Howard attacks ‘ban it’ mentality
Conservative Party leader Michael Howard attacked the Labour Government’s “ban it” mentality in a speech on Sunday night.
He told the World’s Association of Newspapers conference that neither the ban on hunting nor the decision to effectively ban smoking in public places had clear justification.
“Only where there is the clearest possible justification should Government interfere with our freedoms. That is certainly not the case with last week’s bans,” he said.
The Conservatives have pledged to overturn the ban on hunting with dogs if they win the next General Election. They also favour a self-regulatory approach to banning smoking – an approach that has already seen it banned on aeroplanes, trains, buses and many football grounds.
Mr Howard continued: “We need to resist the urge to ban things just because we personally don’t agree with them. The ‘ban it’ mentality strikes at the very heart of the principles underlying liberal democracies – that people should have the freedom to make their own choices.”
He also criticised recent changes to newspaper ownership rules, which mean a newspaper’s editorial opinions could be taken into account when deciding whether to allow a newspaper merger.
“I believe that goes to the very heart of free speech in our newspaper industry,” he said.
More widely, Mr Howard expressed his confidence in the power of markets and highlighted the threat to the developed world posed by the growing market economies in India, China and other developing countries.
He warned that the new European Constitution would be a “giant ball and chain” round the ankle of European business. And he put forward his vision of a EU without “a rigid straitjacket of uniformity” and one “that does less and does it better”.
