Ken Clarke’s political career has had the resilience of a cockroach, but even
he now seems to be cracking. Tim Montgomerie has shot a vicious
broadside at Clarke’s dated politics in today’s Mail. And Clarke, for his part, has given an interview to the Telegraph, where he gives a convincing impression of a man completely out of touch. Clarke
concedes (just) that the ECHR needs reform, but he defends its supreme jurisdiction:
‘Some people are very angry [about prisoner voting], but we should be able to resolve that. The jurisdiction of the [European] court remains the fraught issue. I don’t see how we can say that we don’t obey courts if we don’t want to. It would be pretty startling if a British government introduced a motion or Bill which said: ‘let’s break the law’.”
Clarke’s comments about Middle England are more damaging.
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