To safeguard the future health of society, politicians such as Roy Jenkins dared to go against the grain of majority opinion
Six months before the 1959 general election, Roy Jenkins, then a young Labour MP for Stechford in Birmingham, wrote a short book laying out The Labour Case. The final chapter was titled Is Britain Civilised?. To which his tacit answer was no – not unless Britain abolished the death penalty, decriminalised homosexuality and suicide, made divorce easier and abortion legal, and promoted racial harmony.
At that point, Labour had been out of power for eight years. The party wouldn’t win for another five. Reading Jenkins’ book recently, I found myself wondering whether Jenkins – who, once Labour finally won in 1964 carried through all those promised reforms as home secretary – gave much thought to whether his opinions tallied with those of his voters. What did he do when his constituents told him to “send ’em back”? Did he argue with them, or did he nod sympathetically?
Continue reading…To safeguard the future health of society, politicians such as Roy Jenkins dared to go against the grain of majority opinionSix months before the 1959 general election, Roy Jenkins, then a young Labour MP for Stechford in Birmingham, wrote a short book laying out The Labour Case. The final chapter was titled Is Britain Civilised?. To which his tacit answer was no – not unless Britain abolished the death penalty, decriminalised homosexuality and suicide, made divorce easier and abortion legal, and promoted racial harmony.At that point, Labour had been out of power for eight years. The party wouldn’t win for another five. Reading Jenkins’ book recently, I found myself wondering whether Jenkins – who, once Labour finally won in 1964 carried through all those promised reforms as home secretary – gave much thought to whether his opinions tallied with those of his voters. What did he do when his constituents told him to “send ’em back”? Did he argue with them, or did he nod sympathetically? Continue reading…