• 3 months ago
om Tugendhat has accused Sir Keir Starmer of "believing in state control." The shadow security minister was addressing the Conservative conference in his bid to become the next Tory leader. Mr Tugendhat also revealed he felt "deeply, deeply uncomfortable" about legalising assisted dying. Report by Kennedyl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
Transcript
00:00He's actually specifically said that he believes in state control.
00:05He hasn't said it metaphorically.
00:06He hasn't even dressed it up.
00:07And to be fair to him, it's the one thing he's been absolutely honest about.
00:11He actually believes in state control.
00:14Now that is extraordinary, because we know where that leads.
00:19You know, I don't know about you, but I saw this movie before.
00:21Admittedly, I saw it in black and white, and it was on my parents' TV, and it was 1970.
00:26But I know where it leads.
00:29That's not the road to growth.
00:32That's the road to ruin.
00:33And that's where he's taking us.
00:35The state has a role in lifting its foot off the throat of the market.
00:39That's how you empower freedom.
00:40That's how you get growth.
00:41That's how you get change.
00:43Because the truth is, what we've seen time and time and time again is that when labor
00:48comes in, debt goes up, unemployment goes up, and we have to come in to clean it up.
00:54I'm a Roman Catholic.
00:56That's me.
00:57And it determines a lot of how I think about life.
00:59Of course it does.
01:00But it defines how I must live my life, not how you must live yours.
01:04So I am always open to listening to debates about moral arguments from the perspective
01:09of the government as opposed to from the perspective of me as an individual, because we need to
01:14make sure what we're enabling in our country is, to use his other words, freedom.
01:18We need to be championing freedom.
01:20It is quite literally the building block of our society.
01:22If we don't have that, we have nothing.
01:25My job is also to make sure that we support the most vulnerable.
01:28And that's why I'm deeply, deeply, deeply uncomfortable with this assisted dying.
01:35I have seen too many reports, including from countries with jurisdictions that I respect
01:41very greatly, like Canada, where I've seen somebody, I've seen reports through military
01:47friends about somebody with PTSD who, instead of getting access to the care that he required,
01:55was being suggested that actually care was never going to be available and would never
01:58help and that actually he should choose an easier and, I quote, cheaper alternative.
02:04That is wrong and I will never support it.