Labour putting up a ferocious defence of the human rights act and the ECHR....have the tories blundered here, I wonder?
Overall, more voters are opposed to, rather than supportive of the HRA and ECHR, but the split is very sharply along party lines (Con and UKIP anti, Lab and Lib Dem pro).
I wouldn't say that Labour supporters were all that supportive of issues like giving prisoners the vote.
And it is things like that which will be at the forefront of the moves to reform the way Human Rights legislation is implemented in the UK.
Making the Supreme Court and UK Parliament the sovereign bodies on these matters feels like the right move to me.
As is often the case, it's the outworking of innocuous-sounding rights and laws that annoys people. The rights that are guaranteed by the ECHR and HRA are motherhood and apple-pie. It's when they're used to rule that prisoners must have the vote, or that dangerous criminals can't be deported that people get upset.
Absolutely
And that is why reform is necessary.
To my mind, it is right that Parliament is the mechanism for bringing about that change - as there is some democratic accountability there. Lawyers and the judiciary can't be voted out if they get it wrong...
JP Morgan suffers cyber attack - bet you're not getting that on Bbc24
JP Morgan is a dirty, dirty company. Whenever I hear anything about them alarm bells go. If they have had a 'cyber attack' I'd say there's a distinct possibility there is a bigger scam in place with a wider agenda.
Don't forget that it's not the real JPM any more.
Just a combination of Comical Bank and MannyHanny that bought the JP brand name
I worked for Chase late eighties through the nineties, it was a great place to work, also JPM in the mid noughties, it was shite.
Chase bought everyone up, not the other way round, they decided on the name J P Morgan Chase and Co, they thought the name J P Morgan had more cachet. (Hollow laughter),
My recollection (backed up by Wiki for what it is worth) is that Comical acquired Chase, but then adopted the Chase name (in the same way that they subsequently renamed themselves JP Morgan Chase).
But it was still Bill Harrison and Jimmy Lee who ran the show ;-)
On HRA / ECHR - Scrapping a load of fundamental Civil Liberties is insane.
Sensible Tories know it's insane, as Ken Clarke articulated today.
There is absolutely no move to scrap any civil liberties - to claim otherwise is just wrong.
There is a plan to rebalance the way human rights legislation interacts with the rest of our legal system. It is about parliamentary and legal sovereignty.
Basically, 'the Vow' was an unnecessary panic, and what swung it was not changeling 'Yes' voters but previous non-voters who overwhelmingly said 'No'......
Labour putting up a ferocious defence of the human rights act and the ECHR....have the tories blundered here, I wonder?
Overall, more voters are opposed to, rather than supportive of the HRA and ECHR, but the split is very sharply along party lines (Con and UKIP anti, Lab and Lib Dem pro).
I wouldn't say that Labour supporters were all that supportive of issues like giving prisoners the vote.
And it is things like that which will be at the forefront of the moves to reform the way Human Rights legislation is implemented in the UK.
Making the Supreme Court and UK Parliament the sovereign bodies on these matters feels like the right move to me.
As is often the case, it's the outworking of innocuous-sounding rights and laws that annoys people. The rights that are guaranteed by the ECHR and HRA are motherhood and apple-pie. It's when they're used to rule that prisoners must have the vote, or that dangerous criminals can't be deported that people get upset.
I simply don't believe Cameron's Conservatives on this. The ECHR is their whipping boy around election time, then if they get back into power, there will be a reason for not acting to leave it.
Labour putting up a ferocious defence of the human rights act and the ECHR....have the tories blundered here, I wonder?
Their problem is that they're still using moves from two-party politics, but they don't work with UKIP to their right.
It used to be that you could talk up a threat - say terrorists benefitting from a foreign court - then propose to do something marginal at the edge of it like making people sue in Strasbourg instead of Britain, and people who agreed with you about the threat would vote for you because you were at least doing more about it than the opposition. But now UKIP is a contender, they just say, "If the court is so bad, we should leave."
That's left the Tories twisting themselves into ever more elaborate contortions to try and edge a little bit further in UKIP's direction without making any fundamental changes. This sometimes buys them a few days of good headlines, but that just raises the profile of the "threat" and makes their problem even worse.
Labour putting up a ferocious defence of the human rights act and the ECHR....have the tories blundered here, I wonder?
Overall, more voters are opposed to, rather than supportive of the HRA and ECHR, but the split is very sharply along party lines (Con and UKIP anti, Lab and Lib Dem pro).
I wouldn't say that Labour supporters were all that supportive of issues like giving prisoners the vote.
And it is things like that which will be at the forefront of the moves to reform the way Human Rights legislation is implemented in the UK.
Making the Supreme Court and UK Parliament the sovereign bodies on these matters feels like the right move to me.
As is often the case, it's the outworking of innocuous-sounding rights and laws that annoys people. The rights that are guaranteed by the ECHR and HRA are motherhood and apple-pie. It's when they're used to rule that prisoners must have the vote, or that dangerous criminals can't be deported that people get upset.
I simply don't believe Cameron's Conservatives on this.
To be honest, is there anything you do believe Cameron's Conservatives on?
JP Morgan suffers cyber attack - bet you're not getting that on Bbc24
JP Morgan is a dirty, dirty company. Whenever I hear anything about them alarm bells go. If they have had a 'cyber attack' I'd say there's a distinct possibility there is a bigger scam in place with a wider agenda.
Don't forget that it's not the real JPM any more.
Just a combination of Comical Bank and MannyHanny that bought the JP brand name
I worked for Chase late eighties through the nineties, it was a great place to work, also JPM in the mid noughties, it was shite.
Chase bought everyone up, not the other way round, they decided on the name J P Morgan Chase and Co, they thought the name J P Morgan had more cachet. (Hollow laughter),
My recollection (backed up by Wiki for what it is worth) is that Comical acquired Chase, but then adopted the Chase name (in the same way that they subsequently renamed themselves JP Morgan Chase).
But it was still Bill Harrison and Jimmy Lee who ran the show ;-)
You are correct about Chemical, that one went right over my head, probably because I was in Sing at the time but I believe that the merger deal with JPM was 55% 45% with Chase the larger partner, they also kept all their senior management except at the private bank.
''big capital have simply bought all the relevant parties in the big economies. Obama is Bush. Hollande ran on a socialist platform then implemented austerity anyway. '' -- sorry Rochdale Pioneer, but as an analysis of the real world this is on another planet.
Hollande for instance implemented stone-age socialism and it ruined France. http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2014/08/french-politics-0?zid=309&ah=80dcf288b8561b012f603b9fd9577f0e ''Aged only 36, Mr Macron was until June this year economic adviser at the Elysée, the presidential palace, where he saw it as his mission to steer the Socialist government under President François Hollande away from its paleo-thinking towards a more modern form of social democracy. ''
It's when they're used to rule that prisoners must have the vote...
That's not what the ECHR ruled.
They ruled that the ban on prisoners having the vote contravened their human rights because it was a blanket across the board ban. Therefore, you could amend the law by not making it a blanket ban, but by giving judges the power to disenfranchise people for a period as part of their sentence - just as it is the judge that has the power to set the sentence to incarcerate people following their conviction, and thus deny them their right to freedom of movement, assembly, etc.
The ECHR would then have no problem with judges deciding in all cases to disenfranchise people sent to prison, and it would mean that judges would have the flexibility to punish people with disenfranchisement for longer than they spent in prison if they felt that was a suitable punishment - or indeed for some crimes of dishonesty where it was not felt necessary to impose a prison sentence.
To my mind, it is right that Parliament is the mechanism for bringing about that change - as there is some democratic accountability there. Lawyers and the judiciary can't be voted out if they get it wrong...
I tend to agree on most issues - it's why I don't favour a full written constitution, since the US example shows the danger of unexpected consequences such as access to handguns and the difficulty in limiting spending on election propaganda. But I'm also wary of giving elected politicians unrestricted rights to do what they like with us.
Take Mr Begg. He is clearly an unpopular sort of chap, who has shown sympathy for causes that few of us embrace. Politicians can and have scored points by being tough with people like him. However, he seems to have been locked up for months, apparently entirely unjustly. The ECHR or something like it is needed so that he can obtain fair recourse.The case for it being international is that we can't altogether rely on a national mood not making scapegoats of some individuals like this.
If the same decisions were reached by UK Judges they would accept them.
Yes, but under the tories' arrangement if we don;t like the decisions, we can change the law ourselves to oblige judges to change their verdicts. Parliament would be sovereign.
Labour simply don't trust the British people to manage their own liberty and human rights., even though we practically invented these concepts and sacricifed much blood and treasure over centuries to protect them.
We stood alone against tyranny in 1940 to protect the purely domestic arrangements with regard to liberty and justice that existed then. Not to advance the power of a foreign, unaccountable court.
From Mr Hodges' piece FPT - this seems pertinent to this one
The other thing is this: look at where the Lib Dems are, and look at where Ukip are. In 2010 the Lib Dems got 23 per cent. In today’s YouGov poll they’re on 6 per cent. Now, it’s possible they could stay at that level all the way through polling day. They could even go lower. Come 7 May next year, the only people who vote Lib Dem might be Nick Clegg and Vince Cable. And in those circumstances I’d personally even have Vince down as a “don’t know”. But the likelihood is that the Lib Dems have reached rock bottom, and their vote share will recover. And the bulk of that recovery will be at the expense of Labour.
It’s the same for Ukip. They polled 3 per cent at the last election. YouGov currently has them on 14 per cent. Now, that could be doing Nigel Farge and his people’s army a disservice. Voters could well say “I’m not bothered about a tax cut, or free access to my pension pot, or a referendum on the EU, or Ed Miliband being prime minister. I just want to stick two fingers up at David Cameron” and then vote for Ukip in droves. They could go higher than 14 per cent. They could simply stay at 14 per cent. But again, the likelihood is that vote share will drop significantly as people choose a government and a prime minister, rather than vent their anger – however real – at the political classes. And again, the more their vote share falls, the more it will benefit the Conservatives.
Grayling, helpfully, makes his position clear: the Human Rights Act has ‘supported the rights of the few over the rights of the many’. In typical fashion, this brutish Justice Secretary sees this as a problem, not a virtue. In other words, he fails to understand that shielding citizens from the predations of an over-mighty state is the point of these protections, not a demonstration of their inadequacy or failure. That they frequently inconvenience governments is all to the good. That’s what they are for.
If Bob Worcester is right, and UKIP and the Lib Dems end up switching levels of support (UKIP on 7%, Lib Dems on 1%) then I imagine the Conservatives would win an overall majority.
The graph would point to a decline of the LDs to 4% in May, but the vast majority of pundits expect something 10%+.
Labour putting up a ferocious defence of the human rights act and the ECHR....have the tories blundered here, I wonder?
Overall, more voters are opposed to, rather than supportive of the HRA and ECHR, but the split is very sharply along party lines (Con and UKIP anti, Lab and Lib Dem pro).
I wouldn't say that Labour supporters were all that supportive of issues like giving prisoners the vote.
And it is things like that which will be at the forefront of the moves to reform the way Human Rights legislation is implemented in the UK.
Making the Supreme Court and UK Parliament the sovereign bodies on these matters feels like the right move to me.
As is often the case, it's the outworking of innocuous-sounding rights and laws that annoys people. The rights that are guaranteed by the ECHR and HRA are motherhood and apple-pie. It's when they're used to rule that prisoners must have the vote, or that dangerous criminals can't be deported that people get upset.
I simply don't believe Cameron's Conservatives on this.
To be honest, is there anything you do believe Cameron's Conservatives on?
Yes. I believe that they will ring-fence NHS spending. I believe that they will maintain Foreign Aid at its current level.
''The case for it being international is that we can't altogether rely on a national mood not making scapegoats of some individuals like this.''
Sounds like you think the arrangements that existed before 1950 - the arrangements that millions fought and died for in two world wars - were a sham, a disgrace.
It's when they're used to rule that prisoners must have the vote...
That's not what the ECHR ruled.
They ruled that the ban on prisoners having the vote contravened their human rights because it was a blanket across the board ban. Therefore, you could amend the law by not making it a blanket ban, but by giving judges the power to disenfranchise people for a period as part of their sentence.
The ECHR would then have no problem with judges deciding in all cases to disenfranchise people sent to prison, and it would mean that judges would have the flexibility to punish people with disenfranchisement for longer than they spent in prison if they felt that was a suitable punishment.
But that would be a ludicrous situation.
The blanket ban does not contravene a single human right as far as I can see.
It is entirely fair and just.
Anyone who breaks the laws of the land and is given a custodial sentence automatically forfeits the right to participate in elections during the period of their incarceration.
On their release into society, they resume the right to vote.
Why do we need to ask judges to set another limit to the period in which they cannot vote?
Would it be sensible to sentence someone to 12 months in prison - with the first 6 months without a vote?
Would it be possible to sentence someone to 2 years in prison and 4 years without a vote?
Of course either of those examples would just be wrong.
In prison = no vote. That is simple, just and easily understood by everyone.
'I simply don't believe Cameron's Conservatives on this. The ECHR is their whipping boy around election time, then if they get back into power, there will be a reason for not acting to leave it.'
The one certainty is that Labour will do nothing to change any of the nonsense,too many of their payroll voters are making a good living out of it.
That they frequently inconvenience governments is all to the good. That’s what they are for.
The defenders of the ECHR are painting a picture of Britain pre 1950 where lynch mobs roamed the land, people were imprisoned without trial for months and years or deported on a whim, where freedom of speech was crushed and the small man squashed by giant state entities.
'I simply don't believe Cameron's Conservatives on this. The ECHR is their whipping boy around election time, then if they get back into power, there will be a reason for not acting to leave it.'
The one certainty is that Labour will do nothing to change any of the nonsense,too many of their payroll voters are making a good living out of it.
Well I quite agree, but thankfully these days the public doesn't just have a choice of country wreckers vs. country wreckers in nicer suits.
Labour putting up a ferocious defence of the human rights act and the ECHR....have the tories blundered here, I wonder?
Overall, more voters are opposed to, rather than supportive of the HRA and ECHR, but the split is very sharply along party lines (Con and UKIP anti, Lab and Lib Dem pro).
I wouldn't say that Labour supporters were all that supportive of issues like giving prisoners the vote.
And it is things like that which will be at the forefront of the moves to reform the way Human Rights legislation is implemented in the UK.
Making the Supreme Court and UK Parliament the sovereign bodies on these matters feels like the right move to me.
As is often the case, it's the outworking of innocuous-sounding rights and laws that annoys people. The rights that are guaranteed by the ECHR and HRA are motherhood and apple-pie. It's when they're used to rule that prisoners must have the vote, or that dangerous criminals can't be deported that people get upset.
I simply don't believe Cameron's Conservatives on this. The ECHR is their whipping boy around election time, then if they get back into power, there will be a reason for not acting to leave it.
TBF what you're correctly saying he'd do is also what he's saying he'd do. He's not saying he'd leave, he's just allowing it to be spun like that. Like I say this gets him good headlines for a day or two, but sooner or later people cotton on to what he'd actually do. What makes this even worse for him is that as with the Cast Iron Promise, they assume what he said was what was spun rather than parsing the actual words, and then conclude that he lied to them outright.
On HRA / ECHR - Scrapping a load of fundamental Civil Liberties is insane.
Sensible Tories know it's insane, as Ken Clarke articulated today.
What fundamental civil liberties are being scrapped? Tell us or shut up. And I say that because your accusation is a massive one which should be backed up.
It might be interesting to know if you think that refusing to allow prisoners to vote is an abuse of civil liberties, because the last labour govt refused to accept rulings on that for years.
Ukip could influence the result of more than 200 seats at the general election Nigel Farage’s party is expected to win fewer than 10 seats, but its effect on the general election could be much more far-reaching
There is a significant risk that the LibDem conference could be upstaged by events.
In particular on Thursday is the monetary policy committee meeting where they might increase interest rates. So all the immense coverage and popular upswing arising from Clegg's speech on Wednesday could stop flat in its tracks 24 hrs later.
James Cook @BBCJamesCook · 18m 18 minutes ago Scottish government says it would try to block any UK withdrawal from European human rights law.
That would be amusing - the M74 would be packed full of law breaking immigrants heading north to avoid deportation.
If we had a decent UK Government this could be a defining difference that would reinvigorate the concept of the Union. A British Bill of Rights that was formed in consultation with the British people, vs. the nats wanting to cling on to 'votes for prisoners' etc.
Labour putting up a ferocious defence of the human rights act and the ECHR....have the tories blundered here, I wonder?
Quite right in my opinion. What is behind the Tories plan, is the dislike of foreigners ruling on human rights issues. If the same decisions were reached by UK Judges they would accept them. There is a xenophobic streak on the right of British politics that is not very attractive.
It's rather a case of plain common sense to let the British legal system operate in the context of the sovereign and elected parliament rather than be over-ruled by judges elsewhere who operate in no democratically accountable context. seems to me you have the problem with a dislike of all things British. You seem to forget Magna Carta preceded the ECHR by a few years.
On HRA / ECHR - Scrapping a load of fundamental Civil Liberties is insane.
Sensible Tories know it's insane, as Ken Clarke articulated today.
There is absolutely no move to scrap any civil liberties - to claim otherwise is just wrong.
There is a plan to rebalance the way human rights legislation interacts with the rest of our legal system. It is about parliamentary and legal sovereignty.
Dominic Grieve has just been interviewed on SkyNews giving numerous practical reasons as to why the Tories plans cannot be introduced. Think Cameron should have listened to Dominic before the Tories started to discuss a policy that is basically rubbish.
Anyone who breaks the laws of the land and is given a custodial sentence automatically forfeits the right to participate in elections during the period of their incarceration.
The key word is automatically.
I have a lot of sympathy with your argument that the status quo makes a lot of sense, but the point I was making was that the EHCR does not object to prisoners being denied the right to vote, they merely object to prisoners being automatically denied the right to vote.
Therefore my understanding is that we can comply with the EHCR ruling merely by having the judge remove the right to vote as a separate item in sentencing, and you could even create sentencing guidelines that recommended that this should be for the same period of incarceration if you wished.
This is very different from the ECHR insisting that we set up ballot boxes in prisons, which is the way this is reported in the media.
Labour putting up a ferocious defence of the human rights act and the ECHR....have the tories blundered here, I wonder?
Quite right in my opinion. What is behind the Tories plan, is the dislike of foreigners ruling on human rights issues. If the same decisions were reached by UK Judges they would accept them. There is a xenophobic streak on the right of British politics that is not very attractive.
It's rather a case of plain common sense to let the British legal system operate in the context of the sovereign and elected parliament rather than be over-ruled by judges elsewhere who operate in no democratically accountable context. seems to me you have the problem with a dislike of all things British. You seem to forget Magna Carta preceded the ECHR by a few years.
Try invoking your rights under the Magna Carta in court, let us know how you get on.
On HRA / ECHR - Scrapping a load of fundamental Civil Liberties is insane.
Sensible Tories know it's insane, as Ken Clarke articulated today.
There is absolutely no move to scrap any civil liberties - to claim otherwise is just wrong.
There is a plan to rebalance the way human rights legislation interacts with the rest of our legal system. It is about parliamentary and legal sovereignty.
Dominic Grieve has just been interviewed on SkyNews giving numerous practical reasons as to why the Tories plans cannot be introduced. Think Cameron should have listened to Dominic before the Tories started to discuss a policy that is basically rubbish.
On HRA / ECHR - Scrapping a load of fundamental Civil Liberties is insane.
Sensible Tories know it's insane, as Ken Clarke articulated today.
There is absolutely no move to scrap any civil liberties - to claim otherwise is just wrong.
There is a plan to rebalance the way human rights legislation interacts with the rest of our legal system. It is about parliamentary and legal sovereignty.
Dominic Grieve has just been interviewed on SkyNews giving numerous practical reasons as to why the Tories plans cannot be introduced. Think Cameron should have listened to Dominic before the Tories started to discuss a policy that is basically rubbish.
It's when they're used to rule that prisoners must have the vote...
That's not what the ECHR ruled.
They ruled that the ban on prisoners having the vote contravened their human rights because it was a blanket across the board ban. Therefore, you could amend the law by not making it a blanket ban, but by giving judges the power to disenfranchise people for a period as part of their sentence - just as it is the judge that has the power to set the sentence to incarcerate people following their conviction, and thus deny them their right to freedom of movement, assembly, etc.
The ECHR would then have no problem with judges deciding in all cases to disenfranchise people sent to prison, and it would mean that judges would have the flexibility to punish people with disenfranchisement for longer than they spent in prison if they felt that was a suitable punishment - or indeed for some crimes of dishonesty where it was not felt necessary to impose a prison sentence.
I have no problem with there being a blanket ban, or with the decision remaining in the hands of Parliament.
Labour putting up a ferocious defence of the human rights act and the ECHR....have the tories blundered here, I wonder?
Quite right in my opinion. What is behind the Tories plan, is the dislike of foreigners ruling on human rights issues. If the same decisions were reached by UK Judges they would accept them. There is a xenophobic streak on the right of British politics that is not very attractive.
It's rather a case of plain common sense to let the British legal system operate in the context of the sovereign and elected parliament rather than be over-ruled by judges elsewhere who operate in no democratically accountable context. seems to me you have the problem with a dislike of all things British. You seem to forget Magna Carta preceded the ECHR by a few years.
Try invoking your rights under the Magna Carta in court, let us know how you get on.
I see the inanity of the civil libertarians is in full flow today - LD conference imminent perhaps?
On HRA / ECHR - Scrapping a load of fundamental Civil Liberties is insane.
Sensible Tories know it's insane, as Ken Clarke articulated today.
There is absolutely no move to scrap any civil liberties - to claim otherwise is just wrong.
There is a plan to rebalance the way human rights legislation interacts with the rest of our legal system. It is about parliamentary and legal sovereignty.
Dominic Grieve has just been interviewed on SkyNews giving numerous practical reasons as to why the Tories plans cannot be introduced. Think Cameron should have listened to Dominic before the Tories started to discuss a policy that is basically rubbish.
Different lawyers can provide very different interpretations on what can or can't be done. Grieve's position on this has been known for a very long time - and he is to be respected for sticking to his guns. But there are many others who take a different view to him.
The law is a very flexible thing - subject to many interpretations. Indeed that is how the legal profession has grown and flourished. If there was unanimity on all points of the law, there would be very little need for lawyers!
If it is the will of the UK Parliament to reform the law along the lines being presented, then the change would happen. Grieve or no Grieve.
“If the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court...the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.” Abraham Lincoln.
The fact the same man who came up with the Dardanelles disaster, supported the ECHR is reason enough to oppose it.
On HRA / ECHR - Scrapping a load of fundamental Civil Liberties is insane.
Sensible Tories know it's insane, as Ken Clarke articulated today.
There is absolutely no move to scrap any civil liberties - to claim otherwise is just wrong.
There is a plan to rebalance the way human rights legislation interacts with the rest of our legal system. It is about parliamentary and legal sovereignty.
Dominic Grieve has just been interviewed on SkyNews giving numerous practical reasons as to why the Tories plans cannot be introduced. Think Cameron should have listened to Dominic before the Tories started to discuss a policy that is basically rubbish.
On HRA / ECHR - Scrapping a load of fundamental Civil Liberties is insane.
Sensible Tories know it's insane, as Ken Clarke articulated today.
There is absolutely no move to scrap any civil liberties - to claim otherwise is just wrong.
There is a plan to rebalance the way human rights legislation interacts with the rest of our legal system. It is about parliamentary and legal sovereignty.
Dominic Grieve has just been interviewed on SkyNews giving numerous practical reasons as to why the Tories plans cannot be introduced. Think Cameron should have listened to Dominic before the Tories started to discuss a policy that is basically rubbish.
There is a significant risk that the LibDem conference could be upstaged by events.
In particular on Thursday is the monetary policy committee meeting where they might increase interest rates. So all the immense coverage and popular upswing arising from Clegg's speech on Wednesday could stop flat in its tracks 24 hrs later.
"Women’s organisations gave a huge welcome to David Laws’ announcement in August that the compulsory teaching of good quality Sex & Relationships Education (SRE) from age seven onwards will be in the Liberal Democrat manifesto. And we hope to hear this policy cheered loudly at Liberal Democrat conference this weekend.
Is it not shocking that in 2014 this subject is not compulsory in schools? All schools are currently statutorily required to do is teach the biological basics of reproduction by the age of 15, and schools can choose to insert the teaching into any subject they choose (science, RE, PSHE if it is taught at their school – it’s not compulsory either)."
On HRA / ECHR - Scrapping a load of fundamental Civil Liberties is insane.
Indeed, that's one reason why the Blair government was such an unmitigated disaster.
Fortunately the Conservatives are doing something to rectify the problem, in particular the ludicrous position where a group of foreign 'judges' (I use the quotation marks advisedly) get to make laws which parliament can't override. No-one would mind too much if their judgements were sensible, but some of them are completely bonkers - the 'votes for prisoners serving 3 months is a fundametal human right but not if they are serving 9 months' ruling being an absolute classic. There cannot be a sentient human being on this planet who thinks that makes any sense.
A spat on ECHR is useless for the LD because that is not the reason their voters left. The reason why people don't vote LD is that they have no use anymore, if you are Liberal LD you vote Tory, if you are a Lefty LD you vote Labour, if you are a Green LD you vote Green and if you are NOTA LD you vote UKIP.
Only those willing to vote LD tactically will vote for them now.
On HRA / ECHR - Scrapping a load of fundamental Civil Liberties is insane.
Sensible Tories know it's insane, as Ken Clarke articulated today.
There is absolutely no move to scrap any civil liberties - to claim otherwise is just wrong.
There is a plan to rebalance the way human rights legislation interacts with the rest of our legal system. It is about parliamentary and legal sovereignty.
Dominic Grieve has just been interviewed on SkyNews giving numerous practical reasons as to why the Tories plans cannot be introduced. Think Cameron should have listened to Dominic before the Tories started to discuss a policy that is basically rubbish.
Wow - Is Dominic Grieve god or something?
On this subject yes. He knows a lot about it.
And there are equally distinguished jurists, like Lord Hoffman, Lord Carlisle, and Lord Judge, who've expressed varying degrees of concern about the way that the Court in Strasbourg operates. Legal opinion is certainly not unanimous on this issue.
I don't see any great menace caused by the European Convention on Human Rights, though it comes out with bad decisions too frequently. Nor do I see any great virtue from a narrow British perspective in having our laws vetted by unelected highly political judges in Strasbourg (as opposed to unelected highly political judges in London).
So I see this as a matter of practicality:
1) it would be a complete ballache to unravel the current state of affairs, to no apparent great domestic advantage; and
2) Britain effectively withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights would send a terrible signal to those countries in the eastern half of the continent where substantial human rights concerns remain. Do we really want to undermine our foreign policy objectives in those countries?
Still, I expect it will help the Conservatives recover a few more kipper flirters.
There is a significant risk that the LibDem conference could be upstaged by events.
In particular on Thursday is the monetary policy committee meeting where they might increase interest rates. So all the immense coverage and popular upswing arising from Clegg's speech on Wednesday could stop flat in its tracks 24 hrs later.
"Women’s organisations gave a huge welcome to David Laws’ announcement in August that the compulsory teaching of good quality Sex & Relationships Education (SRE) from age seven onwards will be in the Liberal Democrat manifesto. And we hope to hear this policy cheered loudly at Liberal Democrat conference this weekend.
Is it not shocking that in 2014 this subject is not compulsory in schools? All schools are currently statutorily required to do is teach the biological basics of reproduction by the age of 15, and schools can choose to insert the teaching into any subject they choose (science, RE, PSHE if it is taught at their school – it’s not compulsory either)."
Stupid - as if the happy slappers lived in a vaccum. At least they'll be well fed!
....So I see this as a matter of practicality: 1) it would be a complete ballache to unravel the current state of affairs, to no apparent great domestic advantage; and 2) Britain effectively withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights would send a terrible signal to those countries in the eastern half of the continent where substantial human rights concerns remain. Do we really want to undermine our foreign policy objectives in those countries?
What I heard is their proposal is to draw up Bill of Rights and negotiate for change. If that fails then its Withdrawl, but as a last, not first, resort.
Still as Mr Hannon says, a lot of school fees for HR lawyers threatened.
A spat on ECHR is useless for the LD because that is not the reason their voters left. The reason why people don't vote LD is that they have no use anymore, if you are Liberal LD you vote Tory, if you are a Lefty LD you vote Labour, if you are a Green LD you vote Green and if you are NOTA LD you vote UKIP. Only those willing to vote LD tactically will vote for them now.
Well they could achieve the result that standing up for Europe delivered..... 90% cut in its elected members.
Take Mr Begg. He is clearly an unpopular sort of chap, who has shown sympathy for causes that few of us embrace. Politicians can and have scored points by being tough with people like him. However, he seems to have been locked up for months, apparently entirely unjustly. The ECHR or something like it is needed so that he can obtain fair recourse.The case for it being international is that we can't altogether rely on a national mood not making scapegoats of some individuals like this.
That argument would make some sense if (a) we didn't have our own independent judiciary which acts within a clear legal framework and has been defending British human rights very successfully for centuries, (b) Mr Begg had been freed by European courts rather than a British judge acting as British judges always have, and (c) if ECHR rulings were sane and stuck to human rights.
What it actually comes down to is very simple: do we want our laws made by parliament, or by career civil-servant foreign 'judges'?
I don't see any great menace caused by the European Convention on Human Rights, though it comes out with bad decisions too frequently. Nor do I see any great virtue from a narrow British perspective in having our laws vetted by unelected highly political judges in Strasbourg (as opposed to unelected highly political judges in London).
So I see this as a matter of practicality:
1) it would be a complete ballache to unravel the current state of affairs, to no apparent great domestic advantage; and
2) Britain effectively withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights would send a terrible signal to those countries in the eastern half of the continent where substantial human rights concerns remain. Do we really want to undermine our foreign policy objectives in those countries?
Still, I expect it will help the Conservatives recover a few more kipper flirters.
Restoring Parliamentary sovereignty over these issues is surely a credible position to hold.
And we are not withdrawing from the principles of the ECHR in any way - merely some of the mechanisms surrounding it. In many ways, we would be going back to what was intended when the ECHR was created. I think we can still hold our heads up when it comes to human rights round the world.
"Britain effectively withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights would send a terrible signal to those countries in the eastern half of the continent where substantial human rights concerns remain. Do we really want to undermine our foreign policy objectives in those countries?"
The ECtHR and the Council of Europe has proven so very ineffective in resolving such abuses.
....So I see this as a matter of practicality: 1) it would be a complete ballache to unravel the current state of affairs, to no apparent great domestic advantage; and 2) Britain effectively withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights would send a terrible signal to those countries in the eastern half of the continent where substantial human rights concerns remain. Do we really want to undermine our foreign policy objectives in those countries?
What I heard is their proposal is to draw up Bill of Rights and negotiate for change. If that fails then its Withdrawl, but as a last, not first, resort.
Still as Mr Hannon says, a lot of school fees for HR lawyers threatened.
Unilaterally rewriting the terms of engagement is effectively withdrawing.
A better proposal would be to try to improve the quality of judges supplied to the ECHR (and the ECJ for that matter) and the quality of decision-making. I could get behind that.
On HRA / ECHR - Scrapping a load of fundamental Civil Liberties is insane.
......No-one would mind too much if their judgements were sensible, but some of them are completely bonkers - the 'votes for prisoners serving 3 months is a fundametal human right but not if they are serving 9 months' ruling being an absolute classic. There cannot be a sentient human being on this planet who thinks that makes any sense.
This is the policy of the Lib Dems. So there are 57 of them that way inclined. They should talk about it in the media more and inform the voters. 2%?
On HRA / ECHR - Scrapping a load of fundamental Civil Liberties is insane.
Indeed, that's one reason why the Blair government was such an unmitigated disaster.
Fortunately the Conservatives are doing something to rectify the problem, in particular the ludicrous position where a group of foreign 'judges' (I use the quotation marks advisedly) get to make laws which parliament can't override. No-one would mind too much if their judgements were sensible, but some of them are completely bonkers - the 'votes for prisoners serving 3 months is a fundametal human right but not if they are serving 9 months' ruling being an absolute classic. There cannot be a sentient human being on this planet who thinks that makes any sense.
This just isn't true. Parliament can override them.
Parliament is ultimately sovereign, the issue is that the Conservatives are pushing the will of parliament against itself.
If the will of parliament is to remain part of the ECHR, then there are conditions that come with that. If the will of parliament is not to be part of the ECHR then it can run whatever rules it likes through.
It's pure politics, not least pushed by the Conservatives muddling the ECHR with the EU to push back at UKIP.
On HRA / ECHR - Scrapping a load of fundamental Civil Liberties is insane.
Sensible Tories know it's insane, as Ken Clarke articulated today.
There is absolutely no move to scrap any civil liberties - to claim otherwise is just wrong.
There is a plan to rebalance the way human rights legislation interacts with the rest of our legal system. It is about parliamentary and legal sovereignty.
Dominic Grieve has just been interviewed on SkyNews giving numerous practical reasons as to why the Tories plans cannot be introduced. Think Cameron should have listened to Dominic before the Tories started to discuss a policy that is basically rubbish.
Wow - Is Dominic Grieve god or something?
No, but I believe him to be substantially better informed than Grayling......
@TCPoliticalBetting 'the compulsory teaching of good quality Sex' Is that the Lib Dem magic bullet?
With Rennard and Hancock fresh in the mind, the LDs should shut up about sex for a very, very, very long time.
Yes but the Lib Dems were very very concerned about Rennard and Hancock's rights.... They protected the rights of senior older men. All at the expense of loyal younger females rights..... Life is about choices, and some are the right choices and some the wrong ones.
If the same decisions were reached by UK Judges they would accept them.
Yes, but under the tories' arrangement if we don;t like the decisions, we can change the law ourselves to oblige judges to change their verdicts. Parliament would be sovereign.
Labour simply don't trust the British people to manage their own liberty and human rights., even though we practically invented these concepts and sacricifed much blood and treasure over centuries to protect them.
We stood alone against tyranny in 1940 to protect the purely domestic arrangements with regard to liberty and justice that existed then. Not to advance the power of a foreign, unaccountable court.
Out of curiosity. Do you have any knowledge of arrangements on such matters in the first half of the 20th century?
Or is your argument purely that because we took part in two world wars they must have been fine whatever they were?
This just isn't true. Parliament can override them.
Parliament is ultimately sovereign, the issue is that the Conservatives are pushing the will of parliament against itself.
If the will of parliament is to remain part of the ECHR, then there are conditions that come with that. If the will of parliament is not to be part of the ECHR then it can run whatever rules it likes through.
It's pure politics, not least pushed by the Conservatives muddling the ECHR with the EU to push back at UKIP.
You are dancing on pinheads.
Yes, parliament is sovereign as you say, but it has currently agreed to hand over a large chunk of that sovereignty to the ECHR. Having seen the hash which the ECHR has made of the matter, it is time to take it back under democratic control.
On HRA / ECHR - Scrapping a load of fundamental Civil Liberties is insane.
Sensible Tories know it's insane, as Ken Clarke articulated today.
There is absolutely no move to scrap any civil liberties - to claim otherwise is just wrong.
There is a plan to rebalance the way human rights legislation interacts with the rest of our legal system. It is about parliamentary and legal sovereignty.
Dominic Grieve has just been interviewed on SkyNews giving numerous practical reasons as to why the Tories plans cannot be introduced. Think Cameron should have listened to Dominic before the Tories started to discuss a policy that is basically rubbish.
Wow - Is Dominic Grieve god or something?
No, but I believe him to be substantially better informed than Grayling......
1) it would be a complete ballache to unravel the current state of affairs, to no apparent great domestic advantage
And for people on this thread who seem to think human rights lawyers will be financially damaged by this, note that ballache == billable hours...
A few test cases defeated and then penury. Example that Chambers which said it was closing down due to Govt changes.
Qn:What do you call a lawyer at the bottom of the Ocean? Ans = A start.
(from a lawyer)
Did you read the actual proposal? They call for two parallel, contradictory sets of human rights laws operating simultaneously, and and that's before we get to whatever arrangements you end up with for Scotland and Wales.
Alex Salmond is licking his wounds up north in the wake of his defeat in the Scottish referendum. After describing being booed by golf fans at the Ryder Cup as a ‘peaceful and joyous’ protest, the outgoing First Minister promptly pulled out of his first public appearance south of the border, which had been pencilled in for Friday afternoon. Salmond was due to address the suits gathered at the Royal Albert Hall for the Institute of Directors’ annual convention, but was a no show.
Amusingly the IoD invited YouGov pollster Peter Kellner to fill Salmond’s slot, and he seemed to relish walking the 2,000 business delegates through exactly why Eck lost in great detail.
Alex Salmond is licking his wounds up north in the wake of his defeat in the Scottish referendum. After describing being booed by golf fans at the Ryder Cup as a ‘peaceful and joyous’ protest, the outgoing First Minister promptly pulled out of his first public appearance south of the border, which had been pencilled in for Friday afternoon. Salmond was due to address the suits gathered at the Royal Albert Hall for the Institute of Directors’ annual convention, but was a no show.
Amusingly the IoD invited YouGov pollster Peter Kellner to fill Salmond’s slot, and he seemed to relish walking the 2,000 business delegates through exactly why Eck lost in great detail.
On HRA / ECHR - Scrapping a load of fundamental Civil Liberties is insane.
Sensible Tories know it's insane, as Ken Clarke articulated today.
There is absolutely no move to scrap any civil liberties - to claim otherwise is just wrong.
There is a plan to rebalance the way human rights legislation interacts with the rest of our legal system. It is about parliamentary and legal sovereignty.
Dominic Grieve has just been interviewed on SkyNews giving numerous practical reasons as to why the Tories plans cannot be introduced. Think Cameron should have listened to Dominic before the Tories started to discuss a policy that is basically rubbish.
Wow - Is Dominic Grieve god or something?
No, but I believe him to be substantially better informed than Grayling......
He is also bitter because he lost his job.
Possibly - but he hasn't come across as bitter in his interviews and has been consistent in his position on this - which seems a lot more robust than Grayling's.....
It would be interesting to see if any politician were willing to make an explicit link between human rights and civic responsibilities.
If you want to see human rights flourish (which I think everyone does - even if we can't quite agree on a universal definition of them), then they come with a duty to live with certain responsibilities.
If you fail to live up to some basic standards then you run the risk of losing some of your rights.
It would be interesting to see if any politician were willing to make an explicit link between human rights and civic responsibilities.
If you want to see human rights flourish (which I think everyone does - even if we can't quite agree on a universal definition of them), then they come with a duty to live with certain responsibilities.
If you fail to live up to some basic standards then you run the risk of losing some of your rights.
1) it would be a complete ballache to unravel the current state of affairs, to no apparent great domestic advantage
And for people on this thread who seem to think human rights lawyers will be financially damaged by this, note that ballache == billable hours...
A few test cases defeated and then penury. Example that Chambers which said it was closing down due to Govt changes.
Qn:What do you call a lawyer at the bottom of the Ocean? Ans = A start.
(from a lawyer)
Did you read the actual proposal? They call for two parallel, contradictory sets of human rights laws operating simultaneously, and and that's before we get to whatever arrangements you end up with for Scotland and Wales.
By the same reasoning, we ran two contradictory sets of law before the HRA came into force, but in reality they were symbiotic enough.
Whilst the HRA was supposed to "Bring Rights Home", it sent a message that human rights weren't something that Britain did, but something it had to look to Strassbourg to do. But of course there were many British values really at stake, and yet they were somehow subjugated. As it turns out, though, we aren't particularly happy at that conclusion.
I see no reason that this would be more contradictory than the current system or the last.
Labour putting up a ferocious defence of the human rights act and the ECHR....have the tories blundered here, I wonder?
No.
The public are fed up with seeing the provisions of the HRA being used contrary to what feels like natural justice.
The only people to really benefit from the HRA are the lawyers.
If they believe in it, it´s good. The Tories should also curtail development aid. Labour can then come to its defence. Argue its merits and see if they convince the electorate. Far better than all major parties signing from the same hymn sheet.
This just isn't true. Parliament can override them.
Parliament is ultimately sovereign, the issue is that the Conservatives are pushing the will of parliament against itself.
If the will of parliament is to remain part of the ECHR, then there are conditions that come with that. If the will of parliament is not to be part of the ECHR then it can run whatever rules it likes through.
It's pure politics, not least pushed by the Conservatives muddling the ECHR with the EU to push back at UKIP.
You are dancing on pinheads.
Yes, parliament is sovereign as you say, but it has currently agreed to hand over a large chunk of that sovereignty to the ECHR. Having seen the hash which the ECHR has made of the matter, it is time to take it back under democratic control.
Then leave the ECHR.
That's the point, parliament is sovereign because it chooses whether or not to be part of the ECHR.
If it's parliamentary will to be in it then be in it and hence follow the regulations of it then be in it.
If it's parliamentary will not to be in it then don't be in it.
That's your parliamentary sovereignty, but it's in that decision, rather than this set of proposals that want to play to the gallery of anti-Europe while running scared of negative publicity of leaving the ECHR.
What are the mechanics of renegotiating the ECHR? Does everyone have a veto? When Cameron was talking about renegotiating the EU there was talk that Merkel would be a powerful ally, but theory didn't stand up well when it was put to the test over Juncker. But presumably Putin would be sympathetic?
What are the mechanics of renegotiating the ECHR? Does everyone have a veto? When Cameron was talking about renegotiating the EU there was talk that Merkel would be a powerful ally, but theory didn't stand up well when it was put to the test over Juncker. But presumably Putin would be sympathetic?
You are joking of course. Who cares what Putin thinks? His foreign policy is armed force.
What are the mechanics of renegotiating the ECHR? Does everyone have a veto? When Cameron was talking about renegotiating the EU there was talk that Merkel would be a powerful ally, but theory didn't stand up well when it was put to the test over Juncker. But presumably Putin would be sympathetic?
You are joking of course. Who cares what Putin thinks? His foreign policy is armed force.
Serious, to the extent that Cameron's policy is serious. Putin is one of the people Cameron will have to convince if he wants to change the way the ECHR works, which is apparently his plan. Probably the easiest of the 46.
Comments
And that is why reform is necessary.
To my mind, it is right that Parliament is the mechanism for bringing about that change - as there is some democratic accountability there. Lawyers and the judiciary can't be voted out if they get it wrong...
But it was still Bill Harrison and Jimmy Lee who ran the show ;-)
There is absolutely no move to scrap any civil liberties - to claim otherwise is just wrong.
There is a plan to rebalance the way human rights legislation interacts with the rest of our legal system. It is about parliamentary and legal sovereignty.
http://faintdamnation.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/1979-1997-2014-why-the-received-wisdom-on-scotlands-three-referendums-is-wrong/
Basically, 'the Vow' was an unnecessary panic, and what swung it was not changeling 'Yes' voters but previous non-voters who overwhelmingly said 'No'......
It used to be that you could talk up a threat - say terrorists benefitting from a foreign court - then propose to do something marginal at the edge of it like making people sue in Strasbourg instead of Britain, and people who agreed with you about the threat would vote for you because you were at least doing more about it than the opposition. But now UKIP is a contender, they just say, "If the court is so bad, we should leave."
That's left the Tories twisting themselves into ever more elaborate contortions to try and edge a little bit further in UKIP's direction without making any fundamental changes. This sometimes buys them a few days of good headlines, but that just raises the profile of the "threat" and makes their problem even worse.
PS a good piece on what the current proposal means:
http://www.headoflegal.com/2014/10/03/full-of-sound-and-fury-on-human-rights/
Rees-Mogg @JakeReesMogg · Oct 1
Intrigued by Douglas Carswell's letter to the people of Clacton. He writes "Dear Neighbour" and yet lives in Fulham
Hollande for instance implemented stone-age socialism and it ruined France.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2014/08/french-politics-0?zid=309&ah=80dcf288b8561b012f603b9fd9577f0e
''Aged only 36, Mr Macron was until June this year economic adviser at the Elysée, the presidential palace, where he saw it as his mission to steer the Socialist government under President François Hollande away from its paleo-thinking towards a more modern form of social democracy. ''
They ruled that the ban on prisoners having the vote contravened their human rights because it was a blanket across the board ban. Therefore, you could amend the law by not making it a blanket ban, but by giving judges the power to disenfranchise people for a period as part of their sentence - just as it is the judge that has the power to set the sentence to incarcerate people following their conviction, and thus deny them their right to freedom of movement, assembly, etc.
The ECHR would then have no problem with judges deciding in all cases to disenfranchise people sent to prison, and it would mean that judges would have the flexibility to punish people with disenfranchisement for longer than they spent in prison if they felt that was a suitable punishment - or indeed for some crimes of dishonesty where it was not felt necessary to impose a prison sentence.
Take Mr Begg. He is clearly an unpopular sort of chap, who has shown sympathy for causes that few of us embrace. Politicians can and have scored points by being tough with people like him. However, he seems to have been locked up for months, apparently entirely unjustly. The ECHR or something like it is needed so that he can obtain fair recourse.The case for it being international is that we can't altogether rely on a national mood not making scapegoats of some individuals like this. Er, it hasn't started. Always a nuisance when you try to report something if it's not happened.
Yes, but under the tories' arrangement if we don;t like the decisions, we can change the law ourselves to oblige judges to change their verdicts. Parliament would be sovereign.
Labour simply don't trust the British people to manage their own liberty and human rights., even though we practically invented these concepts and sacricifed much blood and treasure over centuries to protect them.
We stood alone against tyranny in 1940 to protect the purely domestic arrangements with regard to liberty and justice that existed then. Not to advance the power of a foreign, unaccountable court.
Grayling, helpfully, makes his position clear: the Human Rights Act has ‘supported the rights of the few over the rights of the many’. In typical fashion, this brutish Justice Secretary sees this as a problem, not a virtue. In other words, he fails to understand that shielding citizens from the predations of an over-mighty state is the point of these protections, not a demonstration of their inadequacy or failure. That they frequently inconvenience governments is all to the good. That’s what they are for.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/10/chris-grayling-is-an-advertisement-for-a-labour-government/
Sounds like you think the arrangements that existed before 1950 - the arrangements that millions fought and died for in two world wars - were a sham, a disgrace.
The blanket ban does not contravene a single human right as far as I can see.
It is entirely fair and just.
Anyone who breaks the laws of the land and is given a custodial sentence automatically forfeits the right to participate in elections during the period of their incarceration.
On their release into society, they resume the right to vote.
Why do we need to ask judges to set another limit to the period in which they cannot vote?
Would it be sensible to sentence someone to 12 months in prison - with the first 6 months without a vote?
Would it be possible to sentence someone to 2 years in prison and 4 years without a vote?
Of course either of those examples would just be wrong.
In prison = no vote. That is simple, just and easily understood by everyone.
'I simply don't believe Cameron's Conservatives on this. The ECHR is their whipping boy around election time, then if they get back into power, there will be a reason for not acting to leave it.'
The one certainty is that Labour will do nothing to change any of the nonsense,too many of their payroll voters are making a good living out of it.
The defenders of the ECHR are painting a picture of Britain pre 1950 where lynch mobs roamed the land, people were imprisoned without trial for months and years or deported on a whim, where freedom of speech was crushed and the small man squashed by giant state entities.
That is not the case.
Scottish government says it would try to block any UK withdrawal from European human rights law.
That would be amusing - the M74 would be packed full of law breaking immigrants heading north to avoid deportation.
It might be interesting to know if you think that refusing to allow prisoners to vote is an abuse of civil liberties, because the last labour govt refused to accept rulings on that for years.
Nigel Farage’s party is expected to win fewer than 10 seats, but its effect on the general election could be much more far-reaching
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/oct/03/ukip-could-influence-the-result-of-more-than-200-seats-at-the-general-election
twitter.com/JackofKent/status/517369868833026048
In particular on Thursday is the monetary policy committee meeting where they might increase interest rates. So all the immense coverage and popular upswing arising from Clegg's speech on Wednesday could stop flat in its tracks 24 hrs later.
I have a lot of sympathy with your argument that the status quo makes a lot of sense, but the point I was making was that the EHCR does not object to prisoners being denied the right to vote, they merely object to prisoners being automatically denied the right to vote.
Therefore my understanding is that we can comply with the EHCR ruling merely by having the judge remove the right to vote as a separate item in sentencing, and you could even create sentencing guidelines that recommended that this should be for the same period of incarceration if you wished.
This is very different from the ECHR insisting that we set up ballot boxes in prisons, which is the way this is reported in the media.
Lawyers have got far too used to dictating to democratically elected governments, in my view..
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/10/the-only-political-speech-youll-ever-need-to-read/
I have no problem with there being a blanket ban, or with the decision remaining in the hands of Parliament.
National Opinion Poll (Populus); LAB - 38% (+2), CON - 33% (-1) UKIP - 13% (-1) LDEM - 8% (+1) GRN - 3% (-2)
Lol
The law is a very flexible thing - subject to many interpretations. Indeed that is how the legal profession has grown and flourished. If there was unanimity on all points of the law, there would be very little need for lawyers!
If it is the will of the UK Parliament to reform the law along the lines being presented, then the change would happen. Grieve or no Grieve.
The fact the same man who came up with the Dardanelles disaster, supported the ECHR is reason enough to oppose it.
http://www.libdemvoice.org/the-independent-view-suggested-title-liberal-democrats-please-make-compulsory-sex-and-relationships-education-a-red-line-issue-42698.html
"Women’s organisations gave a huge welcome to David Laws’ announcement in August that the compulsory teaching of good quality Sex & Relationships Education (SRE) from age seven onwards will be in the Liberal Democrat manifesto. And we hope to hear this policy cheered loudly at Liberal Democrat conference this weekend.
Is it not shocking that in 2014 this subject is not compulsory in schools? All schools are currently statutorily required to do is teach the biological basics of reproduction by the age of 15, and schools can choose to insert the teaching into any subject they choose (science, RE, PSHE if it is taught at their school – it’s not compulsory either)."
Fortunately the Conservatives are doing something to rectify the problem, in particular the ludicrous position where a group of foreign 'judges' (I use the quotation marks advisedly) get to make laws which parliament can't override. No-one would mind too much if their judgements were sensible, but some of them are completely bonkers - the 'votes for prisoners serving 3 months is a fundametal human right but not if they are serving 9 months' ruling being an absolute classic. There cannot be a sentient human being on this planet who thinks that makes any sense.
The reason why people don't vote LD is that they have no use anymore, if you are Liberal LD you vote Tory, if you are a Lefty LD you vote Labour, if you are a Green LD you vote Green and if you are NOTA LD you vote UKIP.
Only those willing to vote LD tactically will vote for them now.
Do you think, as a whole, the Liberal Democrats are on the right course or on the wrong track?
54% (-5%) – The right course
36% (+4%) – The wrong track
10% (+2%) – Don’t know / No opinion "
http://www.libdemvoice.org/as-lib-dem-conference-begins-heres-what-members-think-of-the-coalition-so-far-42685.html
YouGov Lab 316, Con 296
Ed Miliband PM, Majority 10 short
Populus Lab 354, Con 256
Ed Miliband PM, Majority 58
So I see this as a matter of practicality:
1) it would be a complete ballache to unravel the current state of affairs, to no apparent great domestic advantage; and
2) Britain effectively withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights would send a terrible signal to those countries in the eastern half of the continent where substantial human rights concerns remain. Do we really want to undermine our foreign policy objectives in those countries?
Still, I expect it will help the Conservatives recover a few more kipper flirters.
Still as Mr Hannon says, a lot of school fees for HR lawyers threatened.
What it actually comes down to is very simple: do we want our laws made by parliament, or by career civil-servant foreign 'judges'?
And we are not withdrawing from the principles of the ECHR in any way - merely some of the mechanisms surrounding it. In many ways, we would be going back to what was intended when the ECHR was created. I think we can still hold our heads up when it comes to human rights round the world.
'the compulsory teaching of good quality Sex'
Is that the Lib Dem magic bullet?
The ECtHR and the Council of Europe has proven so very ineffective in resolving such abuses.
http://www.conservativehome.com/video/2014/10/watch-securing-a-better-future.html
A better proposal would be to try to improve the quality of judges supplied to the ECHR (and the ECJ for that matter) and the quality of decision-making. I could get behind that.
http://leftfootforward.org/2014/10/labours-headaches-get-worse-2/
Parliament is ultimately sovereign, the issue is that the Conservatives are pushing the will of parliament against itself.
If the will of parliament is to remain part of the ECHR, then there are conditions that come with that. If the will of parliament is not to be part of the ECHR then it can run whatever rules it likes through.
It's pure politics, not least pushed by the Conservatives muddling the ECHR with the EU to push back at UKIP.
Qn:What do you call a lawyer at the bottom of the Ocean?
Ans = A start.
(from a lawyer)
Or is your argument purely that because we took part in two world wars they must have been fine whatever they were?
Yes, parliament is sovereign as you say, but it has currently agreed to hand over a large chunk of that sovereignty to the ECHR. Having seen the hash which the ECHR has made of the matter, it is time to take it back under democratic control.
Amusingly the IoD invited YouGov pollster Peter Kellner to fill Salmond’s slot, and he seemed to relish walking the 2,000 business delegates through exactly why Eck lost in great detail.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/10/salmond-cancels-first-south-of-border-appearance/
@iainmartin1: Alex Salmond has taken to calling up radio phone-ins… http://t.co/USkwY1EJUQ
If you want to see human rights flourish (which I think everyone does - even if we can't quite agree on a universal definition of them), then they come with a duty to live with certain responsibilities.
If you fail to live up to some basic standards then you run the risk of losing some of your rights.
Eck tried that.
Whilst the HRA was supposed to "Bring Rights Home", it sent a message that human rights weren't something that Britain did, but something it had to look to Strassbourg to do. But of course there were many British values really at stake, and yet they were somehow subjugated. As it turns out, though, we aren't particularly happy at that conclusion.
I see no reason that this would be more contradictory than the current system or the last.
If they believe in it, it´s good.
The Tories should also curtail development aid. Labour can then come to its defence. Argue its merits and see if they convince the electorate. Far better than all major parties signing from the same hymn sheet.
That's the point, parliament is sovereign because it chooses whether or not to be part of the ECHR.
If it's parliamentary will to be in it then be in it and hence follow the regulations of it then be in it.
If it's parliamentary will not to be in it then don't be in it.
That's your parliamentary sovereignty, but it's in that decision, rather than this set of proposals that want to play to the gallery of anti-Europe while running scared of negative publicity of leaving the ECHR.
Very.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/10/people-trust-the-tories-with-their-money-thats-why-they-can-promise-unfunded-tax-cuts/
I'll add Isabel Hardman to the list.
Still a long way to go.....but.....
Making promises the country cannot afford (net)
Con: +7 (+8)
Lab: +24 (-9)
http://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/10/03/full-results-affordable-policies/