Dr Reid, the (mercifully) departing home secretary, has been explaining that if judges and ministers insist on obeying the letter of the law, they may fail in their duty to protect citizens’ lives — an unusual attitude to respect for the law for a home secretary in office [More >>>]
The Virginia Tech horror can’t justify the government’s misconceived plan to lock up untreatable people with severe personality disorder in case they might otherwise commit a crime, “just to be on the safe side”. Another example of risk-averse ministers trying to guard against any accusation of complacency or inaction [More >>>]
My letter in today’s (12 April 07) Guardian is another attempt to publicise the virtues of a fully federal system for the UK, the only sensible and durable answer to the West Lothian question. We mustn’t let the right-wing Little Englanders hijack it [More >>>]
The prisons inspector reports on the inhumane, unjust and shaming way in which foreigners who have served their prison sentences have been treated because of panic in the Home Office [More >>>]
Listen to a BBC radio 4 play (9pm, 16 March) about a prisoner who for 25 years inside insisted that he was innocent, and as a result was denied parole — and has now won his appeal against conviction [More >>>]
A message to my MP about how to frustrate Jack Straw’s incredible proposals for House of Lords reform, and a plea for others to write similarly to their own MPs [More >>>]
Another batch of objections to the proposed federation of the United Kingdom, and why they’re invalid: plus some clarifications [More >>>]
Another Control Order has been quashed for failure to consider prosecuting the suspect instead, and because its restrictions are in breach of the Human Rights Convention. Time to scrap control orders and allow secret evidence in certain limited cases to be heard in ordinary criminal courts. Update (25/ii/07) on SIAC [More >>>]
Jade’s initial resilience in the face of disaster seems to have been crushed out of her by the weight of the righteous condemnation dumped on her from all quarters, including the tabloids that once profited from flaunting her celebrity. Impossible not to feel compassion [More >>>]
The campaign to pressurise the English National Ballet into sacking one of its principal dancers because she belongs to the BNP is an assault on the principle of freedom of speech and opinion and reflects a noxious streak of self-righteous authoritarianism in the anti-racism industry [More >>>]