Samizdata

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has announced that it will be pressing for a ban on using technological techniques to allow parents to choose the gender of their children. The Telegraph reports:

The British public has firmly rejected the idea of couples being allowed to choose the sex of their babies for purely social reasons. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) will announce today that it is recommending a ban on social sex selection to the Government following a year-long consultation and an independent Mori poll.

[…]

Prof Baldwin also said the view that selection might “upset the balance of sexes” was not a powerful reason for preventing sex selection in this country and that few people were interested in selecting the sex of their babies. The recommendations were welcomed yesterday. Prof Alison Murdoch, chairman of the British Fertility Society, said: “We think that it is important that this technique is regulated, and that the regulations take into account the real concerns of the public at large.”

[…]

Dr Michael Wilks, chairman of the ethics committee of the British Medical Association, said: “Sex selection purely for social reasons is unacceptable.”

So what we are being told is that the main reason for banning this technique is that it is distasteful to the majority of British people. Not that it is inherently bad, just that it is unpopular. This is enough for millions of people and all of government to justify the threat of violence against anyone who dares to try and order their private lives a certain way.

As a result, I am wondering why when someone says something else about another widely unpopular and abominated practice, far from the Tribunes of the People leaping to book legislative time in Parliament to pass more laws, they are investigating the speaker of these words for possible criminal prosecution. Speak out against homosexuality, even though only the most purblind would claim the majority of people do not find homosexual practices really distasteful, and you will find yourself up in front of the Beak with some explaining to do. Why not just give the force of coercive law to what ‘The British Public’ think about that too? Why not lend the hammer of state to every prejudice that is widely held by ‘the people’?

Next time you hear George Monbiot or Peter Hain talking about making society more democratic, I suggest you take the time to figure out what that really means.

Assuming all goes as promised I am to be on the Jeremy Vine radio show at about 12.30 pm today, i.e. in about an hour and a half from now as I write this, on the subject of the latest suggestions/proposals/outrages of the Food Standards Agency.

“Doing nothing is not an option,” said Sir John Krebs, the agency’s chairman, yesterday. Childhood obesity was “a health time bomb that could explode”.

By 2010 “it could cost £3.6 billion a year and be a significant factor in the ill health of thousands of people and their families”, he said.

Well, I suppose it you are Chairman of the Food Standards Agency, then “doing nothing” is indeed not an option. I mean, imagine it:

Sir John Krebs, Chairman of the Food Standards Agency, today said that doing nothing was an option, and in his opinion the best one.

“Yes, it’s true” said Sir John, putting his feet up on his big new desk and drawing on his cigar, “that I’m paid a big fat salary, I have this handsome new architect designed award winning office and have more and more people reporting to me every day, but the conclusion we’ve all reached is that on the food front, things are, you know, really not too bad. There’s very little starvation. Some people are getting too fat, but we can rely on advertisers to tell them they’re ugly, and food faddists to write books to get them to go on diets. Plus, there’s a most welcome trend nowadays which should obviously be encouraged, of employers refusing to hire fat people because they frighten away the customers. So our recommendation is, relax everybody. There’s no need for any new laws or campaigns or anything, so far as we can see. The really fat people will die prematurely, and the rest won’t. It’s taking care of itself. Frankly, the only slimming down I’d really suggest would be of this organisation. Have a slice of cake.”

Doesn’t quite work does it?

Sean Gabb comments on the Conservative leadership switch in his latest issue of Free Life Commentary. So far, it’s just an email and that link doesn’t now work, but it will soon.

He starts by saying nice things about Michael Howard, and notes that he said much nastier things in the past. But since Sean now really hates the government, whatever has to be, in the matter of who has to be the Leader of the Opposition, has to be. At least he’s better than Iain Duncan Smith.

But how come, he asks, the Conservatives have suddenly had this collective fit of effectiveness?

But the question remains how did they do it? For the past six years, I have watched from an advantaged view as the Parliamentary Conservative Party ran about like terrified sheep in the dark. How have they managed this coup so quickly and so well? The simplest explanation is to say that enough of them saw the possibility of losing their seats at the next election and that desperation supplied the lack of courage and imagination. I like to believe, however, in a more complex explanation. Mine is not a standard conspiracy theory, as I claim little prior evidence in it support. Instead, I reason back from perceived effects to possible causes. It may be entirely false, but it pleases me to entertain it. Here it goes.

As said, this is not an ordinary Labour Government, but something of wonderful malevolence. It does not so much want to change the running of the country as to destroy it. There is the continued sapping of the Monarchy – the threatened removal of royal powers, and the degradation of Her Majesty from our Head of State to citizen of a United States of Europe. There is the determination to outlaw hunting and to destroy farming and to remove all the hereditary peers from the House of Lords. There is the progressive hobbling of the City financial institutions with European levels of tax and regulation. There is the use of the armed forces as American mercenaries – and without any advantage gained in return. There is the possible murder and undoubtedly the forced suicide of someone senior in the foreign policy and intelligence establishment. The remnants of the Old Order may finally have realised that there is no compromise on offer from this Government, and now may be doing something about it. The Monarchy, the landed and mercantile interests, and the security services – these are even now a formidable combination. Perhaps 1688 is finally come again. Then, an alarmed old order realised the nature of its enemy and took up the cause of an aroused but leaderless nation. Perhaps Mr Blair is to play the role of James II, and Mr Howard of Prince William.

Is there any truth in this? Or am I just an old romantic? We shall see.

Some but not much. Yes you are. And I believe we can already see. → Continue reading: Michael Howard and the Conservative opportunity