Roy Jenkins: You’re too liberal!
Over the weekend I watch the first episode of the BBC’s series on the Great Offices of State, which focussed on The Home Office. At one point they had footage of Roy Jenkins visiting the wreckage of the Birmingham pub bombings. As he walked past the angry crowds, a voice (or it may have been two voices) shouted out “Bring back hanging!” “Your’re too liberal!”
At the time I just chuckled a bit. “You’re too liberal” isn’t a common critique in the UK, where (unlike the United States) liberalism is not conflated with socialism, and people tend to be practical rather than philosophical.
Indeed, for my mind, Roy Jenkins wasn’t liberal enough, in that it was his and our tragedy that he reached the zenith of his political career at around the time that the Liberal Paty was in its nadir.
Yet this morning I was suddenly struck by something that I had overlooked at the time. The woman who was accusing Jenkins of being too liberal was doing so in the context of the Birmingham bombings. Those same Birmingham bombings that led to the wrongful conviction of six people.
Too liberal? Thank heavens Roy Jenkins was liberal. Thank heavens he was Home Secretary after the abolishion of capital punishment, and so was not faced with the onerous duty of overseeing the execution of six men. Thank heavens that we didn’t determine, 17 years too late, that we - too - had killed the innocent.
In fact it wasn’t Jenkins who abolished capital punishment, but James Callaghan. Still, it seems like a very long time since we have been confronted with the prospect of a Home Secreaty who could in any way, shape or form be call liberal.
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February 15th, 2010 at 5:36 pm
It would be fair if you included Michael “Prison works” Howard here. It would also let you start to rebut the fair criticism that you guys are indistinguishable from a certain internet wing of the Conservatives.
February 15th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
Edward,
The first point is very well made and the second point is daft.
If you search this site you’ll find plenty of criticism of the Conservatives.
Tom
February 15th, 2010 at 7:45 pm
Jenkins was Home Secretary in the 1974-1976 Labour government, certainly not a liberal government by any standards. I notice that it was not a Liberal administration that abolished hanging. The Liberal Party for most of its life has not found hanging incompatible with liberalism, and certainly did not consider it so in the days when it held power.
February 16th, 2010 at 12:29 am
Speaking from *this* liberal’s point of view Roy Jenkins was, for all his faults, easily the least worst Home Secretary in my lifetime. Most of the recent incumbents of this great office of state, sadly, are down there with Henry Brooke and Joynson Hicks, and as long as Labour and the Tories continue to march to the Murdoch/Mail agenda I see little hope on the horizon.
February 16th, 2010 at 11:51 am
Nicholas,
The second Wilson administration was certainly not liberal, but I think Jenkins was. An oasis in the desert, as it were. At the time there really wasn’t a liberal alternative - even the handful of Liberals were more social democratic than… well… Roy Jenkins (Ah, the irony!).
I feel your criticism that it not a Liberal administration that abolished hanging is rather unfair. There hadn’t been a Liberal administration for half a century. One might ask why the liberals had not done so during their century, but that ignores the historical context. We only gave women vote in 1918 (exactly a century after Bentham’s pamphlet!).
February 16th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
Jo Grimond was once asked if he thought the “Liberal/SDP Alliance” would work. “Of course it would” he said. “Roy Jenkins is a perfectly good Liberal, and David Steel is a perfectly good Social Democrat”.
February 16th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
As for the issue of hanging, the only Liberal MPs who supported it were Cyril Smith and Steven Ross. Had a Liberal government been elected in the 1970s they would certainly have abolished hanging.
February 16th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Thanks Geoff. Good quote!
February 16th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Tom,
I wasn’t criticising the Liberal Party of the nineteenth-century but rather I, as a supporter of capital punishment, feel that there is nothing inherently contradictory between the rule of law and the death penalty. The claim of historical context I do not agree with, if I take your use of that term correctly. It is evident that most Liberals of that time believed in hanging and it would be wrong to sit in judgement on them and cherry pick Liberal policies as “Liberal” and “not Liberal” but rather to see them as a whole.
burkesworks: It’s interesting that Brooke came out in support of abolition, which belies his reputation as a die hard. See: http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1964/dec/21/murder-abolition-of-death-penalty-bill
February 21st, 2010 at 10:14 pm
do people really think the birmingham pub bombers/six were innocent? everyone knows they were guilty. this is political correctness gone mad. why didnt the police reopen the case? it has never been reopened for obvious reasons. they were guilty. they got off on a techinicality. what about the one who,s hands were covered in gun powder? explain that. and it wasny from playing cards!