Thank the Good Lord for parliamentary democracy

Despite the failure of their attempt to break the pro-abortion lobby’s stranglehold over counselling for women considering ‘terminations’, two independently-minded Members of Parliament struck a blow against political correctness.

Through their bid to amend the Health and Social Care Bill last week, Conservative MP Nadine Dorries and Labour’s Frank Field succeeded in sparking a national debate not merely over the need to break the financial vested interest in abortion counselling but over the scale of abortion itself in our country.

And within Parliament the amendment was very significant. The political reaction to it served to highlight the extent to which the Conservative Party has shifted from the Judaeo-Christian values that used to underpin it when it had a habit of winning elections.

The letter from Conservative Health Minister Anne Milton telling MPs on the Government’s payroll vote (including junior ministers and parliamentary private secretaries) that all health ministers were voting against the amendment was seen as attempt at covert whipping in what has traditionally been a free vote issue.

The intervention backfired badly, only serving to highlight the moral fragility of the coalition and the ideological compromises that underlie it. There is a whiff of Weimar about British politics at the moment.

Thus the amendment’s exposure of the moral realities of coalition politics has served a good purpose.

Furthermore, the reaction to the reaction against the Dorries-Field amendment has had a positive effect. The backing for their clause from Conservative Defence Secretary Liam Fox - and just as significantly the timing of his support - served to enhance the independence of MPs and by extension the standing of Parliament.

As former Conservative Home Office Minister Ann Widdecombe wrote on ConservativeHome: “All pro-life Conservative MPs must be very grateful to Liam Fox for his public stand on the clause calling for independent counselling for women considering abortion. Liam – as we all know – has always been a courageous and clear-thinking fighter on any issue in which he has been involved. I, for one, was pretty confident that he would not toe the line on the Ann (sic) Milton memorandum calling on the Government payroll to vote for what she has chosen to describe as the Department of Health policy. To my mind it was undoubtedly backdoor whipping and decidedly in breach of the policy honourably held for over forty years by the Conservative Party.”

As long as there is a British Parliament, independently-minded MPs can use its processes to expose falsehood and tell the truth. It is worth considering that in a non-parliamentary regime run by a politically-correct incarnation of Joseph Stalin, Parliamentarians of the calibre of Mrs Dorries and Mr Field would have been purged by now.

We desperately need more servants of Christ inspired by the truth of the gospel to defy cynicism and apathy about politics and to become MPs. Provided they are prepared to follow their consciences and sacrifice personal ambition they can by God's grace still do a great deal of good.

Julian Mann is vicar of the Parish Church of the Ascension, Oughtibridge, South Yorkshire.