The Ballad of Church and State

Certain senior individuals within the Church of England have recently been very vocal in their opposition to changes to the UK's marriage laws; changes designed to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry (Malnick & Moreton, 2012).

Their stance opposes the coalition junior partner Liberal Democrats, whose leader Mr Nick Clegg has affirmed that equal marriage is a matter of 'when not if' (Grice, 2012).

The conflict brewing here has all facets of a self-made problem - one likely to afflict any state church. Once established at the heart of a nation, particularly at the heart of a democracy, it becomes bound to the tides of those people. For the Church of England, its struggle is with a core ideal of democratic society - that those who have to obey the laws have the right to make them.

Continued opposition to reforms that fit that democratic basis - in this case by denying a group the right to peacefully express themselves (in love of all things) - only serves to question the validity of that establishment's own authority.

The deeply conservative landowning class that dominated the House of Lords discovered this in opposition to the Liberal welfare reforms of the early 1900s - their attempts to use their unelected institutional power to trammel democratic reforms resulted in reforms of the House of Lords that largely stripped it of its powers.

The best defence of liberty has always been defending the liberty of others. To support each individual in their right to think, speak and live freely & peacefully. The arbitrary outlawing of individuals or entire groups within a society flies in the face of this and is a dangerous road for any democracy to travel down.

There have already been calls to disestablish the church as part of the British state (Jenkins, 2012). The upcoming general synod of the Church of England will be an important event for the church - where it must largely decide whether to reform, to challenge or to depart from its privileged position within the UK's establishment.

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References:
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+ Edward Malnick & Cole Moreton's 'Bishops rebel against Church marriage policy'; in The Telegraph; 24 June 2012.

+ Andrew Grice's 'Moves to block gay marriage "a waste of time"'; in The Independent; 21 June 2012.

+ Simon Jenkins' 'The marriage of church and state is anything but gay'; in The Guardian; 12 June 2012.

Vince Cable: Man of the People?

The Business Secretary Mr Vince Cable made headlines last month when he took a stand against Tory attempts to press on with worker-unfriendly policies. In the struggle to stimulate economic growth, the Tories have supported proposals to roll back labour rights under the auspices of loosing businesses of administrative burdens. Mr Cable responded by saying (Telegraph, 2012):

"Some people think that if labour rights were stripped down to the most basic minimum, employers would start hiring and the economy would soar again... This is complete nonsense."

As if to emphasize the point, Mr Cable also succeeded in negotiating a deal, alongside trade unions, to keep a major car production facility in Ellesmere Port open, active and employing (BBC, 2012). The Liberal Democrats, taking the opportunity to build bridges and cooperate with unions, are a far cry from the Labour Party, who seem to be self-destructing as they try to reorganise political power within their party.

Labour leader, Mr Ed Miliband, announced last summer his intention to encourage more of the party's membership to join directly as members rather than indirectly as part of a union voting bloc (Helm, 2011). The move involves changing how voting takes place and who can vote in party leadership elections - in what is apparently an attempt to cut the unions out of their middle man role (Wintour & Mulholland, 2012).

This all seems a symptom of the Labour Party's decades long tack towards conservatism, all with gaining the support of the centre-right and major financial institutions as the aim. But in the attempt to take the electoral fight to Tory turf, their traditional base amongst the unions has been increasingly isolated.

So it comes as poor timing for Labour that, as the unions attempt measures to assert their strength within the Labour Party (Rath, 2012), those same unions are also fostering a useful cooperation with the Liberal Democrats.

And, in turn, the Lib Dems have also made strong overtures towards the unions in recent months. Particularly demonstrative of this was Chief Secretary to the Treasury Mr Danny Alexander's strong overture to the unions in his speech at the GMB Conference:

"It was of course a Liberal Prime Minister, William Gladstone, who legalised trade unions almost 150 years ago. And together, the Trades Union movement and the Liberal Party were at the very heart of some of the key economic, political and social reforms for this country. Regulating working hours. Improving working conditions. Extending national insurance. Laying the foundations of our welfare state with the Beveridge Report."

So, at a time when Labour's closest activist members and its longest term potential political ally are working so productively together; at a time when opinion polls are hugely favourable towards Labour; it is particularly astonishing that the Labour Party can seem to be in such utter disarray.

The party has started to take some steps to address the issues it faces. The appointment of MP Mr Jon Cruddas as policy chief is a beginning (Helm & Coman, 2012). But people need to see more positive action from Labour and less score settling. There is still a long way to go before it can challenge Mr Vince Cable, and return to its place as the worker's champion.

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References:
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+ The Telegraph's 'Plans to cut employment rights "complete nonsense", says Cable'; 21 May 2012.

+ BBC's 'Vauxhall's Ellesmere Port plant to build new Astra'; 17 May 2012.

+ Toby Helm's 'Ed Miliband set for collision course with unions over Labour block vote'; in The Guardian; 25 June 2011.

+ Kate Rath's 'New Labour group Progress rejects GMB union "outlaw" threat'; on the BBC; 15 June 2012.

+ Toby Helm & Julian Coman's 'Labour's new policy chief: we must be bold and radical'; in The Guardian; 16 June 2012.

Freedom from Consequence

A mixed group from across the political spectrum have launched a campaign seeking the reform of Section 5 of the Public Order Act, on the basis that it restricts free speech (Dunt, 2012). Promotion of the campaign has thus far centred on - what appears to be - legalising insults.

Particular concern has been raised around a number of cases that have made their way into the courts in recent years (BBC, 2012). The group Reform Section 5 point to extensive and fairly ambiguous powers handed to the police to decide what is or isn't insulting.

Much has already been said about the need to improve our legal approach to freedom of speech; the Libel Reform Campaign seeks to protect citizens and science from the current libel process - for instance the costs of the legal process that can way matters in the favour of the wealthy.

But as we engage with reform we need to be wary lest the position of truth be threatened.

This makes the focus upon insults particularly worrying - could it simply generate greater allowance for selfishness and lack of consideration for others in our thoughts and actions?

"nature and the laws of our country have given us a right to liberty of both exposing and opposing arbitrary power... by speaking and writing truth."
                     -Andrew Hamilton; Zenger Trial, New York Colony, 1735.

Andrew Hamilton's point (as it was portrayed with loving surrealism on Cracked.com) was that amongst the functions of such laws is offering protection against the use of power to suppress truth. And this means an opposition to all kinds of power - both immense and petty - with truth for truth.

Insults are not concerned with truth. Nor should they be a substitute for adequate critique. A person may very well be fat. But using the word fat towards someone is charged with intention.  And used to provoke, put down, humiliate, demean, degrade or defile -  these are precisely the kinds of abuses reforms of libel law aught to consider.

We must also be wary lest conjecture, speculation, rumour and subjectivity are allowed to dress themselves up as fact and in doing so threaten truth from the opposite side of the law.

As Andrew Hamilton put it:

"It is natural, it is a privilege, I will go further, it is a right, which all free men claim, that they are entitled to complain when they are hurt. They have a right publicly to remonstrate against the abuses of power in the strongest terms"

There are most certainly arguments for reform of the UK's laws around freedom of speech. Greater specificity and clearer distinctions of truth - and clearer limits to remove the arbitrary authorities that are able to determine what is or isn't a crime. And there is a need to fix imbalances in access to legal protection, between those with wealth and those without.

As we do, we must be careful to reform and not to entirely dismantle legal structures around the arbitration of these personal disputes. Both the right to seek redress for grievances and the scope to speak freely are important - and without these abilities freedom of speech would quickly suffer all the petty tyrannies of the vociferous and the loud over the reserved and the quiet.

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References:
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+ Ian Dunt's 'Free speech campaigners: 'Feel free to insult us'; on Politics.co.uk; 16 May 2012.


+ BBC's 'Free speech campaign on Public Order Act and insults'; 17 May 2012.