civil society and david blunkett - civitas.org.uk

Civil Societyand David Blunkett

Civil Society andDavid Blunkett:

Lawyers vs Politicians

Kenneth Minogue

Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil SocietyLondon

First published July 2002

© The Institute for the Study of Civil Society 2002The Mezzanine, Elizabeth House39 York Road, London SE1 7NQ

email: [email protected]

All rights reserved

ISBN 1-903 386-22 5

Typeset by Civitasin New Century Schoolbook

Printed in Great Britain byHartington Fine Arts Ltd

Lancing, West Sussex

v

Contents

Page

Author vi

ForewordDavid G. Green vii

Civil Society and David BlunkettLawyers vs Politicians 1

Notes 35

vi

Author

Kenneth Minogue is Emeritus Professor of PoliticalScience at London University. Born in New Zealand,educated in Australia and Britain, he has written TheLiberal Mind (1963, new edition published by theLiberty Fund 2001), Nationalism (1967), The Conceptof a University (1974), Alien Powers: The Pure Theoryof Ideology (1985), Politics: A Very Short Introduction(1995), The Silencing of Society: The True Cost of theLust for News (1997) and Waitangi: Morality andReality (1998). He has edited several books, includingmost recently Essays in Conservative Realism (1996),and contributed essays to others. In his academicpersona, he has lectured and visited universities andresearch institutes in many countries, but he has alsowritten columns for The Times and The Times HigherEducation Supplement, as well as reviewing for TheTimes Literary Supplement. He currently writes amonthly column for the Adelaide Review. In 1986 hepresented on Channel Four in England a six-parttelevision programme on free market economics calledThe New Enlightenment, repeated in 1988. A frequentcommentator for radio and television on EuropeanCommunity issues, he was Chairman of the BrugesGroup, 1991-93. He is a director of the Centre forPolicy Studies (for which he has written ‘The Egalitar-ian Conceit’ and ‘The Constitutional Mania’) and atrustee of Civitas. He is an Honorary Fellow of theLondon School of Economics.

vii

Foreword

Not many politicians deserve to be admired but DavidBlunkett is one of them. This essay by ProfessorKenneth Minogue is a respectful critique of some ofthe policies being pursued by Mr Blunkett and theGovernment of which he is part. It was occasioned bya lecture given to Civitas by the Home Secretary inOctober 2001. His speech is available online at theweb address given at the end of this Foreword.

Many politicians manage to change a policy here, ora clause in a Bill there, but David Blunkett hasdistinguished himself by helping to change some of thefundamental beliefs that underpin political thoughtand action. Four contributions can be singled out.

First, he thinks that criminals are personallyresponsible for their actions. He is a socialist with ahigh level of faith in the capacity of political leaders tosolve problems but he does not think that a murdereror a street mugger can turn round and claim that‘society made me do it’.

Second, he has challenged those who have arguedthat patriotism is no more than a cloak for racism. Atits best it is a justified pride in national institutionsthat embody and protect freedom and democracy.

Third, and closely related to the second point, ethnicminorities should not be viewed as if they are nothingbut victims of white racism. True equality meanstreating people of all races as the potential bearers ofall the faults and virtues known to human experience.Asylum seekers, for example, may be taking advan-tage of the generosity of the host country and if foundto be lying, sent back.

Fourth, Mr Blunkett has highlighted the changingrole of judges, a transformation that has never been

CIVIL SOCIETY AND DAVID BLUNKETTviii

subjected to proper debate. As someone who wieldsexecutive power Mr Blunkett might well be expectedto come up against judicial limits, but his criticism ismuch more than the irritation of an overmighty rulerwhose wings have been clipped. Increasingly judgeshave abandoned their role as guardians of everyindividual’s opportunities to make the most of theirlives in favour of imposing their own moral beliefs onother people under the guise of human rights.

Judges used to mistrust rulers with too muchpower; now they mistrust ordinary men and womenwith too much discretion. Judges formerly pridedthemselves on being the custodians of the laws thatapplied equally to all and that gave everyone thechance to make the most of their talents; today theyare more likely to pride themselves on enforcing élitemoral beliefs on the unenlightened plebs who, athome, insist on smacking their children and, at work,persist in believing that employers should give jobs topeople who are good at their work not to individualswho happen to belong to a recognised racial category.

Some judges have become social engineers intent onremoving issues from the sphere of moral debate—where ‘experiments in living’ are tested one againstanother and we gradually learn what works and whatdoesn’t by watching, learning and criticising fellowcitizens—to the realm of law and order—where beliefsand actions are overshadowed by the writ, the fine andthe prison cell. But not all the changes in the judicialworld are the result of zealotry. Often the chief motiveis money. New human rights laws are seen by manylawyers as commercial opportunities for money-making. The language is that of fees, turnover andprofits, not justice. And it is from the ranks of suchmen that judges are drawn.

FOREWORD ix

Mr Blunkett has not voiced his criticism as stronglyas I have done in the last paragraph or two, but he hasput the issue on the map. And the judges have a caseto answer.

David G. Green

David Blunkett’s speech is available here:

www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/blunkett2510.pdf

1

Civil Societyand David Blunkett:

Lawyers vs Politicians

It is a common belief that the New Labour govern-ment that came to power in Britain in 1997 has

learned the lesson that central planning fails, and asa result has lost its passion for radical change. It maybe the case, however, that Labourradicalism has merely movedfrom the economic to the socialarena. The Blair governmentshares the immemorial ambitionto create a perfect, or at leastwhat it would judge to be a morejust society. I want to explore thisjudgement by looking at the workof David Blunkett and the HomeOffice, especially since the 2001 election when a set ofinterlocking crises provoked the government intopolicies that often put it in conflict with many of itstraditional supporters. And I shall use the idea of civilsociety as an instrument with which to clarify thiscomplex area. Let me first mention a few of the issueswhose meaning I want to put into a wider context.

The terrorism bill which Blunkett piloted throughthe Commons in late 2001 in the wake of the Islamicattack on the Twin Towers in New York aroused fearsfor civil liberties, and the proposals on religious hatredwere rejected. Most people breathed a sigh of relief.Blunkett’s response to race riots in Oldham was tosuggest that those settling in Britain should learn

‘The Blair govern-ment shares theimmemorial ambitionto create a perfect, orat least what it wouldjudge to be a morejust society.’

CIVIL SOCIETY AND DAVID BLUNKETT2

English and acquaint themselves with the customs ofthe country. He thereby offended the race relationslobby, as he also did with his remark in April 2002that in some areas the children of asylum seekerswere ‘swamping’ other children in schools. The word‘swamping’ had been part of the growing dictionary offorbidden words ever since Margaret Thatcher hadused it in 1978. Blunkett’s expression had invoked oneof the anxieties haunting Britain’s nervous politicalélite: namely that the British masses might degener-ate into frenzies of racism if multicultural issues werediscussed too frankly: pas devant le peuple! Blunkettfound allies, however, as he often does, in many whoare often critical of Labour policies: The Times calledhis stand ‘brave’ just as the Daily Telegraph hadearlier approved of him as a ‘hate figure’ on the left ofthe Labour Party. Meanwhile, the Home Secretaryfound himself responsible for dealing with a nastysurge in the crime statistics. This provoked his pas-sion for nettle grasping, and he locked himself intocontention with a demoralised and inefficient policeforce. One might have said that he had found himselfat the eye of a storm, but a storm that goes on for morethan a year is something more serious.

It is clear that he is a courageous figure strugglingnot only with difficult public problems, but also witha bad legacy. The broad response he has to publicproblems has been, I think, to call up civil society sothat it can be mobilised against the interests that areblocking his reforms. This policy comes out clearly inan address he gave to Civitas in November 2001outlining a broad strategy1 for tackling the problem ofcrime. The success of this policy depends entirely uponthe vitality available in British civil society today. Letus first consider this central idea, and then locateBlunkett himself in the current political constellation.

KENNETH MINOGUE 3

1. How to Get Civil Society Wrong

The fall of the Berlin Wall was a moment when thevery idea of civil society cameinto clear popular focus. Thefailure of communist régimesresulted from the fact that theyhad systematically destroyedcivil society by subjecting allsocial activities to the directionof the state. The CommunistParty, claiming to be societyitself, administered everythingthat its miserable subjects gotup to. Those staggering out of the Communist boredomduring the 1980s were quick to recognise at least thatthe central feature of their new freedom was thevibrancy of a life not subjected to the plans andprojects of the state.

The term ‘civil society’ had been used by earlymodern philosophers to refer to an association ofindividuals linked together in subjection only to a ruleof law which they had some part in creating andmodifying. It was the German philosopher Hegel whoin The Philosophy of Right (1821) built on the socialtheory of the eighteenth century to distinguish amodern state as being made up of three realms:individual and family, civil society (which included theeconomy) and the state itself. Civil society was heredistinguished as the free associations and institutionsmade possible by the state’s framework of law andorder. It thus included business enterprises, universi-ties, guilds, sporting clubs, religious groups, acade-mies, newspapers and any other kind of project humanbeings might legitimately get up to. Not long after-wards, Alexis de Tocqueville was remarking on the

‘Civil society was heredistinguished as thefree associations andinstitutions madepossible by the state’sframework of law andorder.’


vast range of associations to be found in English-speaking societies.2 Anglo-America was in the nine-teenth century less centrally controlled than mostContinental countries which had only recentlyemerged from the enlightened absolutism of theprevious century. Yet all of them enjoyed areas ofindependence from the state, partly resulting from thepluralism of aristocratic and bourgeois patronage.This freedom was the source of the vitality by whichWestern states have in modern times revolutionisedtechnology, society and culture.

Civil society as the arena of freedom has remainedvital in Western states since the time of Hegel, buthas come to be severely modified by the exigencies ofwarfare and welfare. In war, governments mobilisedthe resources of the state for victory, and administra-tive habits grew up that continued into peacetime. Theeffect of welfare was slower, and perhaps more insidi-ous. The problem with welfare is that civil society, andespecially the economy, is an arena of inequality: someprosper and succeed, others do not. Democratic statescommonly seek to use the power and authority of the

state not only to sustain aframework of law, but also toredistribute wealth and status.The modern state thus acquiresa new character; it becomes notonly a framework of law, butalso a source of benefits forthose in need. The civil relief ofneed has a dramatic effect uponcivil society: the projects of gov-ernment cannot help but over-

shadow the projects and purposes of the members ofsociety.

‘the projects ofgovernment cannothelp but overshadowthe projects andpurposes of themembers of society.’

KENNETH MINOGUE 5

Business firms, for example, become components ina national economy directed by the government, andthe pill of central regulation is often sugared byprotection against foreign competition. The arts cometo be subsidised as components of national prestige,and as part of state encour-agement of tourism. Schoolsand universities become con-tributors to the ‘knowledgeeconomy’. As governmentsdevelop policies for bringingthe disabled, or women, orethnic minorities more fullyinto the economy, they in-struct firms in the requiredcomposition of the labourforce. Heavy responsibilitiesfor compliance and reporting what has been done areimposed on every company. Professions such asmedicine are incorporated into national schemes forequalising health care. We are all familiar with thesedetails of the contemporary welfare system, in whichthe state disposes of around 40 per cent of the nationalwealth for the good causes it supports. And the morethe state takes over the guidance of civil society, themore it is tempted to move into the arena of familylife. Even domesticity must conform to nationalstrategies which can range from the disciplining ofchildren to the work of the International Obesity TaskForce, another fantasy military organisation designedpresumably to fight flab. We live, then, in an interme-diate condition of things, in which civil society re-mains an area of freedom to act, but is massivelyconstrained by national purposes articulated bygovernments that have both the authority and the

‘We live, then, in anintermediate conditionof things, in whichcivil society remainsan area of freedom toact, but is massivelyconstrained bynational purposesarticulated by govern-ments.’


power to acquire by taxation the resources theyrequire to please the electorate in the hope of return-ing to power.

In abstract terms, there are good reasons whysociety has taken this road. The difficulty is that everysocial problem requires (in this manner of thinking) alegislative solution, and in logic there is no reason whythe state should not move to a point where it deter-mines everything, except possibly the trivia of ourinner lives. Just such a condition was the aspiration ofthe Bolsheviks, who thought they could live peoples’lives better than people themselves. We are savedfrom this evolution of servility only by the discoverythat beyond a certain point of state control, seriouslydiminishing returns set in. The prosperity that we alsovalue depends on at least some degree of freedom forenterprise. This is, however, a very slim support for afreedom whose real value is entrenched in the littlediscussed moral basis of Western states.

It is this pressure of a misguided social perfection-ism that explains why that exquisite moment of clarityabout the importance of civil society has been lost. Theold demons have reappeared, and they have all pickedup a seductive line in pseudo-moral jargon frompassing through higher education. Let me alert thereader to one or two of the current mystifications ofservitude. One such mystification is the talk of socialresponsibility. ‘Responsibility’ is a moral term relatingus to specific duties, but we seldom if ever have aspecific duty to anything as amorphous as ‘society’.The state is always there, however, to tell us what weought to do for society. Another way of subjectingindividuals to this wider purpose is the busybodytheme of setting up creatures called ‘stakeholders’ whomust be called in and consulted about everything we

KENNETH MINOGUE 7

do. Sometimes institutions are seduced by soothingtalk of social ‘partnership’, describing a relationshipthat would make sense only if the state and theinstitution were engaged in a common project. InEuropean Union circles, this subjugation of institu-tions to civil authority is sometimes, by muddledpeople, referred to as ‘organ-ised’ civil society, which is acontradiction in terms. Thewhole point of civil society isthat it is (as a large componentof the way we live) spontane-ous and unorganised. Politicaltheorists are keen to politicisethe institutions of civil societyby creating ‘participatory de-mocracy’, which is generally ademand that the citizenryshould turn up at meetings tobe addressed by activists. Sometimes the domesticatedworld of social institutions controlled by governmentis referred to as ‘the public realm’.3 The ultimateimpertinence of the projectors of servility is, perhaps,the idea just surfacing in Labour think-tanks ofaccording to some institutions what is called ‘earned’autonomy. Here we have a confusion resembling theidea that a governmental remission of taxes is a gift ofgovernment.

The obverse of these trends is found in the growthof non-governmental organisations, or NGOs to theirfamiliars, which are in principle a classic expressionof the vitality of civil society. But even here, the heavyhand of government will be found pulling the strings.Many of them are in fact funded by the state, andsome are even used by governments in order to

‘The ultimate impert-inence of the projectorsof servility is, perhaps,the idea just surfacingin Labour think-tanksof according to someinstitutions what iscalled ‘earned’autonomy.’


achieve by law what cannot be achieved politically.NGOs are now themselves a power in the land and

sometimes claim to represent‘civil society’ on the interna-tional stage. The only real wayin which people can be repre-sented is, of course, by votingfor governments in a modernstate. The imposture of NGOrepresentativeness, like themultiplication of rights, is oneaspect of the current attack on

democracy by those who seek the stability of anentirely controlled and predictable world.

These are some of the more recent rhetorical absur-dities of a managerial mode of thinking that has longsought to turn modern states into instruments of somegrand purpose—happiness, justice, democracy, com-munity and the rest—to which we must all be subject.In all these cases, the trick is to present the aspirationto homogenise human life as a triumph of diversity,but tracing out these connections is a theme foranother occasion. What we have said may suffice toshow the rhetorical world that Blunkett has inherited.It might, tentatively, be presented as a conflict be-tween perfectionism and common sense. Both sides ofthe conflict, however, aim to transform British society.What that means will appear, but first we mustconsider Blunkett himself.

2. David Blunkett in Political Context

As Home Secretary, Blunkett stands out as an excep-tion to the widespread public disdain for politicians.He rings true. Like Ernest Bevin in the Attlee govern-ment, who was admired for similar reasons, he exhib-

‘The imposture of NGOrepresentativeness,like the multiplicationof rights, is one aspectof the current attackon democracy...’

KENNETH MINOGUE 9

its a conspicuously working-class common sense. Thisis an important part of the context in which we mayunderstand the politics of his contribution to govern-ing the country. It distinguishes him from two domi-nant elements in the current Labour Party.

The first, often wrongly called ‘old Labour’, consistsof that majority of the Party who have picked up fromtheir contact with higher education a set of abstractallegiances to socialism and community. When theylook at Britain, they see not a unique historic societybut capitalism, imperialism, oppression, gaps betweenrich and poor and a variety of other abstractions,virtually all with pejorative overtones. Among aca-demics, these theories not only seem sophisticated, butalso proclaim that whoever holds them is critical andindependent of mind, capable of standing aside frominherited pieties. This cast of mind leads politically tothe imitation of foreign models of social desirability.Such models change, of course, from decade to decade,but currently the European Union is the tops. Here,then, is an élite that is egalitarian in the Orwelliansense of being more equal than others. While most ofthem are in some sense themselves middle-class, theycan focus their animating antipathies on a disdain forthe middle class. Anti-Americanism is also built in totheir reflexes. Hence their basic position is a visceralanti-patriotism. It was on display instantly the mo-ment Blunkett responded to the recent race riots bysuggesting that the migrants, rather than racistBritish society, might be part of the problem. Onemight be tempted to call this the nihilist tendency, butthat would be to ascribe to it a more coherent charac-ter than it actually has. It consists rather in a kind ofbloodless negativism about Britain. It does not ap-prove of the Home Secretary.


The other tendency useful in locating Blunkett isthat of the New Labour modernisers who have rejectedcultural self-hatred yet still aim to make Britain fit anabstract ideal. The basic aim is to combine productiv-ity with social redistribution. Tony Blair is of coursethe leader, one might almost say the ‘icon’, of thistendency, and it has had immense electoral success.Blair is the kind of patriot who wants Britain to be abeacon to the world, which means that he is at the

mercy of the world’s fashions.There is, however, a certainpower to the simple idealismof this strand of socialism, andeven its failures, such as theDome, have a certain perversegrandeur. Yet there is some-thing rootless about it. A cer-tain insincerity, a preoccupa-tion with image and spin, ex-

poses a shallowness resulting from the fact that itsinspiration is international respectability rather thanresponsiveness to British distinctiveness. It isBlunkett’s strength that he combines the reformingambitions of the modernisers with a powerful drive ofsturdy common sense.

And since common sense is both rare and central tothis subject, let me specify what it is. Common senserecognises that the world is not going to change in ahurry, that there is generally some justice on bothsides of any serious conflict, that sweet reasonablenesswill advance many proposals, but not very far, andthat power and fear are never very far from thesurface of human affairs. If these elementary opinionsmake common sense seem rather thin, let the readermeditate on the history of ideal solutions to British

‘Blair is the kind ofpatriot who wantsBritain to be a beaconto the world, whichmeans that he is at themercy of the world’sfashions.’

KENNETH MINOGUE 11

social problems in the course of the twentieth cen-tury—the history that has brought us to our presentcondition. If the reader wants a bit of scientific vali-dating for such common sense,let him be referred to theRappoport testing of iteratedprisoner’s dilemma games inwhich tit-for-tat turns out to bethe best strategy. And if hewants the opposite folly illus-trated, I would cite, in recentdiscussions of the problems ofthe National Health Service, the commentator whosaid: ‘What we need is to bring back matron—withoutthe fear, of course’. Blunkett is certainly one whoknows that a matron without fear would be no matron.

Here then was our Home Secretary, and it is hardnot to think of his task as similar to that of Herculesconfronted by the Augean Stables. Just as the land ofKing Augeas was rendered horrible by all the dungthat had accumulated over time, so many of theproblems faced by Blunkett have resulted from accu-mulated layers of blinkered idealism. Hercules di-verted two rivers to sweep the dung away. Lack ofcommon sense has got us into much of the present fix,but it is far from clear that a flood of common sensecan get us out. What is it that stands in his way? Oneanswer might well be (in Tony Blair’s phrase) ‘theforces of conservatism’, where conservatism meansprecisely the opposite of conservatism.

More specifically we might take our bearings fromthe television commentator on Newsnight who charac-terised Blunkett’s anti-terrorism bill as a ‘crusadeagainst the legal profession and the judiciary’. This isonly slightly hyperbolic, and it does bring out what is

‘the problems faced byBlunkett have resultedfrom accumulatedlayers of blinkeredidealism.’


at stake, not only in the events that first brought himto the eye of the storm at the end of 2001, but also ofa constitutional crisis that is ripening nicely. Thequestion is simply: who is to be the master—thejudges or the politicians?

3. The Problem of Rights

Blunkett’s problem with lawyers is that they impedethe executive (a.k.a. David Blunkett in this case) indoing what ministers think evidently needs to be done,and his impatience is both the strength and (as weshall see) the weakness of his position. Judicial reviewis part of our freedom, but it can destroy a policy, orforce the government back to time-wasting supplemen-tary legislation. The snail’s pace of legal processes canturn administering the asylum process into a string ofsocial problems. And the fashion for rights makesmodernising ever more difficult.

The rights question is the most important becausemany lawyers have taken up the international fashionfor encasing current moral opinion in the abstractlanguage of universal human rights. They have doneso partly out of conviction and partly because (as themore cynical put it) ‘there’s money in rights’. Andrights are popular. Simple people can be persuadedthat to be given a right is to receive a benefit. Many

people (even notional democratssuch as Tony Benn) do not real-ise that the essence of Britishfreedom is to have only oneright—the right to do anythingat all so long as it does not con-flict with the law. To be ‘given’rights by one authority or an-other (and how these generous

‘the essence of Britishfreedom is to haveonly one right—theright to do anythingat all so long as itdoes not conflict withthe law..’

KENNETH MINOGUE 13

authorities have showered such things on us of late!)thus circumscribes rather than extends our freedom.Rights are often fiscally demanding, which warrantsgovernments in raising more in taxation, and beforelong many of the beneficiaries find themselves in aKafkaland of tribunals and adjudication.

The thing about a universal human right is that inprinciple it cannot be changed—especially by parlia-ments. That is its point—to move something (gener-ally an apparent benefit) from the arena of politicsinto that of law. For how can you legitimately takeaway a universal moral right? But every formulationof a right inevitably reflects in some degree the cir-cumstances of its formulation, and circumstanceschange, leaving us high and dry with rules we cannot(in principle at least) violate or, alternatively, repeal.The 1951 European Conven-tion on the Status of Refu-gees, elaborated in post-warcircumstances, has long beena thorn in the side of theHome Office. Again, it mightbe thought a net improvementof the world to deal with theproblem of child abuse bydeclaring a nice gleaming setof rights for children. When,however, teachers are terrified of laying a finger on apupil, and significant numbers are on suspension atany given time for allegedly violating such rights, thepractical difficulties multiply. Controlling a class ofpupils is already difficult enough. The case of theluckless French tourist who spent two nights in aScottish cell for slapping his daughter illustrates thenastier side of rights. Only a simple radical who

‘The case of the luck-less French touristwho spent two nightsin a Scottish cell forslapping his daughterillustrates the nastierside of rights.’


mistakes the word for the deed would imagine thatdeclaring a set of rights actually diminishes real childabuse. It merely destroys the necessary discretion ofparents and teachers.

It is no doubt the business of lawyers to make lifedifficult for rulers. What is less widely recognised ishow rights (and in many cases modern legality gener-ally) are eroding civil society. Human rights attach toindividuals and can be used as battering rams againstthe autonomy of institutions. The discretion of thosewho run them is replaced by state prescription, while

the flexibility of belonging to orresigning from an institution isreplaced by the rigidities ofmembership as a status. Theindividual who in earlier timeswould be forced to respond to theworld he found, or to make anew one, now appeals to lawyersand tribunals for rights thathave the effect of making everyinstitution resemble every other.

When for example a school rule on uniforms is claimedto violate human rights, the solution is not that theindividual should find a school more to his or hertaste, but that the school must submit to a new law. Itis vital to realise that the individualism involved inthis kind of episode is totally different from thecreative individualism on which the modern world wasfounded. It is, indeed, virtually the opposite—in onecase the indulgence of impulse, in the other, itscontrol.

Blunkett facing lawyers waving writs has a prob-lem, but as we shall see, his problem is double-edged.‘Empowered citizens,’ he told Civitas in November

‘It is no doubt thebusiness of lawyers tomake life difficult forrulers. What is lesswidely recognised ishow rights ...areeroding civil society.’

KENNETH MINOGUE 15

2001, ‘are able to say no to drug dealers on theirestates, stop offending, as well as support others intheir neighbourhood and help people to recognise rightfrom wrong.’ This is no small ambition. Indeed, if thedrug dealer is under-age, the empowered citizen hadbetter watch out. He is more likely to be in court forinfringing child rights than the drug dealer is to beprosecuted by the police. Such is but one example ofthe hobbling of common sense achieved by the legalfashion for rights.

4. The Blunkett Contradiction

A running theme of the Blunkett strategy for dealingwith crime is that citizenship, or what he calls ‘politi-cal literacy’, is a form of knowledge that ‘we’ mustimprove, and the ‘we’ seems to mean government andpeople working together. The form this democraticregeneration will take is neighbourhood meetings,residents’ associations, citizens’ juries and othergrassroots organisations—and that is just a start.Rhetorically, then, we are in the area of community,co-ordination and talk. The hot topic of individualstaking protection into their own hands is not touched.Instead, what we have is a general call for the regen-eration of civil society as a whole. Blunkett is hereexhibiting what we may call ‘the idealist’s fallacy’,which consists in asserting that this problem can besolved only if we solve all other problems at the sametime. Dealing with crime, for example, requiresnothing less than the abolition of poverty, or whateveris currently on the mind of the idealist.

No one will doubt that Blunkett is pointing to a realproblem. He has inherited a situation in which thepeople tend to behave as if they were mere bystandersin a conflict between criminals and the police. He


wants crime to be the business of society no less thanof the state. At this level of policy, we may all cheer hisefforts. But it is impossible, also, not to think that hehas misunderstood the situation we are in.

Civil society, as we have seen, is the spontaneousvitality of a people exploiting the opportunities avail-able within a framework of the rule of law. It presup-poses an active population capable of organising itselfso as to deal with whatever problems it faces. Such a

people is essentially active andself-moving, with projects of itsown distinct from those of thecurrent government. But wehave for years been living in adiminished civil society, calledthe welfare state, that presup-poses precisely the opposite.Welfarism responds to the needsof a population that is assumednot to be able to create and man-

age its own resources. It requires a government willingand eager to respond to the demands of what arepatronisingly called ‘ordinary people’. And it is notjust that welfare provision is made for those who bysome misfortune or other need it, at least for themoment. Rather, the assumption is that everyoneought to make himself or herself a beneficiary of auniversal system of governmental provision. Not to doso is to be exclusive, élitist, undemocratically superior.

There are, of course, good reasons for our condition,suspended between civic vitality and dependency, andit corresponds to widely shared sentiments about whata just society is currently believed to be. It is, indeed,so familiar that we do not often reflect on its conse-quences. Let us mention one or two of them.

‘Civil society ... is thespontaneous vitality ofa people exploiting theopportunitiesavailable within aframework of the ruleof law.’

KENNETH MINOGUE 17

Consider first the transfer of responsibility awayfrom families towards a state bureaucracy authorisedto spend the resources of a heavily taxed economy. Theresult is that individuals have much less need tobudget for a rainy day. If scourged by illness, orunemployment, or family break-up, they can expectthe state to provide, after its fashion. The effect is notjust that many people become individually less self-reliant, but that those they do rely on are different.They have less need of friends or family. They canindulge negative passions so as to break apart andseparate into precisely the kind of atomised alienationthat it had always been the aim of socialism to curerather than to cause. The real solidarities of the pastdepended on both need and circumstance. Peopleknew about debt, and strove to avoid it. The history offriendly societies is a testimony to thrift as a virtue inthe lives of past generations. They certainly knewabout unemployment, and relied on family and neigh-bourhood. They shared an ethic of neighbourlinessthat also made crime exceptional. They knew thatchildren needed to be kept on the straight and narrow,and sometimes resorted to a clip over the ear. In all ofthese cases, of course, some people were feckless, orwent too far, or otherwise exhibited the human follythat is an inescapable feature of the human condition.But they were left free to make their own mistakes,and to learn from them. They stood on their own feet.

It was this active freedom that made civil society inthe past a vast complex of institutions more or lessindependent of government and run by people them-selves. The history of Britain in recent times, bycontrast, has been one of increasing dependence andof governments keen ‘to help ordinary people’, rightdown to the details of their lives, from getting to see adoctor quickly to Mussolini’s ambition of making the


trains run on time. Half a centuryof enfeeblement has clearlychanged the character not only ofpeople but of politics itself, andmany people in Britain haveabandoned larger issues and in-stead hope for favours fromgovernments conceived no longer

as the mere providers of a framework of order, but asomnipotent providers of benefits. Children now knowthat Santa Claus is legend. Parents seem to haveforgotten it.

The state now provides our healthcare. It providesour schools. It looks after the elderly, and manyclasses of those in need. Politicians have been so goodto us that the politics industry has multiplied prodi-giously. Britons, once subject only to laws made atWestminster, now find themselves the beneficiaries oflaws and regulations emanating from Brussels,

Cardiff and Edinburgh as well,not to mention the rising tide oflegislation by internationalbodies. How lucky we are tohave so many people thinkingabout our wel fare ! Andyet—can those be murmurs,even shouts, of discontent onecan hear? What we actually findis petulant dissatisfaction. Itisn’t just that the state isn’tvery efficient at helpingordinary people; it is that those

ordinary people have come to take a low view ofpoliticians as a class. This is an interesting example ofmodern ingratitude, but not half as interesting as theparallel fact that politicians take the same view of the

‘Children now knowthat Santa Claus islegend. Parentsseem to haveforgotten it.’

‘The world DavidBlunkett has inheritedis one in which thepeople are beingforever put to the testby their democraticrulers, and everywherethey are flunking theirtests.’

KENNETH MINOGUE 19

people. The fact is that politicians in Britain obviouslyhave nothing but contempt for the people they rule.The world David Blunkett has inherited is one inwhich the people are being forever put to the test bytheir democratic rulers, and everywhere they areflunking their tests.

5. As Civil Society Fails …

Our Home Secretary, for all his common sense, sharesthis view. As Minister for Education, he decided thatwe had flunked our citizenship test. This was clearlythe thing called a ‘social problem’ and the governmenthad to act. Nothing much could be done about thehardened apathetics of thepresent generation, but thehope of radicals always lieswith the young. Blunkett hadthe solution. From 2002 therewill be citizenship classes inschools, teaching the youngimproving things aboutpolitics, community and how todiscuss values. This is what hecalls, in a notable metaphor,‘political literacy’.4 Politiciansare not alone in wanting tohave it all. What they want in this case is the power awelfare state gives them, and an active self-reliantpopulation that can help when problems get out ofhand. And these two things are in large degreeincompatible.

Again, take the example of parenthood. The activecitizen in the past knew how to bring up children.Rising levels of juvenile delinquency and other signsmake it clear that our contemporaries often fail at this

‘What [politicians]want ... is the power awelfare state givesthem, and an activeself-reliant populationthat can help whenproblems get out ofhand. And these twothings are in largedegree incompatible.’


task. The real reasons for these failures are complex,but governments know how to toss up a policy or twoto show that they are ‘making a difference’, andlegislation now mandates, for example, how longpeople may leave children of what age unattended andhow they may punish them. It may be the case thatchildren are being rather cheated in their upbringing,but governments always have the solution: children’srights can always be declared, and that at leastsounds as if they are better off, even if it weakensparental authority by transferring discretion to courts.Even the parenting problem is subjected to the samereflex solution by which radicals look to the young,and luckless schoolchildren are in danger of beinggiven lessons in parenthood. How much this risingtide of rights and regulations has improved family lifeis arguable, but it has clearly made life very difficultfor parents, teachers and the police. Our rulers nolonger trust anyone’s discretion.5

Again, it turns out that as immigrants enter thecountry, whites and immigrants separate off into‘ghettos’ and live separate lives. The dread word‘apartheid’ is even used. It is thought that moremixing will diminish the likelihood of riot. In abureaucratic babble about ‘action plans’ (rather than‘inaction plans’ no doubt) powerful voices havesuggested that schools must be integrated racially.There is an interesting possibility that a decade or twoafter bussing has failed in the United States, it maybecome the dernier cri in British social engineering.

A significant version of how governments construeproblems is that Blunkett, as Minister of Education,had to respond to teaching in schools so lamentable asto be turning out illiterates and innumerates. Hissolution was to impose literacy and numeracy hours ineach day’s teaching. This has been a successful move

KENNETH MINOGUE 21

in that the test scores have improved, but it doesrather turn teachers into puppets forever respondingto str ings pul led by adirectives-crazed ministry. Itis true, indeed, that this policyresponded to the folly ofteachers who had embracedvarious kinds of child-centerededucation, but that problemcame from the same source asthe Blunkett solution: namelythat schooling had been takenover by the government and run as a singe centralisedsystem. British education has grown worse preciselyin proportion to the increasing control of the ministryof education. The reason teachers can indulge in follyis that parents have virtually no say in the way theirchildren are educated and an activist ministry hashopped from one improving expedient to another. In1944, the system had to be grammar schools, technicalschools and secondary moderns. In the 1960scomprehensives became the rage. By 2001, technicalschools were in and grammars were making a comeback. These endless political twitches in search of theperfect educational system have weakened the realvitality of an educational tradition. They may alreadyhave destroyed it.

This is a pretty brief selectionof the measures taken by recentg o v e r n m e n t s t o s u p p l ydeficiencies in the society itspresides over. A crazed dialecticin which each new socialp r o b l e m d e m a n d s n e wgovernment accretions of poweris at work. But the real problem

‘The reason teacherscan indulge in folly isthat parents havevirtually no say in theway their children areeducated’

‘A crazed dialecticin which each newsocial problemdemands newgovernmentaccretions of poweris at work.’


for the government is the British people themselves.Whole sections of the population are regularly selected

and denounced f o r th e i rinadequacies. The government isdispleased with merchants (‘rip-offBritain’), lawyers (as we shallsee), doctors (unaccountable),parents, farmers (subsidisedfraud) and many others. Anda f t e r h a l f a c e n t u r y o fdemocratically responding to theneeds of ‘ordinary people’ the

government finds that this unlikely lot are not onlyhopeless but even pretty ungrateful. It was, no doubt,a joke when Bertold Brecht, the German Marxist,responded to the 1953 riots in East Berlin bysuggesting that the government should dissolve thepeople and elect a new one, but it isn’t a joke anymore. The British are, to judge by the complaints oftheir rulers, undereducated, obese, uncultured,apathetic, uncitizenly, and cannot be trusted withguns, alcohol, punitive canes, sugary food or evenchildren. A new people must be brought into being.And the worrying thing is that this is a governmentthat wants ‘to make a difference’. They are actuallytrying. They are certainly spending record amounts ofmoney on public relations campaigns.

6. Megalomania, Government and Lawyers

My point is not, of course, to deny that there are realproblems, but to suggest that the heavy hand of thelaw is the wrong way to go about dealing with them.Much can be left, and ought to be left, to society’s ownresources of self-correction.

For there is one grandiose theme running through

‘A new people must bebrought into being.And the worryingthing is that this is agovernment thatwants “to make adifference”.’

KENNETH MINOGUE 23

this remarkable story of folly. It is that the decisivevoice is never the people but that of the government,w h i c h m o n op o l i s es a l linitiative. It has authority,unlimited cash and oftenassumes that it has the powerand the wisdom to solve allproblems. And it is asubiquitous as the air. Wher-ever two or three are gatheredtogether in our society, to playsport, set up a theatre, initiatea business or a trade union, establish a charity oranything else, the government will be there, firstseducing by subsidy and then (sometimes as long as ageneration later) taking over by regulation. To adopta metaphor from economics, the tragedy of Britainover the last half century is that government has‘crowded out’ the real energies of the people. And thecrowding out of civil society by welfarism involvesassuming that everyone requires help on the samelevel as those who really do need it. Yet it is hard toname one area of British lifein which the government hasnot advanced some brilliantscheme, and failed. Whether itbe nationalised railways, theNational Health Service, slumclearance, the expansion ofuniversities, the schooling ofchildren, the failure of grandschemes is the rule, yet new ministries regularlyemerge from the wreckage touting some marvellousnew initiative with which to seduce a populationincreasingly incapable of doing things for itself. Part

‘the tragedy of Britainover the last halfcentury is thatgovernment has“crowded out” the realenergies of the people.’

‘it is hard to name onearea of British life inwhich the governmenthas not advancedsome brilliant scheme,and failed.’


of the reason, no doubt, is that the population is sobombarded with news that it soon forgets about thefailure of the last grand policy in its bewitchment withthe new. No wonder our democratic rulers even wantto tell us how to be citizens. If we retained any vitality,we would be telling them how to be democrats.

It is against this background that we may judgesuch initiatives as the Home Secretary’s strategy fordealing with crime, a strategy that seeks to bring inthe people to counterbalance the lawyers. It is a politebut unmistakable attack on pettifogging jurists andpower-crazed judges. Blunkett quotes Michael Beloffin support of his view that the judiciary has beenexercising control over the legislatures and even‘infringed the sovereignty of Parliament’. He arguesalso that some lawyers are more concerned withfinding loopholes for their clients than with the justiceof a trial’s outcome. No doubt he is thinking, in part,of the fact that if an asylum seeker has his applicationfor British residence rejected, he can appeal to thecourts and his case may still be undecided three yearslater, by which time he has disappeared from sight.The thing about judges is that they do not haveresponsibility for the fiscal or social consequences ofwhat they declare the law to be—or even of how longthey may take in declaring it.

Many readers will be unable to resist a cheer at therecognition of these defects, but unfortunately commonsense may not in this area be the best guide.Blunkett’s dissatisfaction with the lawyers certainlypoints to the logical crux of the problem. The point isthat it is, in fact, the business of lawyers to look forloopholes, and they become far more dangerous whenthey imagine, as they come increasingly to do, that itis their business to improve society. Losing sight of

KENNETH MINOGUE 25

one’s professional limitationsin favour of re-making theworld is the same wildambition that has seducedgovernments themselves.Megalomania unhinges thewits of these perfectionists. Itis one way of describing ourpresent decadence. Blunkett,perhaps understandably given our present situation,thinks he must not only deal with the responsibilitiesof the Home Office, but must also act as teacher,father, spiritual guide, policeman and nanny to thenation. With the authority of government behind him,he is tempted to think (rather like the writers ofeditorials) that he can do everything better than theactual practitioners. But that strategic cast of mind isexactly how we got into our present mess, and itcertainly isn’t how we might get out of it. In thisrespect, at least, he is a paragon of New Labour.

The developing struggle between Blunkett and thelawyers is thus best seen as a conflict between twogroups both bent on gaining power over society.Blunkett is understandably cautious in tangling withso powerful an interest. As he says in his remarks toCivitas: ‘I am not intent on knocking the professionalesteem and wisdom, or the key role, of our judiciary.But if we don’t have a system where people are clearon who makes decisions—and why they are the peoplewho make decisions—democracy fails.’ It does indeed.Lawyers have for centuries been our protectorsagainst an overmighty executive; on the other hand,judges have increasingly become surrogate legislators,fully capable of destroying the integrity of institutionsin the name of human rights. Blunkett’s remarks to

‘Megalomaniaunhinges the wits ofthese perfectionists.It is one way ofdescribing ourpresent decadence.’


Civitas are a broadside in the emerging war of theexecutive against the lawyers. And the widersignificance of this conflict may be illustrated byinvoking some recent remarks made by David BeanQC who has criticised the Auld Report proposalslimiting the use of jury trials.6

7. Three Conceptions of British Society

Mr Bean is the new Chairman of the Bar, and part ofMatrix Chambers; he is a colleague of Cherie BoothQC. Matrix has a particular interest in human rightscases. Mr Bean’s complaint is that, to the extent thatjuries are replaced by what he called ‘a souped-upmagistrates’ court but with quadrupled jurisdiction’,then defendants will not be tried by their ‘peers’. Hisspecial emphasis is on ethnic minorities. Mr Beanseems to mean that members of ethnic minoritiesshould never find themselves being tried only by whitejudges and jurors. Only two per cent of district judgesand five per cent of lay magistrates, he observes, arefrom ethnic minorities. He clearly feels there ought tobe a representative quota on all these bodies, thoughhe might bridle at the word ‘quota’. Even were such arevised ‘representativeness’ to be implemented, someethnic defendants would often find themselves in anall-white environment. The logic is clearly that thereought to be an ethnic quota on all juries, but Blunketthas had no hesitation in dismissing this absurdsuggestion.

It seems to me difficult here to disentangle thespecial interest of lawyers from policy advocacy, buttheir general drift is revealed in Bean’s arguing that‘[t]here is a strong public interest in securing a legalprofession, and in due course a judiciary, that is morereflective of the composition of society as a whole’.

KENNETH MINOGUE 27

People often say things like this, but (I suggest)without thought. If ‘society’ were a single harmoniousand unanimous body like a church, then perhaps itmight be appropriately ‘reflected’ in judicial decisions,but society is, rather, a tangle of conflicts anddisagreements held together within a framework oflaw. The idea that ‘society’ rather than ‘law’ shouldsettle disputes must therefore be counted as a specialinterest trying to pass itself off as justice itself. Thething called ‘society’ here could only be, for thesepurposes, a political régime. I hesitate to speculatewhat interest it might serve, but this is an opinionthat has been held by a variety of people such as Leninand Hitler whose company I am sure that Mr Beanwould not want to keep. What I take it we actuallywant in a democracy is that the courts should express,not ‘reflect’, the law, and that happy outcome can onlyresult from the competence of lawyers in declaring thelaw and not from their ethnic or class composition.

We may thus clarify some of the confusions ofmodern British politics by distinguishing threeconceptions of our collective life. The first we have metas civil society, our inherited mode of freedom inwhich Britain is an arena for the many projects of itsactive citizenry. The second conception is that of thewelfare state in which the population is understood interms of its least resourceful members as a collectionof needy individuals who must have provided for themby governments the average resources of the currentmanner of living. In Mr Bean’s conception of thathighly disputed word ‘society’, we have a third view,which is a variant of the welfarist view of a modernsociety: this is multiculturalism in which Britain isunderstood as a weave of different ethnic minoritieswhose representativeness comes not from the


democratic politics of voting but from membersdeclaring the assumed natural interest of theirculture. In its assumption that each social componenthas a clear and unambiguous ‘interest’, themulticultural position would seem to derive fromMarxist class and feminist gender theory. It is a risingmanagerial interest setting out the class ofdependents on according collective rights to whom itspower will be based. The way in which our politics isactually conducted is a rather incoherent mix of thesethree ways of conceiving the state we live in. Yet eachof them yields a different idea of what might bedescribed as the public interest or the common good.

8. The Social Division of Labour

Blunkett too wants crime to be the business notmerely of the state, but of society in general. He toowants a criminal justice system that reflects ‘society’,though he has a different notion of society from that ofDavid Bean. Both agree, however, that ‘society’(understood as sociologically representative) shouldact in preference to the specialised institutions wehave inherited. What is left in this conception of theindividuals who inhabit civil society? Not much, wemust say. Human beings are assumed to be biologicalentities with needs to be satisfied and frustrations tobe avoided, equipped with skills that are in aggregatesocially interchangeable. They are thus eligible to beshuffled around the social world according to thedictates of its managers. People are not, of course, likethat.

This misunderstanding of the real world isparticularly relevant to Blunkett’s problems with thepolice, who are often thought to have a ‘macho’ culturethat makes them unresponsive to ‘gendering’ and

KENNETH MINOGUE 29

other equal opportunity policies. But the currentreality turns out to be that our extensively ‘gendered’and increasingly multi-ethnic police force is better atmeeting measurable performance targets (such aspicking up drink-drivers) than at catching criminals.Yet even in this bureaucratised police force, morale islow, many seek early retirement, and promotiondepends to a serious extent less on deterrence anddetection than on politically correct sentiments. Thepolice are one more set of people Blunkett wants totake by the scruff of the neck and make over.

What if, however, it were the case that working inthe police force (as in the army) should appeal to somemen precisely because it is a job that women don’t dovery well. It might even be that some potentiallyexcellent bloodhounds want to join the force becausethey feel that these public duties are best performedby white recruits whose continuity with Englishtraditions makes them more suitable forunderstanding the tradition, or perhaps even thatthey feel more at home with ‘their own kind’. These

might well be deplorableprejudices, but they raise aserious question for publicdebate. Everybody knows thatthe wealth of nations dependson the division of labour. It isless commonly realised thatthe dynamism of a free societydepends also upon the division

of institutional cultures. Different jobs depend notonly on different skills but also on different tempera-ments and attitudes, and different sets of people havea comparative advantage (and correspondingly acomparative disadvantage) in different occupations.

‘the dynamism of a freesociety depends ... uponthe division ofinstitutional cultures.’


Ghurkas appear to have a comparative advantage asinfantrymen, and no one was ever foolish enough towant to subject them to equal opportunity policies.Kenyans are great long distance runners, women havevast talents in the so-called caring and teachingprofessions, blacks often excel in sport and certaintypes of music, etc. It is even the case that middle-class public schoolboys (pace David Bean QC) seem tobe pretty good lawyers. None of these associations iseternal, and there are obviously many individualexceptions, but it might be suggested that a successfulsociety goes with the grain of these preferences. DavidBlunkett, however, finds himself a New Labourminister in a government dedicated (as indeed mostBritish governments have been for many decades) tohomogenising every institution so that it reflects‘society’—and then calling this homogenisation‘diversity’. Orwell, thou shouldst be living at this hour.

Equal opportunities sounds like a cast iron formulafor fairness, and there aremany cases where indeed itis. But like all abstractprinciples, it can distortreality. The grand principleof wise government used tobe the skill of balancingb e t w e e n c o n f l i c t i n gdes i rab i l i t i e s . Moderngovernments are incapable ofholding more than oneabstract principle in theirheads at a time. They seem to

be the helpless victims of whatever ideological fashionstrikes our culture. That is the hidden source of theirhyperactivism. It is also the reason why they leave alitter of big projects collapsing behind them. Their

‘Their current enthusiasmis for turning the policeforce into an equalopportunity playgroundrather than a highlydisciplined and controlledinstrument for catchingcriminals and sustainingcivil order.’

KENNETH MINOGUE 31

current enthusiasm is for turning the police force intoan equal opportunity playground rather than a highlydisciplined and controlled instrument for catchingcriminals and sustaining civil order.

This Russian doll conception of how British lifeought to be arranged should make it clear that whenBlunkett declares that his crime strategy needs tohear the voice of the people, he’s not serious. Hisconception of a ‘public debate’7 is no more real thanany other politician using that whimsical expression.A majority of the people are often quite keen on capitalpunishment for the worst kind of murderer, but thiswould be, as they say, ‘outside the box’ in modernélitist British politics. Any modification of the policy ofmaking the police force sociologically ‘reflect’ society isso far outside the box as to be out of sight. Publicopinion on this may change in time, as theinefficiencies of homogenising the police become moreevident, and a return to Dixon of Dock Green becomesthinkable. But this whole area is one in whichdemocracy has been deliberately and efficientlybypassed.

In any case, the public are not really a very usefulsource of wisdom on forensic matters. It seemsunlikely that they will help the Home Secretary in hisrequest for advice on how to prevent organisedcriminals from influencing jurors. The people seem tobe no better than governments in taking on board thebasic legal wisdom that hard cases make bad law, andtheir attitude to difficult questions, such as what to doabout paedophiles, is dangerously susceptible to thestentorian hysteria of the tabloids. Popular judgementon how long those convicted should serve in prison islargely incoherent, though some tincture of it mightcorrect the therapeutic tendencies of prison reformers


and the social services. But it seems clear to me thatthis is one area where elementary democracy doeshave to be corrected by those who have a coherentoverall understanding of the wider situation. We maysympathise with Blunkett in regretting that we arelumbered with some of the judges we have, but we hadbetter make the best of it.

9. Civil Society and theState

It is hard not to be stirred byBlunkett’s courage andcommon sense; he sayssensible things that many ofhis fellows won’t say. Yet ourbasic argument suggests thathe has mistaken whatmodern Britain is like. He

wants to call up the virtues of a vigorous civil societyat a time where generations of welfare have enfeebledthose virtues. And one consequence of that mistake isthat all he can give us is the mere pretence of activeinvolvement in public policy. All that he will actuallyallow is the harmless letting off of steam. Blunkett’sinstincts seem to me to be pretty sound, but that verybenevolence and good sense may be leading him intodangerous waters. Increased power is sometimes moredangerous in the hands of the good than the bad.

Let me end by citing one confusion, and making onefurther comment on the central contradiction I havediagnosed.

The confusion is to be found in his argument thatthe present mischief results from an imbalance ofpower between the executive and the judiciary. Thequantitative idea of balance can sometimes be useful,

‘[Blunkett] wants to callup the virtues of avigorous civil society at atime where generations ofwelfare have enfeebledthose virtues.’

KENNETH MINOGUE 33

but what is at issue here is a matter of function, of theseparation of powers. The judiciary has the narrow butvital function of declaring the law, and the executiveis concerned with the public interest, or salus populi.Twentieth-century lawyers went off the rails whenthey fell for bad philosophies of law telling them thatlaw (like everything else) was really politics. This ledthem to the illusion that their business was withjustice rather than merely declaring what the law was.Some even came to think that they represented thepeople better than those power-crazed politicians. Thewhole drama of the recent terrorism bill was a conflictbetween two interests highly mistrustful of each otherand both seeking to extend their power. Getting theprinciples of functional demarcation right won’t solvethe problem, but without it there’s unlikely to be anysolution at all—merely the constitutional crisis ofpublic law that is on its way.

The contradiction I have discussed is betweengovernments on the one hand demanding we shouldactively co-operate in their projects, and on the otherhand treating us as dependents of the state. Thiscontradiction can be seen more specifically inBlunkett’s attitude to civil society. It is, he rightly saysin his remarks to Civitas, ‘made up of often informal,but very real, connections that bind individuals,families and communitiestogether. These self-reliant,active communities are thebedrock of democracy.’ Hardlyhave these wise words beenuttered, however, before he isremarking that the HomeOffice is increasingly becomingthe Department for the

‘This is New Labourspeaking, with itspassion to regulate,codify, define and helpus poor ordinarycitizens to live betterlives.’


Citizen. ‘It is at the heart of identifying and definingthe values that bind us together as a society andhelping to influence and shape the views of what makethis a decent, open, just and tolerant country in whichto live.’ This is New Labour speaking, with its passionto regulate, codify, define and help us poor ordinarycitizens to live better lives. Two generations ago, aman of Blunkett’s sturdy common sense would haverecognised this as the dangerous hogwash it is. Todayhe is struggling in its sticky toils.

35

1 I shudder delicately at having to use the word‘strategy’ which has replaced ‘plan’, ‘policy’,‘scheme’ and other less pretentious words but ithas now become universal as expressing themodern fantasy that whatever one is doing, one isengaged in war or struggle (as in war on poverty,drugs etc.). The aim of a real strategy is todestroy an opponent and achieve victory, and thisis not at all how politics works, or indeed muchelse in social life.

2 de Tocqueville, A., Democracy in America,London: Everyman, Dent, 1835, 1994.

3 See for example Hutton, W., The World We’re In,London: Little, Brown, 2002.

4 Trudging through pretentious nonsense impelsone irresistibly to comment on what has beendone to the language. The idea that listeningwith attention to Mr Blunkett or Mr Blair is likebeing able to read a book cannot but invokeclichés about ‘dumbing down’. Some other geniushas invented the idea of ‘emotional literacy’. Thisis all part of ‘educating’ people in how to be bettermembers of an improved modern society. Thereason our schools and universities are in thecondition they are might in part be attributed tothe ignorance of what education is, as revealed bythese out-of-control metaphors.

5 It is very hard in writing this kind of argument tokeep up with the march of folly. As I write, theSunday Telegraph of 28 April 2002 reports thatthe government is considering dealing with theproblem of juvenile crime by taking away the taxcredits (i.e. some of their wages) from parents, aninteresting reversal of the Biblical belief aboutthe sins of the parents. Parenthood is alreadypretty difficult, leading to serious demographic

Notes


problems. The government wants to make it evenmore onerous. At least it is reported thatBlunkett is not in favour of this idea.

6 The Times, 17 December 2001.

7 The police have been charged with somethingcalled ‘institutional racism’, a term that mightfunction as an intelligence test for the capacity tosay anything sensible in ‘public debate’. Forracism, though seldom accorded a definition,certainly refers to a subjective hostility of mindtowards other peoples, while ‘institutional’ isexplicitly designed to point to a supposed ethnicimbalance that is not related to such subjectivehostility. The expression thus incorporates acontradiction, and it is a familiar principle oflogic that from a contradiction anything—in thiscase any bit of nonsense—can follow.

civil society and david blunkett - civitas.org.uk

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