To sack Howard Flight as deputy-chairman of the Conservative Party was fine. To sack him as Conservative Member of Parliament was over the top. It smacks not of firm leadership but of totalitarian intolerance. Howard Flight expressed his ambition to cut back spending and taxes in a Thatcherite way. Yes, of course, he should stick to the party line as senior member of the party. But surely, once reduced to the positions of a backbencher, he should be allowed to want such a thing. Have we really reached the point where someone cannot be a Conservative MP for believing in low taxes?

Or is it because he has rocked the boat before an election? Is that his real crime. Even then, demotion should be enough punishment.

Labour - as intolerant a party as one could wish for - has put up with sniping from Dennis Skinner. For years it put up with the utterly old Labour views of Tony Benn. For the Conservatives to be less tolerant even than Labour is disappointing indeed.

The Times version of his sacking is here.

A quote by Hayek that I have just come across seems apposite:

The successful politician owes his power to the fact that he moves within the accepted framework of thought, that he thinks and talks conventionally. It would be almost a contradiction in terms for a politician to be a leader in the field of ideas. His task in a democracy is to find out what the opinions held by the largest number are, not to give currency to new opinions which may become the majority view in some distant future.

The quote came from here.

Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Politics

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