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I've wrestled my conscience about getting involved in the recent discussion about Cardinal O'Brien's outburst about politicians supporting abortion. As a liberally minded Catholic I do think I can shed some light on the issue that has caused much consternation and not a little intemperate language amongst fellow party members. But I always hesitate to talk about abortion for, unlike His Eminence, I do think that it is unwise for a single man never likely to sire children, to pontificate on the issue.

But today's Observer ups the ante a little with this: MPs to fight for abortion on demand in which some want to remove the few remaining blocks that attempt to ensure that would be termination clients get what amounts to the most cursory advice and counseling about the potential consequences of abortion.

It quotes my neighbouring Lib Dem MP Evan Harris, who is reported as saying that "women should not face any greater hurdles to obtaining an abortion than for any other routine surgical procedure, such as having their appendix out."

Well now see, this is where I have a problem. A pregnancy is just not comparable to an illness that needs treatment and where if you ignore treatment you put your life in danger. In such an illness it is not really the patient who makes the decision either. The doctor recommends and the patient consents. You don't get people coming into hospital asking for an appendicectomy "on demand".

It may not be the position of the Secularist Society of which Evan is a member (and whose discussions and policies, just as those of Catholics do, presumably inform their members' thinking and decision making), but philosophically and objectively, pregnancy is at least the start of a potential new life (not to wish to aggravate the discussion by claiming, as I believe, that conception is the point of creation of a new and unique life). And in my experience, of a few friends who have had abortion, and a few male friends whose partners have had abortions, a termination seems often to result in later feelings of guilt, depression, sometimes of irreconcilable tension between partners and so on.

But I don't mean to have a go at Evan particularly, I merely want to use this new move on abortion to talk about the Cardinal's position. You see, even as a Catholic, and one who does believe that philosophically at least abortion is the termination of a unique new life, personally I could never vote absolutely against freedom of choice for the individual to procure a safe and legal abortion. But I say that on the grounds that the church also demands pluralism in civic society. Sure, they usually mean this to apply to Iran or China where Christians may be an oppressed minority, but they can't have it both ways - it applies just as much to others' right to exercise their beliefs in countries that have a primarily Christian religious heritage.

And far from being a secularist party, our Liberal history is one of defending the rights of individuals to practice whatever faith they believe in, or none. And given that there are differing opinions on when life begins and whether or not abortion amounts to legalized killing even amongst Christian groups, I could never vote to impose one minority faith view on everyone. That does not mean I "support" abortion, merely that I don't think the law of the land should be used to impose one group's moral opinion over another and that it should be up to the individual facing such a drastic choice not to be criminalized because of one faith's position.

But it is a difficult line to follow. We don't approve of murder do we? And we would never countenance a "right to choose" murder - perhaps for example in the case of "honour killings" in some faiths it is a debate that is not that unimaginable. So if you believe that abortion is intentional killing how can one ever vote in favour of people's right to choose to kill another being? I can only suggest that, unlike the Cardinal, I have no right to judge another's conscientious decision and that if there is a being with a big book listing everything we've done in our lives she will probably want to take into account all the good we may have done in our lives as well as the occasional mishap (often occasioned by mitigating circumstances not completely within our control).

I saw a program on teenaged sexual activity last night. One boy made the point that "we don't bother to prevent pregnancy any more, we have the morning after pill for contraception". While we have a group in society whose fecklessness seems to promote such a laissez-faire attitude to pregnancy itself, I believe that to remove all safeguards that attempt at least to counsel people on their choices would be a step too far.

Evan of course is at least consistent, in wanting good quality early start sex and relationships education. And the combination of knowing properly how your body works and how relationships work before landing yourself in the situation of having an unwanted pregnancy would probably do as much to reduce the number of abortions as any law restricting abortions themselves. But while we don't have that, and seem always to shy away even from debate on it, we should not be making abortion that default fall back for what sometimes amount to bad decisions about the when, where and how of sexual activity. That does not contribute to "safe, legal and rare".

Technorati Tags: cardinal o'brien, abortion

Sod the European Union and loss of sovereignty. News arrives this morning that two state owned investment funds - The China Development Bank and Temasek, the investment arm of the Singaporean government, have between them taken a 10% plus stake in Barclays Bank.

Now, there's nothing new, or inherently threatening, about overseas money investing in UK companies, but in this case there are two issues.

First, these funds (as with the Qatari bid for Sainsbury's last week) are themselves so wealthy because of state protectionism. China in particular is not operating on the same economic "rules" as most of the west, what with pegged exchange rates and state control of assets generating this cash.

Second, Barclays is a bank, and as such in an incredibly privileged position. It is part of a cartel of a few organisations that effectively have the ability to create our money. A few choice quotes should suffice to show how awkward this could be...

Reginald McKenna, Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1915 and later Chairman of the Midland Bank, at the time the world's largest bank:

"I am afraid that ordinary citizens will not like to be told that the banks can, and do, create and destroy money. And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of governments, and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people."

Meyer Amschel Rothschild:

"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws."

Robert Hemphill (a director of the Federal reserve Bank of Atlanta in the 1930s):

"This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial Banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the Banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible, but there it is. It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defects remedied very soon."

Franklin D Roosevelt:

"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson."

It's not that there should not be overseas investors in our commercial banks and so on. But that our commercial banks should not have the ability to create fiat money on their own initiative but in our name. We must either privatize the money supply or nationalize it - but if we allow other governments to take over the function through acquisition we can forget worrying about losing sovereignty to the EU and other such arguments, we will have handed real sovereignty, through control of our money supply, to foreign governments.

Technorati Tags: fiat money, monetary reform

Just 21% of Tory MPs put the environment as their top priority, compared with 75% of Lib Dem MPs and a mere 40% of Labour MPs, says a survey for House magazine highlighted by ConservativeHome.

So what is the Tory top priority? 81% said international security, 38% financial stability and 38% NHS privatisation reform. These are all of course valid political concerns, but putting them in that order proves a remarkable lack of understanding about the threats and opportunities environmental politics throws at us.

It seems to me that the environment, climate change, natural resource availability and consumption and so on, well, these are the major threats to international security facing us this century. And, whilst I would contend that most of our Lib Dem MPs have so far shown little understanding of this, things like the "green tax switch" could be a massive force for economic stability and equity, not just means to an environmental end.

Neither MI5 nor the Royal Navy can control the weather, or help ensure we don't have hundreds of millions of the world's coastal have-nots displaced and looking for a culprit amongst the haves of the world to blame for their plight. The City of London cannot keep us warm when Russia turns off the gas taps, and especially if it's under seven meters of water!

ConservativeHome concludes by suggesting that the new candidates selected for seats under Cameron's leadership will be more attuned to Cameron's priorities. Maybe, but who is selecting them? What priorities do they have? Is not the party membership likely to reflect those they already have representing them? They won't all be selecting flip-flop wearing trustafarian environmentalist milionnaires.

Technorati Tags: conservatives, Dave the chameleon, tories, environmental politics