http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/01/david-cameron-moriarty-downing-street-radical-thatcher?CMP=fb_gu

by Frankie Boyle

The prime minister has successfully pursued an agenda more radical than Thatcher’s – and has managed it without anybody being terribly worried by him

‘They abolished the Human Rights Act” sounds like the first sentence of an Aldous Huxley novel. The Conservatives actually campaigned on a manifesto pledge to get rid of human rights and people voted for it. As electoral choices go, it’s not far off choosing to be ruled by a dry, whispering voice taunting you from an antique mirror.

Here, in what may well be the final years of our civilisation, I would like to ask a question that has been worrying me for some time. What if David Cameron is a genius? A shrewd and malevolent psychopath who thinks two moves deeper into the game than any of his opponents? What if there sits in Downing Street today a modern-day Moriarty, living in a world where his schemes are only kept in check by the deductive brilliance of Harriet Harman? As Holmes would say, look at the evidence. Cameron has managed to set England against Scotland, Scotland against Labour. He has given his enemies the referendums they asked for, and won. He has left Nick Clegg looking like one of those terrified mouse faces that you find in an owl pellet. He has successfully pursued an agenda more radical than Thatcher’s with less popular support than John Major.

Most impressively, Cameron has managed all this without anybody being terribly worried by him. Immediately after his re-election he announced: “For too long we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens so long as you obey the law we will leave you alone.” A statement so far to the right that it conceded the political centre ground to Judge Dredd.

We have an idea of Cameron as an empty suit – he’s remarkably forgettable for someone who has a face like a gammon travel iron. What if this is simply a character he chooses to play? We can see the mileage Boris Johnson has got out of playing the fairly simple character of a sort of pissed-up dandelion. What if Cameron’s persona is actually more crafted and insidious? He has a brisk, stiff air of wishing he was somewhere else. We imagine he would much rather be a few years in the future, heading up some foundation that’s advising Qatar on how to bid for the Winter Olympics. Perhaps that’s quite an effective manner to adopt when robbing a country. Announcing in a clipped voice that you’ll be out of our hair just as soon as you’ve privatised the NHS, terribly sorry for any inconvenience. Cameron having a down-to-business persona is not terribly unlike one of those gangs who do heists in high-vis jackets.

Speaking of which, I’ve always thought that Batman hired Robin simply to draw fire: throwing a teenage boy a bright yellow cape and telling him to run through a darkened warehouse full of goons. There seems to be little difference in getting Michael Gove to dress up in a bib and plus fours and throwing him into a roomful of barristers. Gove’s appointment as justice secretary seems to be somewhere between a sardonic trolling of the judiciary and simple misdirection. If he ever does have to produce a Bill of Rights it will be a Producers-style bit of a mess that draws attention away from all the real business of the government.

Why else would he have put Gove there? Are we to imagine that his priority in choosing someone to draft tricky legislation was that they have a face that’s easy to carve into a pumpkin? Gove is a distraction for a robbery, who has been hired to be a kind of human bin fire. When the real business of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership ratification is under way, he’ll be wheeled out on Newsnight looking like a treefrog trying to escape from a scrotum and the whole culture will stop to take aim.

It’s time we accepted the true depth and horror of Cameron’s genius. In the run up to announcing a legislative programme entirely composed of the sort of things the Sheriff of Nottingham would yell at villagers as threats, he had everybody talking about foxes. He’s introducing the bulk interception of our emails and the only feeling it seems to have provoked from the public is mild arousal. He got quarter of a million people to sign a petition for a Human Rights Act referendum that they would definitely lose (British people think the European court of human rights is all about making sure that Ian Brady can get Netflix or marmalade or something). Indeed, Cameron had us all talking about human rights legislation while quietly pursuing a TTIP trade deal that will make human rights meaningless compared with those of corporations.

And there we may have the real clue to Cameron’s manner. He is a sort of bored viceroy engaged in the handover of power from government to corporations. He has a detailed idea of what life will be like 10 years down the line, when sovereignty is subordinated to corporate courts. He probably feels that, in context, we are churlish to get upset at this colourful, Lannisterish little government he has got together for the handover. Imagine the wry contempt the master criminal must have felt for Holmes, living at the centre of the brutal British empire and imagining that Moriarty’s little crimes were the worst thing in the world.

Firstly he’s not proposing to abolish the Human Rights Act, its a manifesto commitment to have our own UK (or English if necessary) Human Rights Bill.

I can absolutely understand why the left wing want to try and position Cameron to the right and if possible to the right of Thatcher as they want to create a space in the centre for the Labour party to move into, the centre wins IMO. However the reality is Cameron and the Conservatives are not to the right of Thatcher at all. Spending cuts have been made necessary by prior over spending and commitments and the recession, they have not been a policy choice simply a necessity.

TIPP is EU wide, I can’t see any UK government taking a different stance with it and I am not even sure if you are a fully signed up EU member you can push back on it. Even Syriza in Greece will be bound by it.

has this been done? Pretty sure I’ve read gammon iron, human bin fire and brady/netflix in the last couple of days.

Well I just listened to PMQ and it was the same rubbish, he was asked a bunch of questions and didn’t answer any of them. Managed to continue to blame the previous government (happily ignoring the last 5 years) and it was all really depressing.

They sold the royal mail. Even Maggie didn’t dare do that….
Were ****, forget the oars, were up the creekcreek and the boat is sinking.

What if Frankie Boyle was a rational, credible voice of the left, instead of someone who makes money out of jokes about a woman’s disabled child raping her?

What if the left spent more time figuring out policy and ideas on how to run the country rather than doing the long winded evil genius spiel over and over

What if people who don’t even live in Britain stopped making the same old comments on UK political threads on mountain bike forums?

Even Maggie didn’t dare do that….

Margret Thatcher also promised not to touch the NHS claiming that it was ‘safe in her hands’, and to be fair it was. And then along came New Labour and started introducing privatisation of the NHS through the back door.

All hell would have broken out had Thatcher introduced such measures but because it was the Labour Party it all went quietly through without any fuss.

Just one reason why having a Labour government can be worse than having a Tory government.

the Conservatives are proposing to abolish the 1998 European Human Rights Act, not abolish Human Rights per se – the European Declaration of Human Rights 1948 will continue to be enshrined in British Law.

What few people / no-one can seems very willing to answer is:

1. What problem did the eHRA actually solve in 1998?
2. Was the UK at the heart of human rights abuses prior to 1998?
3. What did the eHRA give us that is missing from the 1948 act?
4. Has the eHRA been abused or given rise to judgements that are way out of line with how politicians at the time saw it being used in the future?
5. What do judges (some of whom have very limited legal training) in Strasbourg offer that our own highly experienced / qualified judges in our Supreme Court cannot?
6. Why is it that many of the Labour cheerleaders from the time and who brought in the act say that it needs reforming?

What few people / no-one can seems very willing to answer is: why do we need to abolish the Human Rights Act other than to pander to Daily Mail-reading morons who think the only thing it does is let terrorists stay here because they have a pet cat, or some other such nonsense?

Boyle is making Cameron out as a genius? Far simpler than that. While all the proposals and law changes he will make will affect us, all he had to do was wave “the economy” in front of the greedy little feckers who vote tory. Unfortunately these sort of people believe that if the economy is doing “well”, nothing else matters.

5. What do judges (some of whom have very limited legal training) in Strasbourg offer that our own highly experienced / qualified judges in our Supreme Court cannot?

You really are going to back that one up.

Are you really one of those people from the generation who actally want less rights?

6. Why is it that many of the Labour cheerleaders from the time and who brought in the act say that it needs reforming?

Because if they don’t Labour may not get re-elected? The media, that has been running this agenda would crucify them? Proof if ever it was needed that the media in this country needs proper regulation.

chapeau for this alone:

one of those terrified mouse faces that you find in an owl pellet

No. This is Larry. He’s the evil genius. See how he has world leaders in his thrall.

To be fair, Andy Burnham said if was good privatisation, not the bad kind wot the tories like.

he’s not proposing to abolish the Human Rights Act

Undertake radical reform of human rights laws and
publish a detailed plan for reform that a Conservative
government would implement immediately: we will
scrap Labour’s Human Rights Act, curtail the role of
the European Court of Human Rights in the UK and
make certain that the UK’s Supreme Court is in Britain
and not in Strasbourg.

Page 45 tory Manifesto

I assume you will have some method of explaining how that does not mean what it says

Burnham explained that he introduced this as NHS capacity was so low under the tories and it was the only way to get capacity up quickly and reduce waiting lists
It was only ever seen as temporary thing rather than a policy thing

Whether I believe that account or not is another matter but it was practical reasons not ideology.

1. What problem did the eHRA actually solve in 1998?

Populist politicians changing the terms of sentencing due to media pressure, for example.

2. Was the UK at the heart of human rights abuses prior to 1998?

See 1.

3. What did the eHRA give us that is missing from the 1948 act?

Allows you to have a judgement made in the UK without needing to go straight to Strasbourg.

4. Has the eHRA been abused or given rise to judgements that are way out of line with how politicians at the time saw it being used in the future?

Undoubtedly, and I would hope so. Things move on, and Europe in 2015 is different to how it was at the start of the cold war.

5. What do judges (some of whom have very limited legal training) in Strasbourg offer that our own highly experienced / qualified judges in our Supreme Court cannot?

Back that up, and also see (4). Without the EHRA you still have Strasbourg, just without a prior UK filter.

6. Why is it that many of the Labour cheerleaders from the time and who brought in the act say that it needs reforming?

Not sure, but quite possibly cos they’re just as scared of the Mail as the Tories are.

I assume you will have some method of explaining how that does not mean what it says

The clue is where you found it

Manifesto

in front of the greedy little feckers who vote tory.

With such deep understanding of why people made choices you should hit PR for a political party.

Anyway think I’m about to fall foul of Grums no foreigners in the politics threads…

The clue is where you found it
Manifesto

the clue is in his full quote as to why I quoted it

Firstly he’s not proposing to abolish the Human Rights Act, its a manifesto commitment to have our own UK (or English if necessary) Human Rights Bill.

Bastard tories!

Anyway think I’m about to fall foul of Grums no foreigners in the politics threads…

That isn’t actually what I said, but you’ve already got your right-wing wet dream in Australia, why do you feel the need to promote it in the UK as well when you don’t live here? Just seems a bit odd.

Cameron a genius???

Cameron radical???

If there is one common theme with Cameron and Thatcher, it is that their critics/supporters accuse/credit them with far too much. The reality is always some distance from the rhetoric, in fact often the complete opposite. How about really “quite middle of the road”? Ok, QE is unorthodox but loading us up with debt is hardly new, indeed some claim that it lies at the root of our problem.

What next? Davism…….? Austerity…….?

not really promoting it more contesting some of the arguments used. There is a lot of playing the man going on with figures of hate, using upbringing and schooling in place of policy. Gets a bit dull.

There are many reasons that the Tories got in, many reasons labour didn’t. Perhaps there is room for a more central party – see where Blair ended up. It also comes down to the fact that it’s very unlikely that you will be on board with 100% of the policies of a party you vote for. Some people take a compromise some will vote for a party for life regardless of what they say.

He went to Eton don’t you know. How very dare he….

Doesn’t that automatically qualify him for the Boyle award? 😀

Burnham explained that he introduced this as NHS capacity was so low under the tories and it was the only way to get capacity up quickly and reduce waiting lists

I’ll remind you that the entire NHS was founded from scratch without any PFI involvement, and at a time when the UK economy was broke.

To save the NHS, Labour must face the ugly truth of PFI debts

New Labour introduced privatisation into the NHS for exactly the same reasons as the Tories – their self-serving party leader had an ideological commitment to neoliberalism.

Tony Blair opposed every single privatisation carried out by the Tories, without expectation. Then as soon as he became Prime Minister one of the first things he decided was that the Tories hadn’t privatised enough and he embarked on his own privatisation programme.

Radical on immigration, debt, education, health….no, really,

Ok, so headlines need to be written, but editors need some perspective. Or was the original in the comedy/features section?

I offer no defence of what Nu labour did I merely said what he said

I think they sold it out and PFI was a **** travesty that is indefensible.
I shudder to say it [ 😉 ] but I agree, in the main, with your analysis.

but I agree, in the main, with your analysis.

To be fair I don’t agree with everything I wrote, well not the bit where spellcheck corrected my spelling of exception to expectation. Although in the main I agree with what I wrote.

Although in the main I agree with what I wrote.

So, standing by your words, except where you don’t? You should run for Parliament 🙂

1. What problem did the eHRA actually solve in 1998?

It’s just the ”Human Rights Act 1998″ – adding an extra “European” in there to try and make it sound terribly foreign is classic spin.

As I understand it the problem it solved was allowing human rights judgements to be made in UK domestic courts on ECHR precedents, thus meaning people didn’t have to traipse over to Strasbourg.

2. Was the UK at the heart of human rights abuses prior to 1998?

No, it wasn’t. Partly because it was bound by the Europoean Convention on Human Rights, which we were one of the first countries to ratify in 1951.

The ECHR and Human Rights Act has been successfully used in the UK to challenge things which I am glad were challenged (e.g. compulsory ID cards, detention without trial, the ban on homosexuals in the military, indefinite storage of DNA and fingerprints of innocent people).

3. What did the eHRA give us that is missing from the 1948 act?

As above. It makes justice more affordable, accessible and less bureaucratic by allowing human rights issues to be settled in UK courts.

4. Has the eHRA been abused or given rise to judgements that are way out of line with how politicians at the time saw it being used in the future?

You mean the ECHR?

Some judgements have been cited as “overstepping the mark” – mostly by the same politicians who are keen to redefine the terms “human” and “rights”.

I think, in the aftermath of WWII, the original authors of the convention were pretty comfortable with the idea that everyone is human and entitled to certain protected rights.

5. What do judges (some of whom have very limited legal training) in Strasbourg offer that our own highly experienced / qualified judges in our Supreme Court cannot?

An outside eye! In the future, if the British judiciary break human rights then you’ll have to take your complaint to the British judiciary. Good luck with that!

6. Why is it that many of the Labour cheerleaders from the time and who brought in the act say that it needs reforming?

“Reform” is not the same as “abolish”.

Ultimately, as I understand it, unless we pull out of the Council of Europe and break the treaty, then we will still be bound by the ECHR anyway. It will just be more costly for people to access – which suits the Tories nicely.

Radical isn’t a word I would readily use in connection with British politics.

Was the UK at the heart of human rights abuses prior to 1998?

If you really want to know, here’s a few – reads like Chile under Pinochet. But yeah, let’s repeal the EU human rights laws so we can get back to imprisoning homos and locking people up without access to a lawyer.

Criminal sanctions for private consensual homosexual conduct (Dudgeon, 1981);

Refusal to legally recognise transsexuals (Rees, 1986);

Parents’ rights to exempt their children from corporal punishment in schools (Campbell and Cosans, 1982);

Sentencing a juvenile young offender to be “birched” (Tyrer, 1978);

Wiretapping of suspects in the absence of any legal regulation (Malone, 1984);

Restrictions on prisoners’ correspondence and visits by their lawyers (Golder, 1975);

Admitting testimony obtained under coercion as evidence (Saunders, 1996);

Keeping a suspect incommunicado in oppressive conditions without access to a solicitor (Magee, 2000);

Extradition of a suspect to the United States to face a capital charge (Soering, 1989);

Granting the police blanket immunity from prosecution (Osman, 1998);

Shooting of Provisional Irish Republican Army suspects in Gibraltar without any attempt to arrest them (McCann, 1995);

Granting of an injunction against the Sunday Times for publishing an article on the effects of thalidomide (Sunday Times, 1979);

Injunction against the Sunday Times for publishing extracts from the Spycatcher novel (Sunday Times (no. 2), 1991);

Ordering a journalist to disclose his sources (Goodwin, 1996);

Agreement obliging employees to join a certain trade union in order to keep their jobs (Young, 1981);

Anyone notice that most of these (if not all?) occurred under the Tories? The Tories have a similar view in regards to liberty as those of deep south republican aristocracy, liberty is defined by your wealth and your position in the world that is ordained by god.

Ultimately, as I understand it, unless we pull out of the Council of Europe and break the treaty, then we will still be bound by the ECHR anyway.

That’s pretty much how I understand it, too. And I’d like to think that the Tories (at least the ones at the top) aren’t quite that stupid. If only because as you say:

It will just be more costly for people to access – which suits the Tories nicely.

My understanding is that the Tories want to have a more horizontal relationship with the ECHR and hope to achieve this by having a Bill of Rights which would mean we would be in a similar position to those countries where people have rights by virtue of the constitution. The HRA didn’t do this, it made the Supreme Court subservient to the ECHR (i.e. a vertical relationship). However achieving this aim is incredibly complicated and certainly beyond the understanding of most including myself.

This quote illustrates the issue

Lorenzo Zucca, an expert in EU constitutional law at Kings College London, said that Britain’s conception of the power relationship between London and Strasbourg set it up not just from Germany, but from the rest of Europe.

“Throughout the continent, it is now very common to think of the relationship between national courts and Strasbourg as not so much a hierarchical, but a horizontal one: it’s meant to be an ongoing judicial dialogue.

“In Britain, the paradox is that while some politicians passionately reject the ECHR, courts are often more compliant than those in other member states.”

What do judges (some of whom have very limited legal training) in Strasbourg offer that our own highly experienced / qualified judges in our Supreme Court cannot?

You want to spread that on your roses 🙄
Election of ECtHR judges: ‘The judges shall be of high moral character and must either possess the qualifications required for appointment to high judicial office or be jurisconsults of recognised competence’
A list of current judges and their cvs (look there’s even a UK judge)
http://www.echr.coe.int/Pages/home.aspx?p=court/judges

What did the eHRA give us that is missing from the 1948 act?

Well you’re confusing your Acts and treaties and the Universal Declaration doesn’t have the force of law in the UK so … an enforcement mechanism?

An old (2000) but good executive summary of the European Convention of Human Rights by the BEEB:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/948143.stm

A list of current judges and their cvs (look there’s even a UK judge)

Yep, because luckily the UK Human Rights Act has a whole section about how a holder of a UK judicial office can become a judge of the European Court of Human Rights:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/crossheading/judges-of-the-european-court-of-human-rights

Handy that.

The HRA didn’t do this, it made the Supreme Court subservient to the ECHR

No it didn’t. The Act states: ‘A court or tribunal determining a question which has arisen in connection with a Convention right must take into account any … judgment, decision, declaration or advisory opinion of the European Court of Human Rights …’ So in interpreting and applying convention rights courts are not bound by the jurisprudence of the ECtHR, they are bound to take it into account. And here’s an example of that in action
http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2014/66.html

Was wondering if TIPP is kicking in already ?

Surfing the net last night on my phone the data connection was buffering like crazy on all my bookmarks – but when I went on YouTube it was streaming perfectly … ?