First, the Human Rights Act. We really did “bring rights home”, as we said we would. At last British people have been able directly to access and to enforce positive rights in the British courts, rather than having to go to Strasbourg and wait for years in a queue.
Shami Chakrabarti, Director, Liberty, in a letter of December 2007: “Our research shows that, far from being the home of liberty, Britain has the most draconian detention powers in the western world.”
The Today programme had a fascinating debate on 19 Dec 07, which can be found here. Polly Toynbee is quite horrifying, because she promotes complete submission to an authoritarian state because “government is good” even though she accepts that a dangerous state could use current law to oppress the people. Surely history speaks for itself, right across Europe, Asia, Africa and South America.
And people think there are no ideological battles left…
