Douglas Hurd in Southampton


The former foreign secretary and now Lord, the Rt. Hon. Lord Hurd of Westwell attended a social fundraiser in Southampton earlier this week in which he spoke about his life which has been one of immense public service to Britain.

He spoke about his time when he was political secretary to Edward Heath, both in opposition and in government then being elected and serving in Margaret Thatcher and John Major’s governments.

I will not go into detail about everything he said but will comment on one point that he made which is the most damming about the current government.

This was that there should be no new legislation for two years due to the amount that has been passed since 1997.

Lord Hurd spoke very critically of the way that the current government conducts itself and introduces policy without proper scrutiny and with sofa politics which does not allow for formal records to be kept (as we are seeing in the Blunket diaries this week).

For someone who has served over 30 years in the front line of politics and who has worked in numerous governments such, comments are very damning. The amount of legislation that this government has produced is amazing and the fact that members of parliament have not had time to adequately scrutinise it, means that MPs are failing in their job. This government has ruled by headline and by news story. It has failed to tackle the issues that blight people’s lives. Lord Hurd’s comments about new legislation may seem like a piece of flippancy but it would be welcomed.