Tories to scrap HRA if elected

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Now, normally, such posturing from Cameron would not bother me. The man is all spin and bluster, whose only real agenda is to get elected. But the actual words came from David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, a right nasty piece of work in the mould of Howard, Thatcher etc Which likely means the more right wing elements of the party have forced it onto the agenda and intend to make Cameron stick by it.

Ever since elements of the Chimdano case became public, the usual suspects (Sun, Mail, Times, Express and Telegraph) have been calling for the replacement of the HRA with a new, ostensibly more British piece of legislation.

Never mind the HRA is about as British as you can get (it took its legal precedence from the UN Declaration on Human Rights, which was inspired by the American Bill of Rights, which had their basis in British law. Oh, and our lawmakers drafted the thing), nor that no-one has actually specified what this new act would actually look like or do. That doesn't matter, because THE HRA IS LETTING DANGEROUS PEOPLE ROAM THE STREETS! WHAT ABOUT MY HUMAN RIGHTS TO FEEL INDIGNATION ABOUT SUBJECTS WHICH I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT! And so on.

There mere fact people can comprehend suspending this legislation makes me nervous as hell. The HRA has only one real purpose: to limit the powers of the state over the individual. Once those rights are taken, there is no automatic presumption they will be returned. And if they are, then the state just proves these rights are not inaliable at all, but instead at mercy to the whims of the government of the day. Which worries me even more.

If one were to look at the legislation, it quickly becomes obvious that if anything, it is much weaker then, say, the American Bill of Rights. And while that has been successfully undermined by 50 years of determined effort, very few have ever had the audacity to state publically that those rights should be withdrawn.

What worries me is not just that we have crackpot politicians, but we have a public who are receptive to their thinking. Fed a steady diet of horror crime stories (most false or misrepresented), constantly drawing false comparisons concerning victims rights and a natural antipathy to Europe may put pressure on both sides of the political spectrum to "do something".