Parliamentary privilege: clear as mud but not quite so dirty

February 28, 2011 by Leave a comment

Privilege: a word that calls to mind the protection the rich or the powerful from the rules of ordinary people. Viewing this phrase in light of the Supreme Court decision of last year on the trial of three MPs and a Lord for offences relating to expenses does little to dispel this image. Parliamentary privilege has had more attention of late than for many years, as the FAQs that littered newspaper websites show [1].

So what is parliamentary privilege?  In short, privilege is made up of two rights of parliament. First, that “the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament” arises from article 9 of  Bill of Rights 1689. Second, Parliament has the exclusive jurisdiction over its own affairs as developed through case law.

Why is this so important? If parliamentarians can’t be sued for defamation for what they say in parliamentary business, they can speak freely without fear of legal costs, and if Parliament takes responsibility for disciplining those who break its rules it cannot be improperly influenced by those outside.

A parliamentary question would clearly be part of parliamentary proceedings, as Parliament needs information. Giving evidence to a select committee is also covered, as keeping the identities of those giving evidence helps ensure that evidence is complete and honest. Recent high profile examples of the use of privilege are more sensational: the search of Damian Green’s office as part of a police inquiry into allegations that he conspired to commit misconduct in a public office, the prosecution of Harry Greenway MP for alleged bribery offences, and most recently the Supreme Court case that decided that expenses claims were not similarly protected. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the actions of those involved, privilege does not keep good company in the media.

Why, then, is there so little understanding of parliamentary privilege? First, the development of the concept through the common law means that information about privilege is just not that accessible to the general public. Even though the expenses scandal captured the public attention, few will have read the Supreme Court’s 48-page analysis. Second, where the mystique of the courts meets that of Parliament the situation is unlikely to be improved. Finally, when MPs are seen trying to use privilege to cover their misdeeds, the public are unlikely to feel much sympathy.  

So where next? While reform fell by the wayside in 1999, perhaps an Act codifying and modifying parliamentary privilege could combat misunderstandings, and provide an opportunity to address some of the stranger historical quirks. Such a proposal appeared in last year’s Queen’s speech, but meanwhile, in the wake of the expenses scandal, the name “parliamentary privilege” seems to fulfil every prejudice people have of parliamentarians and can do nothing to help their public image.

[1] The Independent, Guardian, Telegraph and BBC all published guides or FAQs on the topic

 

 

 

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Sir Gus O’Donnell on the Cabinet Manual: video

February 28, 2011 by Leave a comment

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The British should contribute to the Irish “democratic revolution”

February 28, 2011 by Leave a comment

However greatly reconciliation has been boosted by the Good Friday Agreement, Ireland remains a very different country from Britain, certainly in respect of its political system and the currency.  In last week’s election, the annihilation of Fianna Fail “ the natural party of government” has been either hailed as “ a democratic revolution” or dismissed by the radically minded as “a three week holiday from reality.” For Fine Gael, this was the triumph of the non-Obama campaign, casting their lacklustre leader Enda Kenny as  “ the chairman, not the Chief “ and in the certain knowledge that voters would punish those who made promises they couldn’t keep.

What is on everyone’s  mind now is whether the burden of  financial austerity negotiated by the outgoing  government can be eased. Eurosceptics everywhere, not least in the Conservative right at Westminster, will look on in appalled glee as anonymous unelected Brussels bureaucrats damp down feverish expectations of a meaningful renegotiation of the IMF-EU bailout which funds the Irish State to the tune of 18 billion euros a year. So much for a democratic mandate, cry the critics. And of course they have a point. Masochists agree: Ireland has indeed “ surrendered sovereignty.”

Next step, take your partners for the coalition dance.  No three-day pressure here. Amazingly you may think, the exhausted Fianna Fail  rump remains in office; Brian Cowen the outgoing taoiseach did not even stand for re-election.  There is a set interregnum  to March 9 when the new Dail elects the next taoiseach. He then goes to the Park (to the President’s residence,  the old viceregal lodge in Phoenix Park)  to be handed his seals of office by the President. No mystical business here about the shady prerogatives of the head of State.   The written Constitution prescribes the form for Madam President unlike that for Ma’am the Queen (pace the Cabinet manual.)

Noting the growing divergence between them over the balance between higher taxes and bigger cuts, outside observers may doubt the feasibility of a coalition between the centre right Fine Gael and the centre leftish Labour. But Ireland is well used to coalitions. All Fine Gael led governments have been coalitions since 1948 and the last majority Fianna Fail government was elected in 1977. After elections, consensus around the magnet of office quickly asserts itself during the interregnum and awkward pledges tend to be dumped in what is almost a convention of State.  This time, bargaining may be brisk for a day or two as both parties have recorded their best ever results, but Fine Gael, outnumbering Labour by  2 to 1, will win out.

Even the scale of the present challenge and the fate of earlier coalitions will not put them off. In 63 years, none led by Fine Gael has been re-elected. And apart from Labour, all minor party partners have eventually disappeared.
Labour would hope to spared such a fate this time, but the task is daunting and the political  prospects are perilously uncertain. Noone will forget that Labour jumped horses  in midstream from an improbable  coalition with  Fianna Fail to a rainbow coalition with Fine Gael in the mid  1990s. But although charges of  corruption and croneyism were in the air even then, the times were easier overall.  And besides, this time, what other ship is there to jump to, after Fianna Fail’s decimation?

Last week there’s  no doubt that voters compelled  the parties to put the national interest unambiguously first. This pressure was accompanied by a frenzy of media-led demands for reform that featured  in all manifestos. A leading voice is Fintan O’Toole a polemicist who makes a powerful case for reform in his book Enough is Enough and in his Petition for reform. O’Toole and friends balked in the end at standing for election but their onslaught has had an effect. Most parties  favour a year long “People’s Convention “ to go through a long list of suggested reforms – a stronger and less expensive Dail, a tougher and more transparent code of ethics in public life including new rules for  political donations , an electoral commission, wider FoI, independent tax raising powers for local government (all funding is central) and  more accountable planning. Much of  this to be codified  in sweeping reforms to the constitution,  approved by referendum.   Sounds familiar?

PR-STV is identified by many as the bogey which has boosted local clietelism and weakened government. Contrast this with advocates in Britain who see it as the road to the holy grail of better representation.  It all depends where you have reached on your political journey.

Irish political scientists have warned against treating electoral reform as a magic bullet. Much deeeper thought is needed. Their British counterparts are well qualified to make  comparative and prescriptive contributions and alleviate Ireland’s huge anxiety about the future.  Irish experts are almost as familiar with British systems as they are with their own. The British side should adopt two approaches.

One,  they should have the imagination to notice a field of rich endeavour under their noses where they might make a difference. This hasn’t happened yet as far as I know.  And two, they should enter the field by invitation,  free from the ancient taint of  Mother England and  present themselves as  fellow humble seekers after truth.

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Sir Gus: Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before

February 25, 2011 by 6 Comments

“I have to admit that it’s not something I’m often asked about down the pub” -  Sir Gus O’Donnell

As noted in today’s post by my learned colleague [1] Patrick Graham, Sir Gus O’Donnell gave a speech on the Cabinet Manual last night at a Constitution Unit seminar held at the Institute for Government. [2]

The speech was nothing new. As someone in the audience noted, Sir Gus spent most of his talk talking in negatives. The Manual was not a written constitution. It was not law. It was not new. Etcetera.

But it sparked in me some thoughts about the nature of conventions.[3] Sir Gus was being slightly disingenuous: there are aspects of the Manual which are new. There were at least two: the extension of the caretaker or purdah principles into the post-election period, and with more substantive criteria (NZ did something similar in 1984 following a constitutional crisis emerged over transition). Ditto with the provision of civil service support during a hung parliament to all parties. These are examples of instant convention: new norms formulated to deal with a new situation.

Before making the kneejerk response—that’s undemocratic!—it’s worth noting Geoffrey Marshall, for a long time the authority on constitutional conventions, did say that one source of convention was simply derivation from some acknowledged principle of government. And this is not so far removed from what common law judges have been doing for centuries. That is, they have extended ‘imminent principles’ in the law to new and unforeseen circumstances. They use former cases—precedents—often to justify their rulings. This was fine in the past, but this is now regarded as problematic (more bluntly: flapdoodle).

This is because there are now two new conditions underlying modern Western society. One is popular democracy, and the sense that law only has its authority because of ratification by ‘the people’. But more important is the overwhelming presence of the state [5] and the popular assumption of a crude form of positivism [6], which identifies ‘law’ in terms of who authorises it, i.e., the political authority of the state, or more specifically, the legislature. This makes precedent and common law decision-making problematic, because this is essentially judge-made law. It clashes with our idea of democracy and only state-issued law being ‘law’.

A recent book by Nils Jansen [7] makes a similar point. He notes that some legal codifications have become themselves ‘law’ (example: the American Law Institute’s Restatements), and have done so despite the fact that they have never been ‘ratified’ by the legislature. The (key) reasons are that such codifications met an urgent need; and the legal community came to accept it. Jansen’s point is: we presume that the state (and perhaps more specifically the legislature) is the only legitimate authority in the field of ‘law’; but historically this has never been so. There are other ‘legitimising’ communities.

This brings us back to the Manual. Am I saying the Manual is law? I am not. I’m just drawing attention to parallel debates elsewhere. Some people have been irritated by the sheer impudence of Sir Gus and the Cabinet Office—how dare he suggest the executive might have a view of the norms governing us, or that he might change pre-existing practices! What I am saying is that the legislature (and the judiciary) are not the only sources for rules and norms which we find obligatory to follow. This has ‘always been so’: it is just that our views of what constitutes law and/ or obligatory norms over time have become radically impoverished. We need to expand our understanding of how in practice we follow rules.

Competition time! A large cappuccino with whipped cream [8] to the person who can come up with the best question to ask Sir Gus down the pub.[9] Answers below, please.

[1] legalese for ‘he done studied him some law’

[2] They have the best canapes there. As my esteemed colleague says: “I go for the talks, but I stay for the scallops.”

[3] you have to imagine me posing like Rodin’s the thinker. It’s difficult. I do slouch a lot.

[4] I don’t mean this in a state-is-evil libertarian manner—I mean this in an anthropological kind of way. I mean, the state, and its insistence on representing the nation, is everywhere: on our money, on TV, in our speech—it infests the frames we use to understand the world. It’s difficult to imagine a life without the (nation-)state.

[6] I have read HLA Hart. And even Waluchow’s inclusive legal positivism. Go away. That’s why I said a crude form of positivism.

[7] great book btw. It’s a legal bodice-ripper. Or a judicial Bridget Jones.

[8] I’m cheap. Sue me. This or the functional, edible equivalent. Eg., some people might want a skinny latte, a pint, fruit tea etc.

[9] Is that grammatically correct? That’s what Sir Gus said, but this latest batch of civil servants are pretty illiterate (so sayeth the Telegraph–I couldn’t possibly comment). Perhaps it’s an acceptable dialect variant?

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Bye bye Biffo*

February 25, 2011 by Leave a comment

It’s general election day in the Irish Republic. After the tumultuous – or GUBU – events that led to the collapse of the Fianna Fáil-Green coalition in January the election campaign was rather anti-climactic: bereft of talking points and gaffe-free.

One thing that we can say for certain is that Enda Kenny will be appointed an Taoiseach – or Prime Minister – and lead Fine Gael to government from fourteen years of opposition. Three important questions follow.

First, will Fine Gael have enough seats to govern with the support of a few independent deputies or will the party be forced into a coalition with the Labour Party? The former scenario is very much possible. Opinion polls suggest that Fine Gael will come close, but probably not quite reach, the 83 seats required to have a majority in the Dáil Éireann (the lower house of the Irish parliament). Arguments and counter-claims between Fine Gael and Labour – historically its favoured coalition partner during the relatively few occasions when Fianna Fáil’s stranglehold on power was loosened – provided the only ‘entertainment’ and talking points during the campaign.

Secondly, will the Fianna Fáil vote collapse or, in a best-case scenario from its viewpoint, could its core vote sustain and allow a bloodied but intact party to claim the second largest number of seats? Ireland’s economic decline has been rapid and unforgiving. The ghost which has haunted and brought emotional turmoil the island over the past three centuries is back: emigration. Fianna Fáil, having presided over the heady boom and the caustic bust, will pay the price for this at the polls. But the party, under the new leadership of Michéal Martin, has both stabilised and recovered from, at one point, a rating as low as 13%: quite a fall from grace for a party that has been in power for a total of 61 years during its 85-year existence.

Finally, will Sinn Féin finally make its much-anticipated breakthrough? The party currently holds five seats. It has been suggested that the party could triple that number: some predictions go further than that. Sinn Féin found itself in very similar circumstances on the eve of the 2007 election only to find that it actually lost a seat. Five years ago the party was weighed down by its leader’s, Gerry Adams, perceived economic illiteracy as well as its very recent past as the political wing of the Provisional IRA. Things are, of course, different now: the economic catastrophe paints Gerry Adams’ pseudo-Marxist economic views in a new light while memories of the dark days of the Troubles in Northern Ireland are fading. Adams has also made, to put it mildly, questionable propositions on the IMF and EU bailout.

The answers to all three questions will be clear by dinner time tomorrow (Saturday). But, for what it’s worth, here’s what I think. On question one, Fine Gael will indeed choose to govern alone but will depend on the support of independent deputies. On question two, Fianna Fáil will emerge as the second largest party in terms of seats. Talk of its decline has been much exaggerated and nowhere do old habits die harder than in Ireland. On question three, Sinn Féin’s gains will be more modest than predicted: maybe taking eight or nine seats in total.

*Biffo is both a term of endearment and abuse, depending on your viewpoint, for outgoing Taoiseach Brian Cowen.

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“More than just a Janet and John guide to the Queen and stuff”

February 25, 2011 by 2 Comments

Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell, Britain’s most senior civil servant, delivered a presentation on the proposed Cabinet Manual on Thursday 24 February. This was part of the Constitution Unit’s Public Seminar Series and was held at the Institute for Government.

Published by the Cabinet Office, a draft version of the Manual is currently being considered by three parliamentary Select Committees while a consultation period is scheduled to end on 8 March.

Sir Gus explained that the Manual is intended to “help the public better understand how our democracy works” by making the inner workings of government more transparent. He emphasised, however, that it is not intended to be an exhaustive description of existing practices: rather, the Manual should act as a “high-level summary” of areas such as ministerial responsibility, devolution and hung parliaments.

Sir Gus also took time to address some criticisms that have been directed at the Cabinet Manual as well as some myths that surround it. It is not, he stated, a written constitution with a defined legal status, nor is it intended to direct the administration of government. It is a statement of how the executive functions and one that is written in an understandable manner: no Erskine May or Magna Carta but a “work of reference that guides those of us who work in or with government, and opens up how government works so that it can be better understood by people across the country.”

In February 2010 the skeleton structure of the Manual as well as a draft chapter on elections and government formation were published. This draft was to take practical effect after the May 2010 general election. Sir Gus argued that the Manual served as a “useful, modest piece of guidance” during the political negotiations which immediately followed.

Furthermore he rejected criticisms that publication of the draft chapter had unduly influenced those negotiations: whether that was by dictating the speed at which negotiations between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats should take place or for how long Prime Minister Gordon Brown should stay in office.

Sir Gus contended that the most fundamental conclusion to be drawn from those “five days in May” is that the civil service was fully able to meet the challenge presented by this “unusual situation.”
Sir Gus concluded his presentation by reiterating that the Cabinet Manual should not be understood as a seminal constitutional document but, nevertheless, should act as more than, in the words of Lord Powell, “a bit of a Janet and John guide to the Queen and so on.”

During the question and answer session that followed, Sir Gus was asked to comment on the Manual’s proposed longevity, the role of the sovereign and the relationship between the executive and judiciary. Particularly salient in the mind of the Cabinet Secretary and those involved in the Manual was the tricky problem of revision: what should be acknowledged as now-existing practice and when should this acknowledgement take place?  This issue may prove particularly challenging to  Sir Gus and his successors.

Further Information

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External Event: Sovereignty in Question

February 23, 2011 by Leave a comment

W G HART LEGAL WORKSHOP 2011
Sovereignty in Question

Venue: Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, 17 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DR
Tuesday 28 June – Thursday 30 June, 2011

The W G Hart Legal Workshop 2011 will explore the multi-faceted concept of sovereignty. In a
pivotal study ‘Questioning Sovereignty’, Professor Neil MacCormick (in whose memory the
workshop is dedicated) argued that in the face of regional and international developments former
understandings of state and nation and of sovereignty were increasingly outdated. At a supra-
national level this idea has already raised the spectre of a new legal order based on a European
‘super state’ with the potential further to transcend traditional views of sovereignty and the
sovereign state. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom for example, established constitutional doctrine
in the form of Parliamentary Sovereignty has also now to be considered against the backdrop of the
Human Rights Act, the devolution of power to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the
creation of a Supreme Court. Equally however, comparative constitutional discourse confirms the
continuing appeal of the concept of sovereignty and its great capacity for reinvention, whether this is
in the context of a powerful pull of ideas about local identity (plurinational democracies) or the
determinedly globalising guise of international organisations. Focused both on the internal and
external aspects, the workshop will aim to consider these various dimensions of sovereignty,
examined from a legal, theoretical, political and historical perspective.

See the link below for further information:

http://ials.sas.ac.uk/events/docs/WGH 2011 Call for Papers draft to Avrom-v2.pdf

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Michael Moore, the Scottish Affairs Committee and the Scotland bill

February 23, 2011 by Leave a comment

When Michael Moore, the Scottish Secretary, gave evidence to the Commons Scottish Affairs Committee last week, he largely played a straight bat and avoided giving much away.  But late in the session (which is still recycling periodically on the BBC Parliament channel), he made two pretty startling statements.

One was to announce that the UK Government wouldn’t necessarily respect the Sewel Convention if the Scottish Parliament requested ‘fundamental’ changes to the Scotland bill – say, increasing the devolved income tax power from 10 points to 15 – which the UK Government didn’t wish to make.  Rather, it would push the bill through regardless.

This is startling because the Sewel Convention is the foundation on which devolution rests.  The Convention provides that the UK Parliament will not legislate for devolved matters without the consent of the devolved legislature involved.  While there’s an ambiguity about how it affects the UK Parliament, the UK Government has clearly committed itself to the Convention in the Memorandum of Understanding.   The Convention is a powerful and ingenious constitutional tool, which squares the circle between a division of power set out in a written constitution and then set in stone, as in most federal systems, and the principle of the sovereign UK parliament conferring legislative powers on other legislatures.  It rebuts Enoch Powell’s claim that ‘power devolved is power retained’, and makes devolution a viable alternative for a country with an unwritten constitution.   The saving clause in it (it talks of the UK Government ‘normally’ complying with devolved wishes should only be used in the direst of emergencies – not a case where there’s a serious constitutional disagreement between the Scottish Parliament and UK Government over the nature of devolved powers.

Moore’s other statement relates to clause 23 of the Scotland bill, a curious provision that enables UK Ministers to act regarding devolved matters if that is to fulfil a UK international obligation.  The Command paper explaining the bill offered no clear rationale for this.  The trigger turns out to be two cases where the Scottish Government took a year longer than the UK Government to implement agreements concerning two minor organisations ancillary to the European Union.  But the Memorandum of Understanding protects the UK Government from any financial liability (it’s passed on to the devolved administrations), and the UK already has power to implement EU obligations anyway.  It’s now clear that this clause is much wider than is needed to deal with any harm the UK can suffer.

I’ve written more detailed posts about both these issues on Devolution Matters; that on the Sewel Convention is available here, and that on clause 23 is here.

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Round Round… I Get Around

February 18, 2011 by Leave a comment

Both national and local media regularly use FOI in the UK. Some, particularly national, media outlets use so-called round robin requests – that is a request sent to many public bodies at the same time (e.g. all councils, NHS Primary Care Trusts etc). These allow journalists to compare, benchmark and obtain a ‘national overview’ of issues.

NGOs are one source of round robins, and their results are often used by the media. One such group are the high-profile Tax Payers’ Alliance. The TPA’s round robins have picked up on some interesting trends and spending habits, helping to show the public exactly how their taxes are being spent. For example, one round robin has revealed the extent of council spending on taxis to school and treatment programmes for juvenile offenders, whilst another has illuminated the levels of “Taxpayer funded environmentalism” at the local level of government.

Another NGO issuing round robins is Big Brother Watch, which is concerned with the surveillance state. In a round robin that was responded to by 336 local councils, Big Brother Watch was able to uncover for the first time that the UK government had spent a total of £314,835,170.39 on CCTV alone between 2007-2010.

The media itself is also a frequent issuer of round robins. For example, in 2009 the BBC was able to show the vast difference in price that local councils paid for rock-salt used to grit icy roads across the country, whilst Channel 4 and the newly established Bureau of Investigative Journalism conducted the largest ever FOI round robin project, taking over 9 months to use various FOI requests in order to assess council spending and waste.

Council spending and local authority inefficiency have now become the classic topics of NGO and media FOI requests, with today’s BBC article on ‘Councils Missed £530m in Taxes’ the result of 408 local FOI requests. (See also this Telegraph article from November 2010 for an example)

Yet, some journalists are moving away from the ‘classic’ stories of overspending and inefficiency to now focus on more unusual topics – such as how some councils have banned their employees from using Latin phrases, or how one particular Basildon council worker suffered a cracked rib as the result of a practical joke.

The issue of round robins has become controversial, with one source estimating that round robin FOI requests will have cost local councils around £27 million in 2010. The ICO has published notes on how certain requests can be refused, via section 14 of the FOIA, if it is considered “vexatious or repeated”. And as FOI Man and David Higgerson have revealed in their blogs, the NHS has even begun implementing a documented procedure for dealing with round robin requests that will alert the Strategic Health Authority FOI leads, and in turn the Department of Health, about such requests.  Journalists have taken up the challenge and David Higgerson has provided useful tips on how to avoid being seen as a round robin requester.

Whichever side you fall on, round robins look set to remain controversial. Only time will tell if investigative journalists and the round robins requests they issue will lead to increased efficiency, or if they unnecessarily add to the burden and cost of local government.

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At the heel of the hunt, the Tory hue and cry on human rights needs to die down

February 18, 2011 by Leave a comment

The Prime Minister is “physically sick” at the prospect of any prisoners winning the vote because of a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights. He and the Home Secretary Theresa May are “appalled” by the Supreme Court’s ruling that to deny people placed on the sex offenders’ register for life a right of appeal is contrary to human rights. Is this appropriate language for one pillar of the constitution to use about another? Even more to the point, does this so-called “firestorm” over two HR rows presage a Cameron-led assault not only on the ECHR but on the human rights plank of the constitution upheld by judges?

The suspicion must be raised that campaigns against the ECHR waged down the years by tabloids like the Sun and Daily Mail have affected the tone of debate and have emboldened the Conservative Right. Conservative ministers like Lord Chancellor Clarke and Attorney General Grieve have on the whole chosen to keep their heads down rather than boldly correct the grossly distorted visions of wholesale removals from the sex offenders’ register or mass vote -ins by prisoners. On the other hand the commission now being expedited jointly by Ken Clarke and Nick Clegg to examine a British Bill of Rights is unlikely to satisfy the objectors to “ interference by unelected judges.” A separate Tory review may take a different view.

On these issues the Times is leading the hue and cry. On Thursday in a double-page spread the paper reported that a  Tory policy review will examine whether the party can back withdrawing from the (European) Court after the next election, recognising that such a move earlier would be vetoed by the Lib Dems.

Today the Times eagerly spun  “leaked documents” showing that

Britain would face no serious sanction if it ignores the Strasbourg court’s diktats.   The papers, prepared for Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, reveal that the UK would face only ‘political rather than judicial pressure’ if it took a stand against the unelected Euro-judges.

However it went on to quote the documents, adding:

Britain would open itself up to charges of hypocrisy since it has consistently criticised Turkey for failing to pay compensation awarded by Strasbourg.

If the Government made a “genuine attempt” to introduce legislation to allow prisoners to vote, but this was then defeated in the Commons, it could be enough to “persuade Strasbourg that the UK has done its best” and could reasonably expect to avoid any further sanction.

If Britain left the convention it could risk the country’s membership of the European Union. “Both the Council of Europe and the EU require member states to adhere to their value, including respect for human rights. Ultimately, whether to expel the UK from either would be a political decision, but the UK would clearly lay itself open to expulsion by withdrawing from the ECHR,” the note concludes.

While there are real issues in contention, the controversy smacks of internal Conservative politics, throwing the Right a bone to pick and a blue line to draw to differentiate them from the their coalition partners. As the Times acknowledges, the party itself is “ hopelessly split” on the HR issue. However an outcome in favour of ” human rights plus”  must be less certain than it was just after the general election. It would help, to moderate the language and offer dispassionate accounts of current controversies and exactly what are the powers and influence of the European Court.

Adds Saturday 19 Feb.  The media appetite for the topic may be slaked by what the Mail calls this ” common sense” judgement in the High Court – for the time being.

Extract from Daily Mail article:

It is a momentous development but Britain’s courts and Parliament – at long last – could be on the verge of restoring this country’s sovereignty over the unelected judges of Strasbourg.

First, following a campaign by this paper, ( my italics)  MPs voted overwhelmingly to reject the European Court’s human rights ruling that prisoners must be given the vote.

Now, in an outbreak of common sense, the High Court in London has refused compensation claims brought by 588 convicts barred from taking part in last year’s general election, and ordered each of them to pay £76 in costs – equivalent to two months of prison wages.

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