Alex Massie Alex Massie

Tomfoolery from the Labour Backbenches

Tom Harris’s blog is a very useful creation. Now as it happens I don’t think that parliamentary democracy is under threat because Damien Green was arrested, disgraceful though that arrest certainly was. Nonetheless, there’s little doubt that this government has, time and time again and to an extent that may be as modern as it is largely unprecedented, ignored ancient parliamentary procedures and consistently demonstrated a contempt for “old-fashioned” concepts of liberty and the rule of law.

Thus Mr Harris’s latest post is usefully illuminating. He writes:

As the right-hand man to Shami Chakrabarti the then Shadow Home Secretary, David “Remember him?” Davis, Dominic [Grieve, the Shadow Home Secretary] did a sterling job in defending the rights of terrorist suspects because he thought the government was being too, too beastly to the little darlings.

Note the sly insinuation that the Conservative party’s heart and mind has been captured by a civil liberties group.

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