Labour in the dock (again)
Even in its (probable) dying days of power Labour is still being taken to task by the courts for railroading civil liberties under the pretence of protecting national security.
As the Guardian reports
The court of appeal has dismissed an attempt by MI5 and MI6 to suppress evidence of their alleged complicity in the torture and secret [...]
Taking Brown to task on child detention
An excellent piece at OurKingdom by Clare Sambrook, who takes apart Gordon Brown’s defence of the detention of the children of asylum seekers.
We believe that history will judge the administrative detention of children to be a moral stain on the reputation of this country, akin to slavery and child labour. One day we will [...]
Gordon’s revenge
It’s good to see that Labour has taken such quick and decisive action against the former ministers caught up in the lobbying sting. It would be nice to think that this is a purely principled reaction and the start of a crackdown on political lobbying and on former ministers filling their boots by taking lucrative [...]
When Straw did show mercy to an old and frail man
I can’t say I have any strong views on whether Ronnie Biggs should be released from prison. Yes it may seem harsh to refuse him parole given the parlous state of his health, but he refuses to show any remorse for his crime, a normal condition for parole, and if he had stayed and served [...]
Standing in the way of control orders
Of the various illiberal and authoritarian measures introduced by Labour in the last few years one of the most pernicious is the use of control orders against people who are suspected of terrorist activity. People subjected to control orders are effectively under house arrest - they have a curfew of up to 16 hours a [...]
Sort out MPs’ expenses once and for all
In the least surprising development since Allen Stanford turned out to be a bit dodgy, it seems that Gordon Brown’s plan to reform MPs’ expenses has backfired on him. One really has to wonder what he was thinking of - the weird Max Headroom style video was a bad enough start, then he failed to [...]
I won’t be beating my wife (well at least until 2012)
Justin at Chicken Yoghurt points out that Labour MP Tom Harris is compaining about the blogosphere not taking notice of the government’s decision to deny bailiffs the right to break into people’s homes and use force against them in order to recover debts.
Presumably it doesn’t occur to Harris that the reasons for this are
1. [...]
Where is the “freedom” in “Freedom of Information”?
So Jack Straw has vetoed the publication of minutes of cabinet meetings leading up to the Iraq war, after the Information Tribuneral ruled that they should be released.
Now I have to say I don’t have any strong opinion about whether it is desirable for these minutes to be released. I don’t think they [...]
Meanwhile on the domestic front…
…Labour shows no sign of losing its enthusiasm for knee-jerk illiberal legislation. Thanks to Section 76 of the Counterterrorism Act 2008 it is now illegal to take a photograph of a police officer ‘likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism’, a condition so ill-defined that it is bound [...]
The UK under fire on Human Rights
Following its recent embarrassment over the supression of intelligence relating to the treatment of Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed the government is now coming under fire from all sides over its record on human rights, civil liberties and torture.
Firstly, the UK has received strong criticism from the International Commission of Jurists for undermining international law and [...]