Mary Whitehouse died yesterday aged 91.

For more than thirty-five years she had been a household name in the UK, for opposing gratuitous sex and violence on British TV.   Her first 'Clean Up TV Campaign' was launched in 1963. Half a million signatures were later presented to the Governors of the BBC.   At a packed meeting in the Birmingham Town Hall on the 5th May 1964, she said, "If violence is shown as normal on the television screen it will help to create a violent society".  The National Viewers' and Listeners' Association (NVLA), recently renamed Mediawatch-UK, was founded in 1965. 

iGreens respected her courage, and sincerity, and recognise that she spoke for millions of ordinary people.   We applaud the fact that the NVLA never sought taxpayer support.   Nevertheless we disagreed with her main aims, and are glad that she largely failed.  She advocated government censorship of the media, and we cannot support that.     

However, it would be wrong to dismiss her out of hand.   In practice, in most of her campaigns she was opposing a state propaganda organisation, the BBC.    Much as we defend broadcasters rights to publish what they like, we also object to the state pushing pornography into our living rooms.  Private broadcasters carefully tailor their output to their market, to keep viewers and avoid frightening off their advertisers.  If they don't have to compete with a BBC pushing titillation they are generally fairly conservative in matters of sex and violence.   The main US TV channels are an example.   If they do occasionally overstep the bounds of what we want to watch, we just switch channels, and we don’t have to pay for others to watch.   

The BBC is different.   Unless we are prepared to forego TV altogether, we are taxed to pay for collectivist propaganda, subversive soap operas normalising disastrous lifestyle choices, gratuitous violence and pornography.   Only this week I came across my 14 and 11 year old daughters watching a sophisticated comedy glamorising the lifestyle of a promiscuous middle-aged woman (Linda Green BBC 9pm).   I might have enjoyed it myself if they had been safely in bed, and I would certainly never want to prohibit such stuff, but why am I being taxed so that my daughters can watch it? 

Mrs. Whitehouse wanted to prohibit smut.  She failed, and on balance we should be glad that she did.  

If she had limited herself to stopping state-sponsored smut, she might have achieved more.   I hope Media Watch UK are learning the lesson.  Insofar as they oppose sex and violence on the BBC, most real liberals would support them.  

Where is the Conservative Party on this issue?  This is surely something which could unite the traditionalist and libertarian wings.   Come on Ian Duncan-Smith!   Portillo would have picked up and run with this ball by now.  

Mary Whitehouse was a brave woman.   For her opposition to BBC sex and violence, we salute her.  

23 November 2001