John Jackson (London, Mishcon de Reya): Here in California, eight hours behind British time, I have only just got round to reading Henry Porter’s excellent article in last Sunday’s Observer. His call for a Bill of Rights with entrenched privacy laws may well be echoed strongly during the important Convention on Modern Liberty to be held next February and, hopefully, echoed with the rid...

A group of MPs have told the Demon Headmaster that we should have a British Bill of Rights to give extra protection to children, old people and people with learning disabilities. Has nobody told these cretins that we’ve already got a Bill of Rights? The Bill of Rights was passed in 1689 in the English Parliament and

The Joint Committee on Human Rights has today published a report setting out its recommendations for the contents of a UK Bill of Rights. Their report is here, and the evidence that they took is here. Whilst the Libertarian Party is a staunch advocate of a Bill of Rights, in the current political climate an obvious concern is that such a bill might be a way of entrenching government interference a...

Oh dear, they just don't get it, do they? The bill should give greater protection to groups such as children, the elderly and those with learning difficulties ... Labour and the Conservatives agree on the need for a new Bill of Rights ... The committee said the bill should include rights to housing, education and a healthy environment. That sounds like a list of suggestions for more state int...

Proposals divide cabinet as Tories insist the new bill of rights will be a costly irrelevance A new British bill of rights and responsibilitilies outlined yesterday could enshrine entitlements to welfare, equal treatment, housing, children's wellbeing and the NHS, Jack Straw, the justice secretary, said yesterday. He likened the bill's potential impact to Magna Carta and the 1689 Bill of...

On the 60th anniversary of the announcement of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights it is a pity that the rights agenda has been so feebly and ridiculously hijacked by Monica McWilliams and her Bill of Rights. The commission is split over the issue with Daphne Trimble and Jonathan Bell vocally dissenting against the bill and its easy to see why. If the assembly adopts this it would simply bec...

The government is accused of denying abortion rights to women in Northern Ireland as part of a deal to secure support for the controversial 42-day detention Bill. Campaigners claim that ministers are planning to thwart a bid to extend abortion rights by stopping a pro-choice amendment when the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is debated in

The cross-party Joint Committee on Human Rights has said that there should be a new Bill of Rights [pdf] (or Bill of rights and Freedoms) for the United Kingdom, which will apply to both citizens and non-citizens. It will, it is suggested, draw on the “UK’s distinctive [legal] traditions” (p. 42, No. 146), and set out certain rights, such as the right to trial by jury, right to a...

Commie tool The government should adopt a Bill of Rights for the UK, a cross-party committee of MPs and peers has urged. The Joint Committee on Human Rights said the bill should go further than current human rights legislation. The bill should give greater protection to groups such as children, the elderly and those with learning difficulties, it said in a report. Why do groups need greater protec...

So, we see a Cabinet kerfuffle over plans for a new "Bill of Wrongs Rights". Brown talked earlier in the year about a new constitutional settlement. This "Bill of Wrongs Rights" is part of that. Brown likes the term "new settlement", for he has used it in terms of the financial crisis, too. What Brown &Co forget, is that a Bill of Rights is - or damn well should be - about restraining governme...