Howard Flight’s comments yesterday have rehashed the old eugenics argument, with the left lobbing all sorts of accusations that evil right wingers want to sterilise the poor. Fraser Nelson, Ed West and Paul Goodman have been quick to remind the left of the dirty little secret that they promoted well into the twentieth century.

As George Bernard Shaw wrote: “The only fundamental and possible socialism is the socialisation of the selective breeding of man.” Keynes said the working class was too “drunken and ignorant” to be trusted to keep its own numbers down. The New Statesman declared in 1931: “The legitimate claims of eugenics are not inherently incompatible with the outlook of the collectivist movement.” And funny how quiet today’s Fabians have been on the whole subject…

Flight’s choice of words may not have been ideal, but the left don’t have a leg to stand on, he wasn’t calling for sterilisation. Prominent Fabians such as H G Wells and Webbs led the way in combining the ‘progressive’ ideologies of socialism and eugenics. It didn’t stop when Mosely quit the group either, while eugenics is now a dirty word, for a century the Fabians have sought, and sadly often succeeded, in undermining the traditional family, property rights and individual freedom. Their cause was, and still is, evil.