Rhetoric and Reality
Tuesday, December 12th, 2006
A few years ago, I was asked by a constituent to visit her, as she felt threatened by a former partner, and felt inadequately protected by the police. What I discovered was deeply depressing – she had lost all her confidence, she had three children by different absent partners. The youngest child, aged five, spoke to her in unprintable language. It really was a tragically dysfunctional home setting for all four of them.
Iain Duncan Smith deserves to be applauded for trying to analyse the root causes of our very obvious and acute social problems. His Social Justice Policy Group has sought to undertake this hugely important task in a wholly dispassionate and professional way.
Then last night I attended the launch by William Hague of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission. It seeks to put human rights and democracy at the heart of foreign policy. These values apply universally whether domestically or abroad.
These two areas have not in the past been universally associated with the Conservative Party. But their emergence says a great deal about how change is underway, at a time when people feel that the Government’s rhetoric, all too often, has not been matched by reality.