Freeborn Adam

I have been wondering since the general election. I classify myself as liberal. I believe that a primary function of the state is to protect the autonomy of the individual, to maximise our freedoms and restrict them only rarely and with *very* careful consideration given to the need to protect the citizenry from violence, fraud, theft and the abuse of power. I believe in the value of pluralism, that the expression of opinions (even those utterly distasteful to me) should be protected where they do not incite violence, fraud, theft and the abuse of power.

I classify myself as being on the left of centre because I believe that the state has a further responsibility, to manage education and health services and the necessary infrastructure for a viable society (transport, utilities etc) in a manner that ensures equal access and opportunity for all citizens.

I classify myself as left because I recognise that society left entirely to an “invisible hand” promotes inequalities of access and opportunity, inequalities based on gender, on race, on disability, on class (defined by the wealth and professional connections of the family one is born into). These are inequalities that I believe a just society aims to address. And this perception is not born of annoyance that I don’t have things that others have. I was born into a reasonably middle class family, certainly middle class enough for me to maximise my opportunities as a white, middle class male with reasonable academic ability. It is born of an understanding of the research that supports the observation that such social exclusion mechanisms exist, followed by my own personal observation.

As a liberal, I have found my seat increasingly uncomfortable in the Labour camp. While making massive inroads on equality issues over the years, there is no denying that the Labour party have managed to successively erode civil liberties over the years. probably with the best of genuine intentions. But I do not need or want the state to protect me at the expense of my freedom. There are losses I am willing to risk for the preservation of my freedom. In the words of Ben Franklin “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

So I voted Liberal Democrat in the last election. And I have no qualms about that. I made my choice and I see benefits arising from the current governmental situation, though it isn’t one I ever foresaw. I’ve been heartened by the Liberal Democrats I have met in my local party, though a quirk of fate seems to have made sure that they were pretty left of centre, which may have given me a distorted view of the party.

But within days I find my seat increasingly uncomfortable in the Liberal Democrat camp. It isn’t about the influence a minority party is having on policy. That influence I see as wholly beneficial under the current circumstances. It is the blinkered belief that I encounter again and again that all is well in the world of equality and opportunity. That we live in a meritocracy. We do not live in a meritocracy. The belief for example, expressed by several, that it is not only acceptable, but desirable, that we have a *very* high number of Oxbridge graduates in the cabinet because people who got to Oxbridge a) got there on merit and b) Oxbridge graduates will have had the best education to prepare them to govern. The inability to recognise that the mechanisms that perpetuate inequality of access and opportunity are complex and reach through every layer of social activity, or that a few sops and tweaks to policy will fix them.

Again and again I am hearing, from the right of the party, generalisations drawn from specifics. Private schooling isn’t so bad because some children can get scholarships based on merit. Unfortunately, these generalisations only need a few counter examples to invalidate them as social truths. And there are many counter examples.

I really am a pluralist, folks. You are entitled to those opinions. But if manifest in policy they will be the death of any hope of any real sense of freedom for all, independent of origin, creed, colour or gender. Just as I stand and fall by the rule of law, a law that applies to us all irrespective of standing, so too must I stand by a rule of equal opportunity and accessibility. And that is a pretty binary thing. Either all children have access to the same standards of education, and equal opportunity to choose what they then do with that when they leave school (be that plumbing or particle physics) or they don’t. Either women have an equal opportunity to progress through the political system and stand for and be elected to Parliament, or they don’t.

So I’m left wondering where the best place to promote a liberal left agenda is. And I’m still wondering.