Law and Liberty

Abstract

If we were to remain on the level of ‘party politics’, we should discuss the process whereby the Conservative Party came to regard itself during the Seventies as the party of ‘law and order’. But ‘law and order’ is simply the business of government, and no political party which spoke or acted as though it were not concerned to uphold them could ever be elected — as the Labour Party discovered to its cost. The truth was given by Machiavelli, in one sharp sentence which everybody recognizes to be true the moment he feels the reluctance to believe it: ‘The Prince must use first law, which is natural to man, but must be prepared to use violence, which is bestial, in order that the rule of law be maintained.’ The issues that will concern us are those of the nature of law, its scope, and its ‘image’ in conservative thinking. The rest is a matter of tactics. Theoretically speaking ‘law and order’ can be left to look after itself.