Taylor's stand on homosexuality is such that, were he to join the Liberal Democrats, I might mischievously call on Charles Kennedy to extract from him a repudiation of his former opinions. In other eras, pacifism and questions of patriotism have been every bit as inflammatory as race. In none of these areas is it easy, however, to determine what constitutes going too far in the expression of a view.

In the debate about race and immigration, it might just be possible to do so. Should you seek a more or less workable determination, look at the wording of the Race Relations Act. If an MP breaches that, he can be prosecuted just like any other citizen. Townend is not in breach of the Race Relations Act.

Second, it is said that particular parties have particular 'core' beliefs, so that what might be acceptable in one would be unacceptable within another. You don't stand as a Conservative if you are a communist. You don't stand for Labour if you are on the ideological Right....

Oops. Don't you? The words dry in the mouth. For parties change and debates are led and won from within. Tony Blair would be crazy to withdraw the whip from Labour MPs who refuse to repudiate socialism; and if any Tory wants to have a brainstorm and call himself a Marxist, let him; and let his local selection committee make their own decision about adopting him as candidate.

Then what, you may ask, does require a party leader to discipline an MP? I do not find the answer difficult. People should be punishable for what they do, not for what they say they think. The Tories support the Race Relations Act and Townend has always been obliged to vote that way in the lobbies if necessary. He can hate it, but he must do it.

There is, I accept, a grey area between commentary and action, situated in the vicinity of what we call 'incitement'; but that word has a meaning, the courts have learnt how to give it effect, and so could Mr Hague. Were I a party leader, I should require from candidates a promise, if elected, to co-operate in the party's vital parliamentary business; and, at elections, in efforts to exhort voters to vote for my party. Beyond that, let them express what stupid opinions they like.

Had Hague said as much last week, John Townend would this week be a good deal less famous, and his party in a good deal less disarray, than is now the case.

Matthew Parris is parliamentary sketchwriter and a columnist of the Times.