Right-minded
Sir: Mrs Yvonne Brock (Letters, 26 January) does not help the cause of individual freedom by com- paring 'the left' with 'the right.' Of course govern- ment-imposed censorship is undesirable whether it is a left-wing' or a 'right-wing' government im- posing it.
But most of the freedom measures Mrs Brock mentioned were not government measures, but introduced by private members while she omitted several restrictive measures which were introduced by the present Government. For example: (1) Marine Offences Act 1967, by which the Government tried to keep the state monopoly in radio on a flimsy excuse.
(2) The Prices and Incomes Act 1966, which, inter alio, provides unlimited fines for bodies cor- porate offending against it. The ramifications are wide: for instance, when applied to newspapers the Act seriously restricts the freedom of the press.
(3) The Race Relations Act 1965. Freedom of individual prejudice is necessary in a free country.
(4) The War Damage Act 1965, which retro- actively reversed the law to what 'everyone thought it had been' (until, that is, the House of Lords decided that it hadn't). A Government spokesman said (Hansard, 11 May 1965, column 529): It is our responsibility and duty to override the court where we think that it is a proper and just thing to do'—an interesting gloss on centuries of limited executive power.
(5 Retroactive changes in tax law. There is no difference in principle between retroactively tax- ing incomes which were not legally taxable at the time they arose, or at higher rates than were then in force, and imprisoning people for 'offences' that were not legally offences at the time they were committed.
(6) The travel restrictions (usually called 'allow- ances,' implying that everything is forbidden which is not expressly allowed). These reduce British freedom of travel below that of practically every other European country.
(7) Tax laws under which taxpayers are pre- sumed taxable in certain cases unless they can prove that one of their main motives was not tax avoidance. What is this but a presumption of guilt of what George Orwell called 'crimethink'?
The above 'Est is not meant to be exhaustive, but it shows how much the present Government has restricted freedom, and reversed principles of individual liberty dating back to the Bill of Rights and earlier.
Past Conservative governments are as much to blame for the last four measures as the present Labour government But where all parties are agreed—where there is a 'consensus'—believers in individual freedom need to be especially alert for infringements of liberty.
D. R. Myddelton Hon. Treasurer, Society for Individual Freedom, 55 Park Lane, London WI
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