A Free Left Blog

A few questions: 1) What sort of country (and indeed world) do we want to leave to our children and grandchildren? 2) Do we care about quality of life and, if so, what does it mean? 3) Are we serious about valuing our environment and the natural world, or are we happy to keep on despoiling and degrading them? 4) Are we serious about tackling climate change, and if not, are we prepared to face the consequences of it? 5) What priority does economic activity take in relation to these things, and is this priority indefinite or time-limited? These questions seem pretty important and fundamental to me, but they are questions that hardly ever get asked in our mainstream political debate, let alone answered. We have a democratic political system, but it often seems more dedicated to avoiding big and difficult questions rather than confronting them. Ironically perhaps, the latter point is not far from the position of the aviation lobby and its media supporters...

There is a beauty to liberalism: a certain degree of modesty and respect for our limitations as human beings, especially our knowledge; a righteous scepticism towards the ability of bureaucracies and control freaks to prescribe what is right and good for the rest of us. In the real world of here and now however, liberalism has jumped over the fence of moderation and is pronouncing here there and everywhere what is best for everyone, actively prescribing huge changes in the social fabric of modern societies while also, notably, demanding strict social conformity. It is perhaps worth invoking John Stuart Mill’s famous ‘harm principle’ here: “ That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others .” This principle seems frightfully out of date now: as a platform for government, it is minimalist and clearly inadequate. But it also makes little sense when pressed up agains...