UK bans Westboro Baptists

The Home Secretary informed the House of Commons that, after much deliberation, she had decided to invoke the Protection of Sodomy Act to prevent Fred Phelps and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper, members of the Westboro Baptist Church, from entering the UK. In her statement Ms. Smith insisted that this decision was in complete accordance with the principle of freedom of speech:

'This government is absolutely committed to free speech as an essential component of our democracy. It is for this reason that we have to prevent people from expressing opposition to our manifesto commitment to give sodomites, necrophiliacs and paedophiles superior rights to those possessed by decent married couples. If democracy and free speech are to be ensured we cannot allow dissent from the clear will of the 16% of the population that elected us.'

Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, expressed his support for the government's action. He told the Anglican commission tasked with erasing anything connected with the words God, Christ and morality from all English translations of the Bible that the Church had put too much emphasis on the family in the past and should now embrace 'the inevitable trend towards hermeneutical solutions at variance with traditional exegetical norms which offer relativist maxims propogating a utilitarian ethic limited in scope to the individual'. One cleric suffered a minor injury in the general rush for dictionaries.

Both members of the Phelps family banned from Britain expressed their outrage at the Home Secretary's ruling. Mrs. Phelps-Roper, surrounded by the offspring of her incestuous marriage, told reporters that she 'prayed for the return of sexual propriety in the great land that refused to accept the scum that were my ancestors and sent them to form this damnable nation of America'. She was sure that the British government had been coerced into banning her by the sorcery of the Anti-Christ, Pope Benedict XVI, who apparently is the 264th reincarnation of the original son of the Devil, St. Peter. 'Its all in the Bible', she said.

A Plea for the Lords

There is no use in mincing words. Our constitution is under attack. Successive radical governments are continuing the war that Mr. Lloyd George declared upon it when he first introduced the Parliament Bill in 1910. Now the nation has endured more that ten years of direct assault on its revered institutions, and scarcely a pen has risen to the defence of the latter. For, in this matter, the pen is indeed mightier than the sword. It was the left's victory in the battle of ideas that enabled them to tame a population that a century ago reacted with horror at Lloyd George's mockery of the peerage as 'five hundred men, ordinary men, chosen by accident from among the unemployed'. This is the first of a series of posts that seeks to challenge the monopoly liberal political theory possesses in the intellectual debate on the constitution.

The constitutional reform that has been consistently pursued by all governments of a radical persuasion over the last century has been reform of the House of Lords. Such a reform was, after succeeding in limiting the powers of the Upper House by the Parliament Act 1911, consistently frustrated until 1999 when the House of Lords Act removed the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the Upper House. In practise, however, the introduction of life peerages in 1958 had diluted the aristocratic character of the House, and together with plans to separate the Law Lords from the legislature by setting up an independent supreme court, these reforms have severely diminished the old constitution of the House of Lords until such a time as a radical government is persuaded to complete a comprehensive reform. With all this change it is imperative to look at the grounds for reform and decide whether they are just and reasonable or simply constitutional vandalism.

The old House of Lords rested on principally on the pillar of the hereditary peerage. This has been the traditional bugbears of radicals, one of whom, Alfred Russell Wallace, felt obliged in 1892 to describe it 'as wholly out of place in the parliament of a people which claims to possess both political and religious freedom'. In reality, as Labour readily admitted when pushing through the reforms of 1999, the reformers have been motivated by the simple desire to remove a sure bulwark against socialism rather than for any supposed desire to hand all power over to the people. Trade unionists have proved particularly keen to abolish the hereditary principle, though they apparently view the smooth transition of power from one generation of old Labourite families to another as entirely legitimate procedure (e.g. the Benns and the Callaghans).

Walter Bagehot, the great Victorian constitutionalist, identified the distinction between the dignified elements of the constitution and its efficient parts. The dignified theory, with all the accompanying ceremonial, gave legitimacy to an institution, while its efficient parts determined how it operated. In Bagehot's time most defences of the House of Lords were based on its value in its dignified capacity, while most opposition to it was from the quarter of efficiency. That state of affairs has since been reversed. Not even the most ardent conservative during the height of the Thatcher years would dare defend the hereditary principle as a principle, they merely pointed out that it works. And it that respect they were certainly right. An Upper House composed largely of hereditary peers does its job perfectly well. But then so could an elected senate, or an appointed chamber, or an assembly chosen by lot. Many different forms of legislature can put a good show when actually legislating. They are, after all, made up of human beings who are not generally imbecilic. The real question is one of legitimacy.

This question, therefore, is what I shall consider. Is the presence of hereditary peers in the Second Chamber legitimate? The hereditary principle is actually very easy to defend. All of us desire to leave names, traditions and property to our posterity. To defend hereditary rights is simply to defend the family. By moudling our institutions according to the order of nature we furnish them with the respect children have for their parents. States are, after all, simply extensions of the family, held together by blood and history. Burke expresses this truth most eloquently in his famous Reflections on the Revolution in France. That great conservative noted that, 'in this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood, binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties, adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections, keeping inseparable and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars'.

Nature is not the only legitimiser of heredity; the latter undeniably has an aura of sanctity about it. The battle over the Second Chamber's future was described by John Wells in his highly readable overview of the institution, The House of Lords, as a struggle between the Shining Ladder, the hierarchical vision, and the Bright Horizon, the egalitarian vision. The latter was formulated in the minds of mere men while the latter has at its heart that vision of divine order and of the 'Christian love governing creation' that is perhaps best represented in St. John's vision of God enthroned and surrounded by a council of elders, all with golden crowns on their heads. If there is a hierarchy among the angels and saints in Heaven, how can it be immoral to have one among men on earth?

Which leads us to consider more specifically the case of the hereditary peerage. If the family is the basis of the State how can we deny the most distinguished families in the land their position in the constitution their ancestors played so great a part in building? If noble families have great and natural influence in the country, if they are the leaders and guardians of property, if they are entitled to respect on account of their birth and rank, how can they not be one of the great estates of the realm, worthy of separate representation in Parliament? For a nobleman to have an equal vote with a commoner is to proclaim political equality, a theory that is manifestly not in accord with society's natural hierarchy. Furthermore, the status of the nobility as a distinct social and political caste serves to support that other great institution built in the light of the Shining Ladder, the monarchy itself. The Crown is, after all, the apex of our hierarchical society, but, to adapt Burke, every polished Corinthian capital requires an stable pillar to maintian it. The same principle that would commend the abolition of the political role of the peerage would also have us declare a republic.

Radicals will no doubt say this is a fit of pique from a dyed in the wool traditionalist, with no foundation in reason. But it is hardly rational to devise a government that does not take into account the natural state of the governed. The fact is that there will always be aristocrats, great landowners and important military families and these will always have influence. As Bagehot noted, 'an old lord will get infinite respect ... they [the people] will listen to his nonsense more submissively than the new man's sense'. This is especially true of a people like the British who have such a great attachment to hereditary distinctions. It is sometimes suggested that peers are unpopular with the masses. If that were true, why do the latter desire to socialise with and marry the former? There is no basis for anything, moral or rational, that does not find its root in the natural order. Inverting that order, as happened on the Continent, would result in political and social instability and threats to inherited liberties and property everywhere.

In 1867 it was put about that the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and see it. Put another way, people might venerate and respect the order of nobility, the dignified institution, but the latter served no efficient function. In fact, this criticism that hereditary peers were not involving themselves in the business of government at the time was quite unfair. Rather, the House of Lords was criticised for being involved in defeating legislation that Radical and Liberal governments wished passed. Nonetheless, opposition to the Lords on the grounds that they are not an effective senate, while less prominent in the arguments of modern reformers, remains a common point of view. It is, however, not only a mistaken viewpoint, but the opposite is true, only the House of Lords can provide an effective second chamber for Britain.

To analyse this question of efficiency we have to bear in mind what a senate is actually supposed to do. Such a body is, essentially, a deliberative assembly, a forum through which the restraining influence of the great interests and stakeholders in a country can be brought to bear. The question is whether 'an hereditary assembly of opulent nobles', as the Lords are derogatorily referred to in the Federalist Papers, can be Macdonald's 'sober body of second thought'. The answer is yes.

Leftists will at this point raise the rudimentary objection that 'accident of birth' is not an attribute sufficient to make a good legislator. That is true. But democratic election is also not such an attribute. Nor is appointment, or lot, or any other form of selection that can be imagined. Human nature being what it is, any system that is operated by human beings will have good and bad products. But an exception does not make a rule. The vast majority of hereditary peers are not moronic fools, to suggest that is just as absurd as suggesting that a random cross section of the population is likely to consist of lunatics. An hereditary assembly is likely to be distinctly average in its membership, it will have some intellects, some fools, but a majority of privileged, but quite ordinary human beings, with the advantage of long years of both personal and ancestral experience in government. It is, I posit, quite a comforting thought to know that any Bill that comes up from the Commons is subjected to the common sense examination of people beholden to no-one, not the electorate, not the Prime Minister, nor even the Monarch. As an anonymous hereditary peer was supposed to have remarked during the battle over Mr. Wilson's attempt at reform in 1968, 'presumably it is no worse to be appointed by God than by Harold Wilson'. Moreover, not only do hereditary peers form an independent second chamber, they form a body that has real authority, on account of social and economic influence peers possess. An institution of elected or appointed officials can easily be steamrolled over by a determined administration, not so a House animated by tradition, ancient names, and lofty descent. There is no more ideal guardian of constitutional liberty and the rights of property we have inherited than a body of men who owe their position to those same inherited rights.

There is just one final point to make, that pertains not only to the debate over the House of Lords but to the general debate on constitutional reform. Any attempt to alter the fundamental constitution of our institutions is doomed to failure on account of the fact that the nation will simply not understand it. Take the example of France. Ever since she abolished her traditional form of government she has been continually vacillitating between different models of government and different electoral systems. It is all very well to say that democratic legitimacy is essential to any institution of government, but what sort of democracy? What manner of elections? Ultimately you will end up with the preferences of one intellectual or one generation affecting the constitution that determines how all future generations will be governed. Future generations will obviously disagree with the innovations of a former generation and consequently there will be no stability in our constitutional framework. The only source of legitimacy can be tradition because it uniquely can appeal to all generations. A senate, or second chamber, is supposed to consist of guardians, men of authority and influence and men who posses a stake in the country's past, present and future. The hereditary peerage clearly fits this model of guardianship and as it has the sanction of tradition it is the only body that can provide a second chamber capable of enduring past one or two generations.

Brown to meet the Pope

It was announced from 10 Downing Street that the Prime Minister will have an audience of the Pope in the Vatican.

Mr. Brown's official spokesman told the press that the visit was a chance to continue the friendly relations the United Kingdom and the Holy See have enjoyed ever since Elizabeth I reversed her father's bloodthirsty policy of religious uniformity and replaced it with the toleration of all Christian sects which do not believe in God. A BBC reporter reminded the official spokesman that Catholics actually do believe in God, to which the spokesman replied that he understood the Church of England to be engaging in 'significant ecumenical dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church devoted to resolving such minor doctrinal differences that unhappily divide Christians'. He also added that the Prime Minister was convinced that he and the Pope would find they have much in common, despite their disagreements on unimportant issues that bear no relevance to contemporary society, such as the sancitity of human life, the definition of marriage, and the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

The agenda for the meeting is understood to concentrate on the development of Third World countries into entirely independent and self sustaining nations so that they may be free to continue in such traditional practices as cannibalism, the mass starvation of their populations and the ritual murder of last year's political leaders. The Government firmly believes in the principle of respect for these fundamentals of the cultures of developing nations, the spokesman said.

The Vatican declined to comment on Downing Street's statement.

Monarchy, Equality and Diversity?

This would appear to be the new liberal creed.

The compulsion of Prince Harry, third in line to the British throne, to attend an equality and diversity course for the use of a racist term to a fellow officer cadet at Sandhurst has a certain irony about it. The idea of a royal prince being lectured on the merits of an egalitarian and multicultural society is patently ridiculous. Whatever the questions that may be asked about the prudence of Prince Harry's remarks, this episode has exposed the utter incompatibility of the egalitarian values stemming from revolutionary France that are held so dear by the left, with the institution of hereditary monarchy.

Modernisation has been billeted as the method of preserving the Crown in a society that no longer embraces deference and tradition as it used to. The reformers, as we shall call them, wish to abolish what they see as the embarrassing feudal remnants of a modern institution, such as the preference of males in the succession, bowing and courtseying to members of the royal family, and the association of the Head of State with a national tradition that is rooted in the historical experience of a particular ethno-cultural entity. It is of course the latter that has come in for criticism after the revelation of Prince Harry's ill-advised, yet innocent, remarks. How can, the reformers ask, the monarchy be the symbol of a classless society (to use Jack Straw's words) if it remains stuck in an imperialistic and upper class time-warp. And to classless society we might well add multicultural.

It is difficult to argue against such an approach, at least within the confines the liberal political culture has set down for any debate on such a subject. Since republicanism is clearly not a realistic option (as the nation more than anything simply does not understand or empathise with the republican spirit), the political correctness brigade want to make the Throne represent all the values they assume contemporary society embrace. The trouble is that these values run directly counter to the values that are the Throne's foundation. How is the idea of the royal dynasty representing the continuity and permanence of the nation sustainable, if the nation itself is diluted with elements that do not share our language, our culture, and do not have any link with the historic national community? If the very idea of national identity is perverted from its roots in blood and history to something little better than a voluntary association ascribing to values that any human being can hold, how can an institution that gave the country the former idea of national identity survive in a society that embraces the new one? Surely the result would no longer be a monarchy, but rather a celebrity family that occasionally dresses up and attends political events. The symbolic role of the Crown would wither away, it would be, to quote Bagehot, like letting daylight in on the magic.

Of course, it could be claimed that such a transformation has already happened, or at least that it is inevitable. But I think not. There have been crises in national identity before the advent of multiculturalism, and the twin problems of immigration and integration are not new. But in previous times the monarchy, along with our other traditional institutions such as Parliament and the Church, have acted as beacons of stability grafting even the most radical modernisers into a continuous national tradition that celebrates the past, embraces the present and prepares for the future. The monarchy cannot support an equal and diverse society because it is the symbol of an hierarchical and historic nation. So while I cannot but offer a reproach to Prince Harry on account of his imprudence, I must condemn the linkage of the institution he represents with the multicultural society.