Members in a moral minefield

attention once again to the hardest area of policy for contemporary

politicians to deal with -- morality.

Keenly reported affairs conducted by Ministers and other leading MPs

have attracted a lot of public attention -- the appetite for knowledge

of other people's sexual peccadilloes appears insatiable -- and a wide

variety of reactions, ranging from amusement to distress, from those who

consider Ministers thus discovered should resign or be sacked to those

who don't see it makes any difference to their ability to do their job.

The ideological battle lines are not so starkly drawn these days in

the purely party political area. Public versus private enterprise; a

nuclear deterrent against nuclear disarmament; public spending against

constant retrenchment have been replaced by more modulated approaches.

Labour is critical of many privatised industries but is not exactly

intent on restoring the old-style nationalised industries. It attacks

the Government's meanness in several spending areas but is chary of

giving cast-iron spending commitments itself.

Still, MPs know where they are with subjects like these. Policy may

not, Dennis Skinner and David Evans apart, be delivered in such stark

primary colours as of old, but the rules of the game remain.

When you come to genetic engineering, abortion, matrimonial law, the

state's treatment of single parents, the homosexual age of consent, even

the level and nature of religious teaching in state schools, many MPs

become uncomfortable.

There is, of course, always a minority with strong views who will

battle blithely for their cause. But many members, some with equally

strong convictions, are unhappy confronted by such issues.

The reason is simple. Britain, like most Western democracies, is a

morally divided nation. There is no common agreement among its people

as

to the meaning and nature of life and it is, at bottom, only on a

conviction about that that solutions to moral dilemmas can be

propounded.

Most MPs are only too well aware that whatever decision Parliament

comes to on matters like abortion or divorce million of citizens will be

angered or offended. An MP's personal dilemma can be acute. A Catholic

member, say, may believe that each abortion is a morally wrong taking of

innocent life. But he is only too well aware that a large number of his

fellow citizens do not share that view. Many regard it with distaste

but

admissible in certain cases. Some consider it a matter only for the

pregnant woman concerned. Is he to impose his convictions on those who

do not share them?

In a morally uniform community legislation is comparatively simple.

It

can still impose hardships on some of those involved. But they are

hardships that the overwhelming majority of the community consider

should be borne because the remedy is unacceptable. Some Muslim

communities have exceptionally severe laws against blasphemy and, while

one might cavil at some of the penalties, the principle follows if

Muslim beliefs are true.

The general feeling of incredulity which would follow attempts in

Britain to act on the laws of blasphemy as applied to Christianity would

be, indeed has been, as good a proof as any that Britain is a

post-Christian community. The number who would be genuinely shocked or

deeply offended by blasphemous remarks about God or Christ is, I

suspect, small and probably fewer even in the Christian community than

it should be.

The only heresy originated in Britain, Pelagianism, took the view that

man could be saved as a sort of do-it-yourself enterprise. The modern

British, or English anyway, have developed a variant of this roughly

summarised as ''do what you like as long as you don't do anybody any

harm''. As a view it has several shortcomings, a notable one being that

it is not given to us to know all the consequences of our actions.

No-one finds out its shortcomings quicker than MPs asked to legislate

on conditions of artificial impregnation or lowering the homosexual age

of consent. There is never a legislative solution that pleases

everyone.

In a morally mixed community it is difficult to produce a solution that

will not leave many aggrieved.

Nor is it necessarily true that what we might call post-Pelagian

morality is easier going. It might shy away from calling adultery

anything as unfashionable as a sin. But the Christian adulterer can

repent, if Catholic be shriven, and expect the support of his community

as he restarts with a clean slate.

The reverse is often true of the apparently laxer view, as we see

illustrated by certain newspapers that sell sexual freedom and then

hound public figures who have engaged in some. The interest in the

thing

rather than the person is well illustrated by the glee with which some

have fallen on the long burned-out embers of the Profumo affair.

There is still some genuine interest in the matter as Cabinet papers

recently released demonstrate how governments ought not to handle

ministerial indiscretions. But the important thing now about that

scandal is how the man at the centre of it redeemed himself by good

works which have long heavily outweighed the little harm he did.

In another more morally divided society the task of the legislator on

moral issues will become increasingly hard. So, even those not normally

sympathetic to politicians should spare a thought for those who, soon

after returning to Westminster next week, will be trying to resolve

questions that call for the wisdom of a Solomon.