MP grilled on education, faith and drug policy
LAST month Gloucestershire Humanists invited Cheltenham’s MP, Alex Chalk, to speak on ‘Can you be socially liberal and a Conservative?’
The starting point for the talk was the perception that humanists – as nonreligious people who look to science, evidence and our shared humanity to make decisions about how to live our lives – are generally socially liberal.
By contrast, Conservatism often seems distinctly, well, conservative!
Fairly or not, some of us consider Conservatives unlikely to champion change or to challenge tradition or received wisdom.
Alex made a strong historical case for the co-existence of conservatism and social liberalism.
He drew on examples of Conservative-led social reform from Robert Peel to Theresa May, reminding us that when David Cameron introduced same sex marriage he said he did this because he was a Conservative, not despite being one.
Alex also addressed some issues of particular interest to humanists: he is delighted that Sex & Relationships Education is to become compulsory for all pupils, for example, and he supports the 50 per cent cap on faith-based admissions to schools.
This led to some challenge from the floor about the detail of these policies with their limits being pointed out.
However, the real discussion points of the evening were around faith schools and drugs policy.
On the former, Alex argued that it is fundamentally illiberal not to allow faith schools.
However, as was made clear, many humanists have a principled objection to state-funded education that advocates religious belief / worship.
Alex also explained that he has no wish to see drugs policy radically reformed even if, as many argue, our current approach isn’t effective.
This is likely to be a topic for a future Glos Hums meeting. Criminal justice was then also hotly debated.
Overall, a fascinating, stimulating and lively evening: we are delighted that Alex came along to speak and to listen.
For more information about Gloucestershire Humanists please see glos.humanist.org.uk