by PETER HITCHENS, Mail on Sunday

August 4th 2002

Those of us who fear for the future of the country have a hard choice to make. Should we try to haul the Tory Party out of the grave it is digging for itself? Or should we shovel more earth on top of it, in the hope that it will die all the faster and make way for something better?

I am starting to favour the second option.

A peculiar gaggle of childless, shallow and arrogant self-seekers, ignorant of life and history, seems now to be in charge of the party.

First they chose to demonstrate their power by publicly humiliating David Davis, probably the only Conservative politician now equipped to be Prime Minister.

And now they have arranged the ridiculous proclamation of Alan Duncan's homosexuality.

Unlike many commentators, I do care what Mr Duncan does in private. I don't seek to make it illegal but I think it is morally wrong and I suspect that it has skewed his political judgment on other issues, too, such as drugs. Until now I would have kept this view private but he has deliberately made it a public issue.

And by doing so he has ceased to be a Conservative. As a private homosexual, he needed and deserved the tolerance of those, like me, who think his choice is wrong but believe he had the right to make it. By asking for open acceptance of his choice as normal, he has joined the dangerous campaign against marriage and family life which has already done so much damage.

If Mr Duncan's private life is publicly acceptable, then the entire moral system which underpins our civilisation is up for revision. For that system is based on the idea that heterosexual marriage is the ideal and right form of sexual partnership.

The relentless undermining of marriage by our new establishment has gone too far already. It is a principal cause of loneliness, misery, poverty, social breakdown, crime and violence.

Mr Duncan's action, encouraged and simpered over by the Tory high command (if such a pitiful thing can have a high command), is a gesture of contempt for the millions who look to the Tory Party to defend and protect the married family, the foundation of human liberty and civilised society.

The regrettable John Major, who wrecked his party and feebly handed his country to the anti-British Blair rabble, is enjoying a well-padded retirement of first-class travel, speaking fees and applause. His teams of police guards cost us around £1.5million a year.

Those who once placed their trust in Mr Major have had their retirements stolen by Labour's pension tax and yearn for any sort of police protection against a hurricane of crime and disorder.

When I lived in Moscow, rats were a constant and disgusting presence. I thought this was a sign of a society in decay, poor and ill-run. I am now ashamed I felt rather superior to the grimy, unhealthy Russians.

For today's British cities are rat-infested too. This is due to a different poverty and decay - a poverty of the mind which causes oafs to drop their revolting half-eaten fast food on the pavement, and the decay of family life which has led to this gobbling of greasy meals in the street.

I have now had my first experience of the Euro-rouble, during a few days in France. I did not think I would mind so much to see the grandeur and patriotism of the old French banknotes and coinage replaced by these dreary tokens in inconvenient denominations. I felt sorry for poor France - and all the more anxious to keep Britain out of this nasty project.

Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Injustice, says that killers are human beings and therefore have human rights. This shows perfectly just how little he understands what a free society is about.

The only human right we have or need is to go about our lives without interference as long as we obey the law, which also protects us.

If we break that law, then we must expect to be punished. If we murder, we must expect to be

punished very severely indeed. The whole idea of 'human rights' has been used to undermine this simple and effective set of rules which used to work very well.

Since human rights were introduced here, the well-behaved majority have become far less free, while wrongdoers have become more free. What I want to know is why, seeing this, Lord Woolf and his friends will not admit they are wrong.