“When statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.”
More years ago than I care to remember, I was given ‘A Man For All Seasons’ by Robert Bolt at school to study for my English Higher. I am an avaricious reader of books, but I seldom read a book more than once. This book was different. It’s not what you would expect – although it’ s about a Catholic saint Sir Thomas More- it’s not a hagiography. What it is, is a study of the maxim ‘Every man has his price’. More was unique, Bolt argues, because there was a part of him that simply was not for sale. Against the backdrop of the Tudors and Henry VIII, Bolt states his case in stark beautiful language. And this week I returned to it. I was prompted both by the circumstances surrounding the Health and Social Care Bill and a post by Dr No, on what course of action we could or should take, now that the HSCB has been passed. Should we continue to resist and disrupt the bill by any means? Or should we accept it, and try to minimise the harm to the patient? To answer that, we have to look at just what exactly has happened to Westminster and how that has affected what has happened this week.
After the Westminster elections in 2010, the Lib Dems joined the Conservatives in a coalition. I was initially shocked by this. I shouldn’t have been. It simply crystallised something which I had been thinking for a while; that there had been a change in the kind of person entering politics at top level in Britain. People are very cynical about politicians and I understand this, because many politicians are self seeking. However, what you also find in politics are many idealists. You find idealists in politics because it is a place where ideals can be given shape, where the plan of a city can become bricks and mortar, where a vision of humanity like the NHS can become a reality. Politics is both a haunt of demons and a cloister of saints. The difference between the self seekers and the idealists in politics is this; self seekers are content simply with the trappings of power. The title, the money and the fancy cars are enough. But an idealist is not interested in these things. To them, the prize is having the power to change things. For a self seeker, the illusion of power is enough. For the idealist, political power is a tool for change.
That was why I was so shocked. The Lib Dems for the first time, had been handed the opportunity to hold the reins of power. To make a difference. They could have done this by playing honest broker and allowing the Conservatives to form a minority government. They could have voted with the things they liked and against the things they didn’t. They could have stopped student fees, the Welfare Reform Bill and of course, the Health and Social Care Bill.
They went into coalition and substituted the reality of power for its illusion. And to myself, the voters and the grassroots members of the Lib Dems and the Tories, this was totally incomprehensible. It could only mean one thing; that Westminster had been completely, utterly subsumed by self seekers. Some have talked of a tri-partite system, but this is not the correct way to understand what has happened. What has happened is that slowly but surely, these three parties have been taken over by the same elite of corporate lobbyists representing the biggest commercial interests in our country and they are now ruling in complete defiance of the wishes of the electorate. They do not listen to us and they do not listen to the grassroots members of the parties they supposedly espouse. There is always tension between the top and bottom of a political party, but the root has now become separated from the branch. They are accountable to no one apart from themselves and this malaise has spread from the second estate to all the others. Think on this week. First of all, government ignored the rule of the courts to print the risk register. They put themselves above the law. Then they sent out riot police to meet a handful of protestors opposing them and abused the proper function of the police. They shut down the BBC on commenting on the passage of the bill. Did you know that we were the first in the world with a police force and a broadcasting company ? Do you have any idea how respected both of these are; our police for being one of the few forces that has doggedly refused to go quasi military and arm itself and the BBC, for being a voice of freedom in countries that have none? And yet in the UK, its voice has been silenced.
So should we resist the change? To me, the answer is clear; we must. There is a time for compromise and there is a time when in truth we are no longer compromised; in truth we are corrupted. We must oppose this, because it isn’t simply about party politics; it’s about who we are and what our values are. I’m going to make a confession now. Last year, after the Lib Dems joined with the Tories, I joined the SNP. I did it because I could see no other way of tackling the toxic mire that Westminster had become. And yet, I have realised something this week. I also did it because I am British. Because I wanted to preserve the things I value about Britain, especially the NHS , in Scotland. And I have never felt so British as I have this week as I have watched our courts, our police, our BBC and our NHS being trashed in such a vulgar and disrespectful way. How sad that in the Queen’s Jubilee Year, when the Queen renews her coronation oath and re-dedicates herself to the preservation of our laws and constitution, that they are trampled underfoot in an unparalleled act of cultural vandalism. It is shameful.
In this week when the Queen renews her oath, I would urge doctors to renew theirs; the oath to first do no harm and to consider if they can truly keep this oath under the law that has just been passed. What it means if they cannot keep that oath. I’ll leave you with More’s/Bolt’s take on it.
When a man takes an oath, he's holding his own self in his own hands. Like water -and if he opens his fingers then-he needn't hope to find himself again..
