The acquittal of Ben Fellows on a charge of perverting the course of justice by falsely alleging that he was “groped” by Ken Clarke during the making of a television programme is in danger of being misunderstood.
The vast majority of Conservative MPs are united in the belief that Parliament should be sovereign and the British Supreme Court should be supreme. Yet the Government has embarked on a plan which (if it succeeds) will effectively entrench the precise opposite of what its MPs actually want.
The problem arises from a misunderstanding of the Human Rights Act and a failure to address the constitutional realities of EU law.
On the Human Rights Act, the Prime Minister has instructed Michael Gove to press ahead with preparations for its repeal and replacement by a British Bill of Rights.
Any sensible Conservative ought to realise that the repeal of the Human Rights Act is not just unwise but, if you are worried about Parliamentary sovereignty and the supremacy of our courts, entirely beside the point. The Act requires the Supreme Court only to “take account” of Strasbourg decisions, not to follow them; and it gives courts, whether British or European, no power to strike down Acts of Parliament. Under the Human Rights Act the Supreme Court is supreme and Parliament is sovereign. Continue reading “The Government’s Policies on the Human Rights Act and the EU are an incoherent muddle”
The latest polls in the Labour leadership election suggest that Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn has his nose in front. It is hard to trust the unattributed briefings reported in the New Statesman this week, but one “campaign staffer” (presumably, although the report does not say so explicitly, a Corbyn supporter) said “he is in a commanding position … he is on course to win.”
Jeremy Corbyn wearing his “Lenin” style cap. (David Martyn Hunt)
Bookmakers’ odds tend to give a more reliable picture than anonymous quotes, and here too the picture is pretty clear: www.oddschecker.com shows that the best price you can now get on Mr Corbyn’s victory is 4-1, and even for that you must move fast: several are quoting him at 3-1 . At the start of the election you could back the hirsute Marxist at 100-1.
Earlier this year BBC Radio 4 broadcast two programmes in the Analysis strand, which I made together with a BBC producer, Hannah Barnes. Ritual Sexual Abuse: the Anatomy of a Panic part one was broadcast on the 25th May and part two went out a week later.
I was asked to make these programmes because I had expressed a concern in various writings that some of the new accusations of historic VIP abuse of children, and the way in which sections of the media were handling them, were reminiscent of the “Satanic Panic” of the 80s and early 90s. During that time it was widely alleged and believed that a substantial number of Satanists and other cultists were or had been involved in complex rituals –involving child sexual abuse and even child sacrifice. Then, by the mid-90s the panic subsided. I felt that by analyzing that past panic we might better understand some aspects of the present. Continue reading “SATANIC ABUSE: A REPLY TO BELIEVERS”
