Human rights

Libya has elbowed the riots off the front page. But, in the medium-term, how Cameron responds to them remains one of the big tests of his premiership. In the Evening Standard today, Tim Montgomerie vents the frustrations of those Tories who fear that Cameron is missing his chance. Tim’s complaint is that Cameron has actually done — as opposed to said — very little and that the chance to use this moment to push through a whole bunch of big, necessary changes is being missed. With every day that passes, action on — say — the Human Rights Act becomes less likely as the Liberal Democrats become more dug in.

David Cameron promised that looters would feel the full force of the law. Courts have been sitting round the clock holding defendants on remand and issuing stern sentences. This is causing disquiet in some circles. Lib Dem MPs complain that the government has overacted, incapable of resisting the temptation to take draconian decisions without adequate scrutiny. Tessa Munt told the Guardian that the government’s approach “smacks of headline grabbing by Conservatives, not calm, rational policy-making.” Lady Hamwee also told the paper that it would be a “great pity if what [the justice secretary] Ken Clarke has been doing – finding a better way of sentencing – was to be undone.

It’s a funny old world. I have now been contacted by two journalists informing me that Bedfordshire Police are investigating The Spectator. Why? Because of the Melanie Philips blog where she referred to the “moral depravity” of “the Arabs” who killed the Fogel family in Israel. CoffeeHousers can judge for themselves if they agree or disagree with her language and views – but should this be illegal?  The Guardian has written this story up, claiming The Spectator is being investigated by the Press Complaints Commission. This is untrue. The PCC tell me that a complaint has been lodged, but that’s as far as it has gone. They investigate only if they believe there is a serious prospect that their code has been breached, and it hasn't.

A British Bill of Rights has long been the Tory leadership’s sticking plaster solution to the problems posed by the ECHR. The idea is that a British Bill of Rights would give this country a greater margin of appreciation in interpreting the convention. But this morning this plan is in tatters.   The long-awaited commission on the British Bill of Rights is clearly going nowhere.  Any commission which includes Lord Lester and Helena Kennedy, two of the Lib Dem appointees to it, isn’t going to improve the situation.   The failure of this commission even before it has started is a reminder that this problem isn’t going to be solved in coalition.

PoliticsHome reports that the government is to ask the ECHR to reconsider its verdict in the prisoner voting rights case. The website says: ‘In a response to a parliamentary question from Labour MP Gordon Marsden, Cabinet Office Under-Secretary Mark Harper said: "We believe that the court should look again at the principles in "Hirst" which outlaws a blanket ban on prisoners voting, particularly given the recent debate in the House of Commons."’ This is unsurprising. Last month, the government asked its lawyers to advise on the ramifications of noncompliance. The lawyers were unequivocal: the repercussions of such defiance was diplomatically impossible and extremely expensive.

The Conservative side of the coalition is being increasingly split by the issue of the European Convention on Human Rights. After the Supreme Court in London declared that human rights legislation required that sex offenders had to be given a chance to take their names off the register, the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister were appalled. In a statement to the Commons, May made some trenchant criticisms of the court ruling. This, I understand, prompted a furious letter from Clarke, the Justice Secretary, to May reminding her that she was constitutionally obliged to accept the independence of the judiciary. The letter was copied to Downing Street as the Prime Minister himself had used very similar language to May.