Lord Young and Howard Flight: Pilloried for speaking out
LAST week I wrote that Lord Young had been forced to resign for telling the truth and now the same silly fuss is being made about Howard Flight’s equally truthful observation that the benefit system discourages responsible parents from having children while encouraging the feckless to do so.
What sort of miserable, Soviet-style country are we living in when nobody can say what he or she thinks? Why did we bother resisting first Nazis and then Communists if we are to end up living in a Britain where state orthodoxy must always prevail? Why have our rulers become so cowardly about truth? Whatever happened to the concept of debating a view rather than merely silencing it?
Not even the politicians can open their mouths these days unless they spew forth warm, woolly, meaningless sentiments but the rest of the population faces the strong arm of the law if it dares to express alarm about Muslim fundamentalism or doubts about homosexuals adopting children or asserts that Christianity is the religion of this country.
At a time when there is more need than ever for politicians to be bold the fates of Lord Young and Howard Flight prove that Westminster is in the grip of institutionalised cowardice.