Killing With Kindness

In the past couple of days, visitors and readers of ConservativeHome have debated whether the death penalty should be reintroduced in Britain.

Today, in a comment article on ConservativeHome, David T Breaker argued that the death penalty was wrong. In the comments, the Conservative MP for North Warwickshire and Bedworth, Dan Byles, agreed, saying that he believed ‘the power to take the lives of its citizens is too awesome a power to trust to the State’.

This remark on capital punishment is particularly interesting in light of the speech he made back in March, duly recorded by Hansard, in which Mr Byles made the following points:

I believe that the House is broadly united, with the possible exception of Mr Winnick, in believing that in the case of Libya, events had reached a stage where committing our military to enforcing the UN resolution is absolutely the right thing to do.

The spectre of Iraq should not prevent us from doing what we believe is right and is ultimately in our national interests…

It is with some regret that I will be voting for the motion, because committing military forces to action anywhere in the world is regrettable. It will lead to dead soldiers, if not British, then Libyan; we must not forget that whichever side wins, there are casualties on the other side.

What we understand by all this is that Mr Byles is perfectly in favour of the State using the ‘awesome power’ of taking life to kill Libyan soldiers and civilians, which is the logical and real consequence of his support for military action in Libya – but he is against the execution of convicted murderers, tried by a jury of their peers (with unanimous verdicts) under an open legal system, with a right to defence and fair trial.

Dan Byles MP is therefore prepared to protect Libyan civilians by dropping bombs on Gaddafi, but if innocent civilians are killed by mistake (and they have been and will be), it is deemed ‘regrettable’ but, in his eyes, acceptable. But he will not allow the hanging of British murderers for their crimes and to protect us.

Credit Where It Is Due

I have not recently had much good to say about ConservativeHome and its founding Editor, Tim Montgomerie. I did disagree with his views on comments made by Lord Tebbit who urged voters to withdraw their support for the main parties.

I have also increasingly disliked the way in which ConservativeHome has become almost completely sycophantic towards the Conservative Party and its leadership, rather than remaining a home for conservative opinion that is independent of the political party as was originally the website’s core aim.

However, today Tim has made the right decision. He announced that he applied to join the Freedom Association’s Better Off Out campaign and stated unequivocally that he believes that Britain must leave the European Union. This is a view with which I fully and wholeheartedly agree – and which I’m glad Tim now shares.

Leaving the European Union is but a stepping stone towards the re-establishment of our national sovereignty, our Parliamentary democracy, and the implementation of the absolutely necessary conservative reforms that our society so desperately requires.

Yet, this is not the view of the Conservative Party, nor do I think it may ever be. The party has become too wrapped up with the desires of the liberal political class and national media, and far too interested in the pursuit of office for its own sake to take action over the detrimental nature and rule of ever closer union.

If Tim really believes that Britain should leave the European Union then he will eventually discover, as I have, that the Conservative Party is not the vehicle through which that will be achieved.

Illusions Dispelled

Any illusion that ConservativeHome still spoke up for conservative values has been dispelled today with the introduction of a new front page banner on the website which reads ‘comprehensive coverage of Britain’s Conservative Party’.

Even before Samuel Coates had left the ConHome fold to work for David Cameron’s bland speechwriting team, the website had become almost entirely sycophantic towards the Conservative party leadership and the site’s front page often resembled little more than an MPs press release area.

In changing the text of the banner I suppose Tim Montgomerie has at least now had the decency to publicly admit that the true purpose of ConservativeHome is to pursue the interests of the Conservative party and that he will use his site to focus almost entirely on the David Cameron project which has itself very little in the way of conservatism behind it.

In recent months ConservativeHome’s pages seem to have been increasingly filled with the strange and often absurd witterings of those like Louise Bagshawe on CentreRight (a woman who is for some peculiar reason taken rather seriously by some few Conservative party members and MPs) and almost entirely devoid of critical comment and opinion. As such it is neither independent in content or comment and therefore, I would have thought, no longer a website that merits more than a cursory glance.