I was brought up in a fight-keen culture – to hit back if someone hit me. I was reluctant at first but when I tried it, it worked
Sometimes, I despair of the left. The Conservative conference this week prompted a couple of such moments. How easy it is for the Tories to press the left's buttons. How embarrassingly predictable and knee-jerk the reactions are. No wonder those little scamps can't resist the temptation.
There has been much huffing and puffing over the so-called Tory obsession with "gerroff my land" attitudes to burglars. Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, wants to give householders more leeway in using "disproportionate force". This provides an easy way for the Conservatives to look like champions of the innocent victim, then sit back and let the left make itself look like the champion of the villain.
At the same time, critics are fond of pointing out that the Conservative fixation is on a problem that is tiny. People are hardly ever convicted of using disproportionate force against burglars, and whenever they are, it becomes a giant media talking point and they get their sentences reduced on appeal.
When I tackled and caught a burglar, I had to sit in court as the defendant made out that I'd been really rough with her, pulling her hair and making her hurt her hand against the railings we'd grappled over. Luckily, the police had photographed the skin-breaking bite mark she gave me, while the record of the HIV test I'd been advised to have at the hospital that evening was also available. A lot of time and money is wasted as criminals stand in witness boxes whining about the sore knee they got when an indignant householder pushed them down the stairs – for nothing!
Then there's the argument that, thus licensed, the entire nation will be sleeping with guns, machetes or baseball bats by their sides, as they leave their front doors wide open, in the hope that some inadequate scrap of humanity will make their day. The journalist Patrick Strudwick, who was horrifically beaten by a burglar, makes the point that had he fought back, he would have ended up either even more badly hurt, or having hurt someone else very badly. Both of those are certainly possibilities. But it's also possible that, confronted with a threatening enough challenge, the attackers might have simply scarpered. Who can say? It's all conjecture.
How one reacts in extremis depends a great deal on the kind of person you are (and also on how good you are at on-the-ground risk assessment). I was brought up in a fairly fight-keen culture – to hit back if someone hit me. I was reluctant at first, but when I tried it, it worked. People just stopped hitting me. Result.
I'm the sort of person who would clump a burglar with the nearest heavy object, if that seemed the best option – and consider it was all their fault – not mine. Appalling, no doubt, but there you go.
I understand that pretending you're asleep is probably more sensible. A lot of people would opt for that, regardless of legislation. But it's a shame that the left betrays what are supposed to be its guiding principles at times like these, and appears to assume that the majority of householders are one handy golf club away from uncontrollable savagery. Ultimately, if a burglar comes into my home – well, I want the right to choose how I handle a situation that I didn't ask to be in, that's all.
Oh, Lord, the right to choose. There's no more powerful and predictable way to invite the left to start looking like a bunch of intransigent extremists than to whistle up yet another round of "debate" about abortion. But the left doesn't lead the debate. In allowing the right to set terms, the left remains forever on the defensive. When Maria Miller, culture secretary, said before the Tory conference that she'd like to reduce the abortion limit from 24 weeks to 20 weeks, I thought: "There they go again." When Jeremy Hunt, health secretary, pronounced that he'd like to see it at 12 weeks, I thought he was out of his tiny mind.
But here's a shocker. Britain is exceptional in Europe when it comes to abortion. Lots of countries offer abortion on request, unlike us, and Britain should too. But the gestational time limits are fascinating. Among EU countries, 16 out of 27 are with Hunt, on 12 weeks. In France, abortion on demand is available until week 12. In Germany, it's also the first trimester. In Italy, it's within the first 90 days. Ah, you say, that'll be the Catholic influence. Perhaps. But that doesn't entirely explain Sweden, at 18 weeks, Denmark, at 12 weeks, and Greece, at 12 weeks.
On this issue, at least, the Tories are in step with Europe, and the left in Britain is out on its own. Well, not completely. Closest to us is the Netherlands, which gives abortion on request up to 13 weeks, and allows it up to 24 weeks if the mother is in distress. Only Cyprus allows abortion notably later than the UK, at 28 weeks, but always under very strict conditions.
Now, I don't point out these facts because I have a hidden agenda as a pro-lifer. I'm as pro-choice as the next progressive type. I understand why some people find all abortion abhorrent – and I think those people are dangerously sentimental, impractical and proscriptive.
I'm certain pro-lifers will never get their way in this country. But it does upset me that they succeed in having such a deadening influence over pro-choice debate. So much so that there is none. It's all about "holding the line" and fearing "the thin end of the wedge".
As with the disproportionate-force issue in burglary, pro-choice supporters will argue that only a very small number of abortions are carried out after week 20 anyway (about 2%). Is it completely mad of me to wonder if perhaps these abortions could be done earlier, if the imperative was there to make a decision sooner? At nearly six months, a woman is pretty seriously pregnant. And we all know that the earlier a termination is carried out, the better. Might an earlier limit actually be of benefit to women? Isn't it even worth discussing? Apparently not.
It's even more heretical to suggest that it might seem odd to ask medical staff to let one foetus die, and move heaven and earth to persuade another at the same stage of development to live. To suggest anything of the sort is to mark yourself out as either some sort of hideous traitor to the cause, or an attention-seeking iconoclast who is playing with fire.
But why? We should control this debate, but we ban it. We thrust it instead into the hands of the right, a group that does include extremists who wish to terminate abortion completely.
Pro-choice people are best placed to deal sensibly with the moral issues that abortion is always going to have to negotiate. It's precisely by digging in our heels that we start looking stubborn and intransigent, rather than sensitive and self-confident. I'm not sure I do want to see the limit changed. But I am sure that I'd like to have an honest, involved and sincere debate about it, before I decide, without being told that this is "giving in" to the right. We do that anyway – by refusing to think and defending, defending, defending, without question or discussion, instead.
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