On this date, 5
January 2003, one of my most hated leftist politician, Roy Jenkins, aged 82,
died after suffering a heart attack at his home at East Hendred, in
Oxfordshire.
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| Roy Jenkins |
Roy
Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead, OM, PC (11 November 1920 – 5 January 2003) was a British politician.
The son
of a Welsh coal miner who later became a union official and Labour MP, Roy
Jenkins served with distinction in World War II. Elected to Parliament as a
Labour member in 1948, he served in several major posts in Harold Wilson's
First Government. As Home Secretary from 1965–1967, he sought to build what he
described as "a civilized society", with measures such as the
effective abolition in Britain of capital punishment and theatre censorship,
the decriminalisation of homosexuality, relaxing of divorce law, suspension of
birching and the legalisation of abortion. As Chancellor of the Exchequer from
1967–1970, he pursued a tight fiscal policy later praised by Margaret Thatcher.
On 8 July 1970, he was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, but resigned
in 1972 because he supported entry to the Common Market, while the party
opposed it.
When
Wilson re-entered government in 1974 Jenkins returned to the Home Office, but,
increasingly disenchanted by the swing to the left of the Labour Party, he chose
to leave British politics in 1976 and was appointed President of the European
Commission in 1977, serving until 1981: he was the first and to date only
British holder of this office. In 1981, dismayed with the Labour Party's
continuing leftward drift, he was one of the "Gang of Four" - Labour
moderates who formed the Social Democratic Party (SDP). In 1982 he won a famous
by-election in a Conservative seat and returned to parliament; but after
disappointment with the performance of the SDP in the 1983 election he resigned
as SDP leader.
In 1987,
Jenkins was elected to succeed Harold Macmillan as Chancellor of the University
of Oxford following the latter's death; he held this position until his death.
A few months after becoming Chancellor, Jenkins was defeated in his Hillhead
constituency by then-Labour politician George Galloway. He accepted a life
peerage and sat as a Liberal Democrat. In the late 1990s, he was an adviser to
Tony Blair and chaired the Jenkins Commission on electoral reform. Roy Jenkins
died in 2003, aged 82.
In
addition to his political career, he was also a noted historian and writer.
If you are British and you are wondering who is to be blame for starting
all the chaos in the United Kingdom? If you are Pro Death Penalty and want it
reinstated in your country, but you cannot? If you are Pro-Life and want the
government to stop abortion now but you can’t? Who do you blame? Who? The
answer is blame Roy Jenkins, someone whom I ranked one of the worst of the
worst politicians in Europe.
I would like to give my comments at the end of Neil Clark’s
article in The Telegraph:
Roy Jenkins made Britain
a far less civilised country
By
Neil Clark
12:01AM
GMT 09 Jan 2003
In
his Guardian obituary of Lord Jenkins, David Marquand listed four
"achievements" of his hero on which, to him, "the verdict of
history seems plain". As Home Secretary, "Jenkins did more than any
other person to make Britain a more civilised country to live in". As
leader of the Labour Europeans, he played an "indispensable part" in
taking Britain into what is now the European Union; and, as president of the
European Commission, he played an "equally indispensable part' in paving
the way for the single currency. Finally, by forming the SDP, and
"breaking the mould" of British politics, Jenkins created New Labour.
As
an Old Labour Euro-sceptic, I believe the last three "achievements"
that Marquand lists were ones we could have well done without. But what of
Marquand's first claim: that Jenkins made Britain a more civilised country to
live in?
As
an up-and-coming Labour backbencher, Jenkins had written, in the late 1950s, a
tract entitled Is Britain Civilised?, in which he attacked Britain's
"archaic" laws on censorship, homosexuality, divorce and abortion, as
well as arguing for the abolition of capital punishment and changes to the
country's "Victorian" criminal justice system.
At
that time, Jenkins's "progressive" views on social reform were still
in the minority in the Labour Party, dominated as it was by its socially
conservative, working-class ethos. But by 1964, when Labour eventually regained
power, much had changed. A group of middle-class, mainly Oxbridge-educated
"intellectuals" had risen to prominence in the party and, for these
"modernisers", led by Jenkins and his Oxford friend Tony Crosland,
the main aim was the social, rather than the economic, transformation of
Britain.
Although
their views had little support among the British public at large, this group
was able to push through its liberalising agenda when Jenkins became Home
Secretary in 1965. Already, earlier that year, the death penalty had been
suspended. Now it was full steam ahead to give support to private members'
Bills to decriminalise abortion and homosexuality, relax censorship and make
divorce easier.
Jenkins's
impact at the Home Office did not end there. He also embarked on the most
radical programme of penal reform since the Second World War. His Criminal
Justice Act of 1967 said very little about the victims of crime, but plenty
about the perpetrators. The Act introduced the parole system of early release
of offenders serving sentences of three years or more, established the Parole
Board and introduced the system of suspended sentences.
In
two years, Jenkins had succeeded in transforming the criminal justice system
from one whose raison d'etre had been to deter wrong-doing to one designed to
be as "civilised" as possible to the criminal.
Jenkins
was of course convinced that the "permissive society" was the
"civilised society". In this, he - alas - got it all terribly wrong.
What underpins civilised society is not ermissiveness, but self-restraint, a
phrase detested by libertines of both Left and Right. What Jenkins failed to
see was how the freedoms he espoused would lead to the degeneration of British
society and the selfish, me-first libertinism of today.
Jenkins
was never a socialist, but in my view he was not much of a liberal either.
Classical liberalism always understood that liberal freedom is dependent on
moral self-restraint. Without it, freedom becomes licence - which itself is a
threat to freedom, as it acknowledges no obligation to others. Before the
Jenkins-sponsored social reforms made their impact, Britain was a country
famous for the self-restraint of its people. "Letting it all out",
extreme displays of emotion, and shouting and swearing in the street were all
considered unacceptable. For Jenkins, the taboos that existed in 1950s Britain
were intolerable. But the net result was a society remarkable for its civility.
More
than 30 years on, the damaging impact of Jenkins's reforms on the society we
live in is all too clear to see. One marriage in three now ends in divorce.
Almost 40 per cent of children are now born out of wedlock, the highest figure
in Europe. Since the 1967 Abortion Act, more than six million unborn children
have been aborted.
The
legalisation of homosexuality has not been the end of the chapter, but merely
the beginning, with an aggressive "gay rights" lobby demanding more
and more concessions. The policy of early release of prisoners has had a
catastrophic effect on the safety of the general public: 14 per cent of violent
criminals freed early are convicted of fresh violence within two years of their
release.
As
The Sunday Telegraph's Alasdair Palmer states: "Scores of men, women and
children have been assaulted, raped and murdered as a result of the policy of
releasing dangerous criminals before their sentences are completed" - a
policy initiated and endorsed by Jenkins.
In
addition to this tally, we must add the hundreds of innocent lives lost as a
result of the abolition of capital punishment, which Jenkins zealously
campaigned for and whose reintroduction he so resolutely opposed as Home
Secretary in 1974.
Dividing
his time between the palaces of Westminster, the delightful Oxfordshire village
of East Hendred and the high table of the Oxford colleges, Jenkins did not, of
course, see too much of the social debris that his "civilising"
reforms had caused. Had he seen at first hand what the "permissive
society" amounts to in practice on a "sink" council estate, he
might have modified his views.
It
is, though, unfair to blame one man for all of Britain's modern ills. Others,
too, must take their share of responsibility for the nation we have become, not
least the economic freedom junkies of the 1980s. Nevertheless, the Britain of
2003 is very much the Britain that Jenkins always wanted. The self-restraint
and taboos of the 1950s have all gone. The "archaic" laws against
which Jenkins railed have been abolished.
On
the day of Jenkins's death, I looked at the other stories listed on the Teletext
index. They were: "Man accused of bodies-in-bin probe", "Gun
killers will be caught, pledge police", "Man faces charges over abbey
axe attack", "Man charged with taxi driver murder" and
"Freedom for hostage in 11-day siege".
If
David Marquand believes the Britain of 2003 to be a "civilised
country", it would be interesting to hear his definition of an uncivilised
one.
COMMENTS:
Civilized Country? OH REALLY? Joining the European Union, abolition of
the death penalty, Pro-choice (killing of the innocent unborn babies),
suspension of the birch and early release of criminals from prison will make
your country uncivilized. Even Edmund Burke will never agree and denounce Roy
Jenkins’s ideas.
Rather than make a fool
of himself and try to write a biography of Sir Winston Churchill (when his
ideas are different from the former Prime Minister), Roy Jenkins should
apologize to all the murdered victims and innocent unborn babies who
die every year because of his foolish ideas. Edmund Burke once said, “Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble
government.”
Before he died, he
should have apologized to the British people for just blindly and foolishly
sending Britain to be part of the European Union. Edmund Burke once wrote in his
book, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790): “When the
leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their
talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will
become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of
the people.”
The
current leaders of the European Union are also the new ‘Roy Jenkins’ of the 21st
century, please check John O’Sullivan’s article on European Dignity, American Rights: Outlining a debate on
capital punishment.
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