It is undeniably enjoyable to see Gordon Brown squirming about the £600,000 his party will have to pay back to David Abrahams, the man of many aliases. If Peter Watt, the resigning general secretary of the Labour party, really, as he claims, saw something devious about the practice of taking money under other names only when the letter of the law was pointed out to him, that shows how our culture has replaced conscience with compliance. And what is the point, by the way, of the treasurer of the party, Jack Dromey, who, despite his title, seems to be too grand to know anything about money, including the £5,000 which Mr Abrahams paid to his wife? But the Tories are not standing on firm ground. They must abandon their support for the state funding of political parties. When a man tries to buy himself power or baubles through donating to parties, it is, in a sense, honest: he is paying with his own money. When the parties conspire to get the taxpayer to fund them, they are ensuring their own power and comfort with our money. They say they must do this because otherwise they will behave dishonestly. It is contemptible. People should pay for political parties freely, or not at all.
Last week, I went to a debate between Ed Husain, author of The Islamist, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the apostate whom Islamists are always trying to kill. Both are unequivocal supporters of freedom of thought, but Ayaan Hirsi Ali believes that Islam cannot be reconciled with life in a free, modern society, and should therefore be abandoned. Husain argues that there are long, robust traditions of moderation, tolerance and adaptation in Islamic history. These have been suppressed in modern times by Wahabism etc., and by more recent extremist political movements like Hizb-ut-Tahrir, of which he was once a member.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in