Conservative Party Policy
I realised the other day that on two issues that have been much in the press, ID cards and banning smoking in pubs, I have no idea what the Conservative Party's policy is, and perhaps more importantly given electoral realities whether or not they'll scrap the laws when they come to power.Both issues raise libertarian concerns, though my assumption would be that the Conservative Party would be for the former, as Michael Howard once tried to introduce them himself (and what few libertarians -- of any sort -- there are in the Conservative Party would be outweighed by the hang 'em and flog 'em set), and against the latter, as there are some libertarians left, and they have always been on the side of the brewers.
Perusing the website it is hard to say on the former. David Davis says:
There may be an argument for an ID card, but it has to be done very carefully to deliver the outcome we want in a cost-effective manner
But he appears to accept Blunkett's arguments, just not his strategy for implementation:
If the Home Secretary carries on like this, we will end up with a scheme that is both fatally flawed and so far in the future as to be irrelevant to the problems of today. Benefit fraud is happening now, illegal immigration is happening now, and the terrorist threat is here today.
In other words they're hedging their bets, though with much (sensible) criticised much of the planning and likely implementation. Nevertheless it appears the issue is one of cost, and so presumably once it has been introduced, with much of the fixed costs incurred, they won't scrap them.
On smoking Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley had this to say:
Does he not realise that in the time taken to implement legislation, the industry could and would deliver a voluntary code, removing smoking from up to 80% of pub space? I am confident that we could additionally expect them to achieve a smoke-free environment wherever children have access.
Which again is certainly an arguable case, though I get the impression a smoking ban won't be reversed either.
posted by Matthew @ 12/08/2004 09:06:00 AM
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