9 August 2004
The Editor
Sunday Times

Sir, Salman Rusdie's essay for the book XXX:30 Porn Star (Sunday Times 8/8/04) reminded me of the speech made by the late Roy Jenkins in Abingdon in July 1969 where he said a better name for the permissive society is the civilised society. (see below)

The permissive revolution ushered in during the 1960s, in the name of "freedom", has had long term, bitter consequences that extend right up to today. Jenkins, of course, introduced the ten-minute rule Bill that became the Obscene Publications Act in 1959 and it is largely as a result of this fundamentally flawed legislation that Rushie, and others, can now falsely claim that the burgeoning pornography industry is "vital to freedom".

Given that the purpose of pornography is to titillate and sexually arouse those who indulge in it, it is no wonder that we have a highly sexualised society in which there is a year on year increase in serious sexual crime, an STI epidemic affecting the young and the middle aged "swingers", the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe and widespread marital infidelity and breakdown. These are the realities fed by the fantasy world created by pornographers.

Tony Blair recently criticised the ideology of the 1960s suggesting that the promotion of new freedoms had ignored the corresponding responsibilities. Whilst pornography may be a manifestation of freedom those who exploit people in the manufacture and marketing of such material do so without a care, let alone responsibility or accountability to society, for the harmful consequences of their actions.

Research shows that pornography distorts human sexuality to an undignified bodily function and a spectator sport without love, commitment, feeling or sacrifice. Pornography destroys innocence and turns its consumers into voyeurs creating unhealthy, self-centred appetites with no regard for others.

It is easy for Rushdie, and his associates, to rationalise the imposition of pornography on our culture but if he were faced with a 10-year-old girl who has been sexually abused by a man obsessed with pornography I wonder if his view would be different? I know whose freedom I would seek to protect!

Jenkins: Why We Should be Proud of Permissive Britain

Mr Roy Jenkins, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, defended the "permissive society" yesterday. "A better phrase is the civilised society," he told the constituency Labour Party at Abingdon, Berkshire.

It was a forceful, carefully calculated speech from the Chancellor, re-establishing him, despite his Treasury preoccupations, as the leader of the young and liberal reformers who have been under pressure. Mr Jenkins claimed that in the last 10 years Britain had become a better place in which to live. More money had been made available for the arts and the laws on abortion, homosexuality and divorce, and theatre and literary censorship had been radically reformed.

"But despite these successes the forces of liberalism and human freedom are now to some extent on the defensive. The permissive society - always a misleading description - has been allowed to become a dirty phrase. A better phrase is the civilised society, a society based on the belief that different individuals will wish to make different decisions about their patters of behaviours, and that, provided these do not restrict the freedom of others, they should be allowed to do so within a framework of understanding and tolerance."
Sunday Times 20/7/1969

Letter published in the Glasgow Herald 22/8/1982 from Mary Whitehouse

‘Permissive' Jenkins

Sir, I believe, and I'm by no means the only one who does, that Mr Roy Jenkins Obscene Publications Act introduced in 1959 was an unmitigated disaster. He was, throughout his time as an MP and particularly as Home Secretary, a "permissive" and I have seen no signs whatsoever that he is now any different. On a number of occasions I have challenged him, face to face, to say whether or not he still believes what he said as Chancellor of the Exchequer at Abingdon on 19 July 1969, namely that a "better way" of describing the permissive society was to call it the "the civilised society".

He also claimed then "that in the last 10 years Britain had become a better place to live. More money had been made available for the arts and the laws on abortion, homosexuality and divorce, and the theatre and literary censorship had been radically reformed. I can well understand why Mr Jenkins does not enjoy being reminded of his words but leadership surely cannot be divorced from courage.

I attended a Labour Party morning press conference conducted by Harold Wilson and Roy Jenkins during the 1974 election and there put the same question to him. He waffled and refused to answer directly, saying in my ear as we found ourselves walking side by side out of the hall, "Some of us do not think these matters as important as you do, Mrs Whitehouse".

I happen to think in very important that we should know what kind of moral stance a man of Mr Jenkins' political gifts takes, and I spent all the way to Croydon where he was speaking at a by-election meeting in support of Bill Pitt the SDP candidate. I put the same question to him from the floor but all I got, again, was waffle instead of a straight reply. It is not enough that Mr Jenkins is suave, elegant, educated and politically astute. The moral state of our nation is such, the outlook for our children in many ways so parlous, that the character as well as the intellect of those who lead us is all important.

As president of the National Viewers and Listeners Association I wrote personally last year to each of the SDP leaders and asked for their opinion on various issues, particularly asking Mr Jenkins whether he still believed what he said in 1969. He told me in a very delayed reply that he never "completed questionnaires." He also said there was "no collective SDP view on these matters and any policy will be formulated by our membership as a whole." I wasn't asking whether there was a collective view and I certainly wasn't asking him to fill in what most people would define as a questionnaire! I was asking for his views.

Surely we have right to know where a potential Prime Minister stands on such matters? Whether he has the moral courage necessary to admit publicly to a change of mind? Whether, in spite of the personal and social disasters which have littered the "permissive" years, his personal philosophy - and therefore the type of legislation he would support or vote against - remains unchanged.
Glasgow Herald - 22nd August 1982