Unbeholden?

"British politics can't be beholden to the barons, in the Lords or in the trade unions", declares Lord Oakeshott, a Lib Dem.

In the glory days of the Liberal Party, it contained plenty of the hereditary barons and all of the trade union barons, causing it to do immense good by making it as beholden to the aristocratic social conscience and to organised labour as it was to those whose campaigns and measures against opium dens, against unregulated drinking and gambling, against seven-day working weeks, and for the extension of the franchise matched those of the Tory Wilberforce against the slave trade, of the Tory Shaftesbury against child labour and horrific factory conditions, and of the Tory Disraeli in his social reforms and, again, in his extension of the franchise. One need hardly add that there was plenty of crossover among the stands of Liberalism in its heyday. The Labour Movement emerged to some extent out of all of them and out of the corresponding strands of Toryism.

But today's Lib Dems would clearly do nothing against the re-emergence in today's Britain of drug (including opiate) dens, of unregulated drinking and gambling, of seven-day working weeks, and of what amounts to a very restricted franchise indeed, any more than today's Conservative Party would do anything against the re-emergence in today's Britain of slavery, of child labour and horrific working conditions, and of what amounts to a very restricted franchise indeed. Instead, if Lord Oakeshott is anything to go by, the Lib Dems, like their coalition partners, want to finish the job begun by Margaret Thatcher and continued by Tony Blair, of destroying both trade union barons and hereditary barons, thus to deny a voice both to organised labour and to the aristocratic social conscience.

To whom will we then be beholden? To the forces that wish to intoxicate us, work us every day, enslave us, work our children, work both them and us in sweatshops, and deny us the vote by denying us anyone to vote for. In other words, to the people to whom we are already beholden, thanks to the same politicians who have given vent to their hatred, first of the hierarchy and ritual of trade unionism (and of local government, and of the monarchy), and then of the hierarchy and ritual of the old House of Lords (and of local government, and of the monarchy). It's all just "restrictive practices" and "flummery", isn't it? So very "outdated"? We cannot be "hidebound" like that, now, can we? Why, just look at how many old trade union hands there are in the House of Lords. These things are all connected, you know.

All remaining bindings of the hide, and with them all hope of restoring the old ones and their glorious achievements, must be destroyed. So says Lord Oakeshott. So say the Lib Dems. So says everyone. Except us, the people. But no one ever asks us anything anymore. I wonder why not.