There were one or two signs of stress among the organisers at the beginning of the Manchester satellite Convention on Modern Liberty, but being unable to fit everyone into the room is the right kind of problem to have, as football managers say.
If the attendance was heartening, what I found most inspiring was that for most of the day, the floor was held by a few of the younger organisations that have sprung up in recent times in response to assaults on our liberty. Local hosts No2ID and Genewatch UK led busy workshops, but motivated by Henry Porter's description of the convention as being a bit like a rock festival without the mud, I went in search of sex and drugs – or at least discussions thereof.
The latter was hosted by Students For A Sensible Drugs Policy. The name is revealing – the session was far removed from the "free the weed" hippie idealism of previous generations. This discussion focused instead upon harm reduction and the urgent need for evidence-based policy.
My afternoon was spent in the company of the Consenting Adult Action Network, which talked us through the baffling contradictions and absurdities of the recent ban on extreme pornography. Our hosts Lucy and Clair, an engagingly frank, lesbian feminist couple, placed the new law in the context of a successions of creeping incursions into sexual freedom stretching back 30 years, invariably couched in the call: "Won't someone please think of the children?" Appropriately enough, the most ironic laughs of the day were brought by the tale of one unfortunate soul in Australia who was recently prosecuted for possession of child pornography – in truth, obscene cartoons of Bart Simpson. It's like the Oz trial never happened. As recent legislation in the UK also criminalises original illustration, we would be foolish to pretend that similar prosecutions are not on the cards here.
A common thread emerged in the two sessions. If the liberty of an individual to indulge in private vices is to be curtailed, there has to be evidence of wider social harm. Where the production of pornography involves exploitation and abuse, as actual child porn or rape footage always does, there is a clear need for legal prohibition. If the availability of extreme pornography increases the prevalence of sexual violence or has other quantifiable consequences, then there is justification for a ban. Equally, if there is evidence that increasing sanctions against possession of different drugs reduces the social harm associated with their use – or, more controversially, reduces the risks of serious harm to the individual user – then a government may be right to restrict personal choice.
In light of this, the government's highly selective approach to evidence-based policy takes on weighty significance. When the cabinet chooses to ignore the advice of their own appointed experts with respect to classification of recreational drugs, it is incumbent upon them to demonstrate that their approach – using the law to "send a message" – actually works, and indeed works better than the alternatives of decriminalisation or medicalisation. When politicians take expert advice on social and psychological consequences of policy, as they did ahead of the extreme pornography provisions, it is essential that the advice reflects the diverse spectrum of clinical and research expertise, not an unrepresentative sample intended to bolster and justify a predetermined position.
All healthy societies need to find a delicate balance between protection of the common good and the freedom of the individual to make their own choices. The only way we can ensure that the pivot is correctly placed is with an accurate assessment of their relative weights. On these topics, as in so many others, New Labour has revealed a disregard for the value of genuinely evidence-based policy. The corollary of that is, inescapably, a disregard for the value of individual liberties.
I do not believe that the individual always has an inalienable right to do what they want behind closed doors. The personal sometimes really is political, and the choices of individuals have implications and consequences for society at large. However to impinge on those personal freedoms surely requires demonstrably good cause. When our freedoms are restricted without good reason, the effect is to corrode trust in political process, leadership and the law, and that, more than anything, is what causes harm to society at large.