Who will stand up for liberal values?

Oliver Kamm manifestly understands the need for the promotion and defence of liberal values in the world with a clarity that eludes other self-defined liberals on the left, notably the leader of the Liberal Democrats Sir Menzies Campbell (and the great majority of his colleagues in that party).

Kamm writes (for Prospect magazine):

The dominant conflict of the last century was not between left and right. It was between open societies and competing absolutisms. In its most enduring form - the cold war - the protagonists were not progressives and reactionaries but different legatees of the Enlightenment: those of Jefferson and Rousseau, respectively. What comes next is less convoluted, because one side in the conflict of our age is explicit in its aims. Critical inquiry, freedom of conscience and the separation of civil and religious authority are the target of a violent theocratic fanaticism born and sustained in the middle east.

That movement's apocalyptic language is so far outside the conventions of western debate that many are tempted to rationalise its demands as rhetorical code for something else: a plea for the Palestinians; a cry for global justice. But the ideology is atavistic. It is part of modernity only in the sense that its adherents harness technology to millenarian ends. The most potent conflict in the international order - one that makes urgent the task of countering nuclear proliferation - is thus between the Enlightenment and those who seek its repeal.

Within the western democracies, heightened political disagreement is likely and desirable. But this is not about left vs right either. The strangest political phenomenon of our time is a convergence of isolationisms: nativism on the right, allied to identity politics and anti-Americanism on the left. Against such an adversary, liberalism will, I hope, become more militant in its own defence.

In every respect Kamm is spot on. Compare and contrast, however, the contribution of Sir Menzies Campbell, cited by Kamm but quoted here in full from Prospect:

Liberalism vs authoritarianism is fast becoming the philosophical divide within developed societies. 9/11 and other terrorist atrocities have heightened a sense of anxiety about security in an increasingly globalised world. The response from governments has been to try to gain ever greater knowledge and control of the lives and activities of their citizens. The British government is one of the worst offenders. Identity cards, the excesses of the DNA database, and a relentless drive towards extending the period of detention without trial are all symptoms of its authoritarian tendencies.

There is no "war" against terrorism. The terrorist is a criminal and should be treated accordingly. The creeping power of the state is the order of the day, but terrorism thrives where civil liberties are denied. Liberals must make that point forcefully and oppose and reverse the trend towards authoritarianism.

While the balance of civil liberties and security is, and should be, a constant matter for vigilance in free societies, it should be noted that Sir Menzies Campbell's fails to grasp Kamm's key point. The global reach of terrorism is now at a greater level than ever before: whether or not we regard it as a war, formally or informally, the War on Terror remains symptomatic of a wider ideological struggle - in Kamm's words "a battle between the Enlightenment and those who seek its repeal". It is a matter for shame that the Liberal Democrats, with their dubious foreign policies and willingness to ally themselves with the most illiberal elements of the left (the opportunistic failure to defend free expression during the Danish cartoon row, for example - Sarah Teather MP chose to denounce the cartoons as "racist") find themselves too often on the side of the opponents of the Enlightenment.

The defenders of freedom in this country are not, by and large, to be found among the ranks of the dismal leftist sect called the Liberal Democrats (there are exceptions - Lord Ashdown is one). There are, however, the stirrings of a revival of true liberalism both on the left and right of the political centre. Oliver Kamm, the Euston Manifesto Group, the Henry Jackson Society, are all manifestations of this. To paraphrase Oliver Kamm, the fight is not between left and right, but between those who will stand up for liberal values and those who would see them betrayed.

Price fixing is bad for your health

There is plenty of outrage in the media today at the less than astounding news that pharmaceutical companies are charging the National Health Service too much for drugs. This is of course a scandalous state of affairs, however it is inherent in the nature of monolithic public services for this kind of anomaly to occur. The market provides a mechanism for optimising costs. Drugs companies will naturally seek to charge what they can get away with, and when they have a large, captive customer, they can get away with a lot more than they will be able to with a number of customers all seeking the best deal. The system is bad for drugs companies (because they don't have to work hard enough in domestic markets, they probably aren't working hard enough in foreign markets), bad for the NHS and worst of all bad for patients. Money wasted on an excessive drugs bill is money not spent on other treatments.

The Office of Fair Trading plan to alter the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme to make drugs companies prove that they give value for money to the NHS probably won't help either. The way for companies to prove they give value for money is in competition with each other. Price fixing in any form makes for lazy, inefficient business of any kind. In other words, it is well suited to the twentieth century style and structure of monolithic bloated public service bureaucracies, and very poorly suited to the needs of a twenty-first century society and economy. Britain deserves better than this.

The whole National Health Service needs to move forward to a model whereby providers of health care, as well as providers of drug treatments, operate in a free market to increase efficiency of the service and to reduce costs. The role of government in the Health Service should be minimised, and should extend primarily to ensuring that necessary health care is paid for so that our citizens are not required to pay for health care at the point of need (which is after all, what the NHS is supposed to achieve). This can much better be done by providing people with the means for health insurance (which can also be efficiently delivered in a competitive market setting). In the end, this would save all of us money as we pay for an efficient, effective and secure health care system through personal insurance schemes. It would certainly be better than paying a premium through general taxation for a bloated, inefficient and monopolistic NHS.

Why the Human Rights Act must go

Following numerous absurd situations created by bizarre interpretations of the Human Rights Act, including a case in which a suspected car thief was fed chicken during a twenty hour siege, and other cases of escaped convicts whose photographs were not made public, apparently to protect their privacy, a spirited defence of the Human Rights Act has been mounted by the Lord Chancellor and Constitutional Affairs minister Lord Falconer:

"Common sense would tell you are not entitled to food if you are running away from the police. You are not entitled to not have your photograph shown if you are a convicted murderer on the run."

Unfortunately there is apparently no requirement that common sense has to be applied to the Human Rights Act. The word "fiasco" seems hardly appropriate to the case of the convicted sex attacker Anthony Rice, released on licence from a life sentence because of concerns for his human rights, who subsequently murdered Naomi Bryant, thereby denying her all of her human rights. It might be more appropriate to the case of the nine Afghan hijackers who were subsequently allowed to remain in the country.

Having given some thought to amending the Human Rights Act, the government now intends merely to alter its guidance on implementing the act. This may not help, however. The problem with the Human Rights Act is not that it fails adequately to protect public safety, but that it applies Human Rights in an entirely arbitrary fashion, depending on the case being brought. Indeed, since public bodies will make decisions in the light of their understanding of the HRA, and are likely to err on the side of caution, it is not even necessary for a case to be brought for human rights to be severely compromised. When a public body fears legal action, it may not be prepared to take the risk that its own interpretation of "common sense" will coincide with that of a court of law. With the HRA in place, therefore, almost anything can happen. Since criminals and victims are assumed to have the same human rights, it is as likely that a criminal's rights will be upheld at the expense of the victim's as the other way round.

This is why, for example, we now have a system of control orders under which a British citizen may be held under house arrest for reasons unknown even to them. This has occurred because an extraordinary situation, which the government attempted to deal with using an admittedly extraordinary solution, was deemed unlawful under the HRA. Specifically, a very small number of foreign nationals suspected of terrorism related offences, who could not be deported against their will because of a potential threat to their welfare in their home countries, were being held without trial (or even charge) in Belmarsh prison. Any one of them could have been released the same day if they had agreed to be deported. However, the Law Lords ruled this situation discriminatory because it applied only to foreign nationals (who else could it have applied to?), and in response the Government implemented a system which would allow, potentially, any British citizen to be detained without trial.

We were far better off under the old system: there is no reason why we cannot retain adherence to the European Convention on Human Rights, while still making the common sense decisions ourselves. It might not be perfect, but it's far less dangerous from the point of view of public safety, or indeed civil liberties. The Human Rights Act serves no useful purpose and has been hijacked for political ends. Not only has it fuelled the compensation culture but it has also diminished the role of parliament by requiring the courts to make judgements on political matters. The Human Rights Act should not be amended, but repealed.

Thinking the unthinkable on Iran

A report by a coalition of UK organisations has rejected the idea that military action against Iran may be necessary if the Islamic Republic pursues its nuclear ambitions. The issue has set two former Labour MPs on opposite sides of the argument. Opposed to the possibility of military action is Stephen Twigg, now director of the Foreign Policy Centre:

"The consequences of military action against Iran are not only unpalatable; they are unthinkable. Even according to the worst estimates, Iran is still years away from having a nuclear weapon. There is still time to talk and the prime minister must make sure our allies use it."

On the other side, Lorna Fitzsimons, chief executive of the Britain-Israel Communications and Research Centre:

"What we are talking about here is Iran reaching the ability on an industrial scale to manufacture highly enriched uranium. That is the watershed. There is no return from that point. You can't get the genie back in the bottle technologically once they have sorted out the problem they currently have with their centrifuges. I don't think you can stop it. You might be able to disrupt it. It's a question of looking at how far you can go down the line where you lose the ability to disrupt it."

Ms Fitzsimons is right, Mr Twigg is wrong. Regardless of whether the Iranian bomb is one year away or ten, to foreswear the option of military action at this point would be diplomatic illiteracy of the first order. Any official indication that the West, and in practice this would mean the United States and very probably the United Kingdom, would not intervene militarily in any circumstances would virtually guarantee the failure of any diplomatic initiatives. Weakness, as Donald Rumsfeld used to say, is a provocation.

And Lorna Fitzsimons is also right about the time frame. Once Iran gains the capability to produce enriched uranium on an industrial scale, the question of when or whether Iran will actually produce a bomb becomes largely academic. Potentially it could happen at any time. Indeed, it may already be too late to stop Iranian production of weapons-grade uranium even by military means. The BBC reports tonight that Iran's programme of installation of atomic centrifuges continues apace. 300 centrifuges are already installed at the Natanz complex, with three thousand to be in place by the end of the year - in other words, enough to be able to produce a nuclear weapon within eleven months.

Simply to refuse to think about an intractable problem such as this is profoundly unhelpful, but it is a response which is far too common in Western countries today, especially with regard to foreign policy. There is a strand of public opinion which would rather countenance the possibility of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons than take any action to stop it. The Iranian regime has funded terror worldwide and, through its President Ahmedinejad, has declared an intention to remove Israel from the map of the world. Given the recent conference held in Iran, ostensibly to discuss the historicity of the Holocaust, but in practice to celebrate Holocaust denial worldwide, there is no reason to suppose that this threat would not be carried out if the opportunity were to present itself. The threat to the world in general and Israel in particular is immediate and grave. In such circumstances a refusal to think the unthinkable will not do. This is not the time to be ruling out any options. The consequences of a failure of western will may be catastrophic. Iran must not be allowed to become a nuclear weapons state.