And Tony Benn’s extremely peremptory foreword looked like a bit of left cover for a collection of largely rightwing libertarian and liberal contributions.
The charge of authoritarianism is always easier to make from the sunny uphills of opposition. When you are faced with terrorist suspects you can’t charge without putting others’ lives at risk, imperfect solutions have to be found. When you can improve people’s health by communicating their test results better, databases become a tool of reform, not a threat to privacy.
The liberty discussed here is negative – a freedom from state intervention rather than a positive liberty to make the most of your life free from fear of crime. Marching to ‘Reclaim the Streets’ in my younger days, I would have seen a CCTV camera as a liberating tool against fear of attack and harassment. And I still do.
The politicians’ contributions – even when they were interesting and well written like David Davis’ – do not take the argument forward very far. And journalist Leo McKinstry has penned a rant about a Labour ‘new age of oppression’ that includes examples that are so dodgy even his own Daily Mail wouldn’t have printed them.
However, the Tory MP Jesse Norman’s defence of both the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act is a thoughtful argument that both represents an important codification of the development of the common law, not a repudiation of it. Does he get invited to speak at lots of Conservative Associations, I wonder?
The most interesting contributions come from those who spent the least time axe grinding – Terri Dowty on the risk to the rights and privacy of children from the twin fixations of child protection and delinquent youth. Harry Snook reminded me why Gordon Brown started a review on powers of entry to our homes – there are hundreds! From Dominique Lazanski I learned about some of the real, emerging challenges of internet regulation. In short, this is a collection that’s worth dipping into for the new stuff, not some of the stale old arguments.