As widely predicted, the coalition government’s review of the previous government’s counter-terrorism legislation has not had the cojones to recommend the outright abolition of the intrinsically flawed régime of control orders. Even more disappointingly,...
Like others on the liberal/Labour left, I’m saddened by indications that the Labour opposition is ready to reject the coalition’s plan to restore voting rights to most prisoners serving sentences of less than four...
At the end of 2010 the admirable Caroline Lucas, Green Party leader and sole Green MP, had a letter in the Guardian lambasting Labour for inconsistency: the former Labour government had introduced university tuition...
Tories from the prime minister downwards, and (to their shame) some relics of New Labour, lose no opportunity to lambast the Human Rights Act, which the Conservatives (but not the coalition) still threaten to...
Julian Assange, the Australian founder of Wikileaks, is spending another night in Wandsworth prison, in solitary confinement in the segregation wing, forbidden to have any contact with other prisoners, in conditions described by his...
The Justice Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, introduced his proposals for reform of sentencing policy in the house of commons this afternoon (7 Dec 2010). These concentrated on reducing re-offending by more effective rehabilitation of offenders...
A few months after he had formed the new Labour government in 1945, Clement Attlee grew tired of the stream of publicly offered but unwanted advice on how the government should conduct itself emanating...
Three articles in today’s Observer newspaper fire welcome broadsides at the authoritarian crime and terrorism obsessives, in the cause of restoring some of our lost liberties. Sophie Radice, journalist and commentator, launches a vigorous...
The human rights organisation Liberty has authorised me to publish here the text of a letter from a Liberty solicitor in reply to a message from me urging Liberty to support the campaign for...
Last week I sent a letter about Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection to the Sunday Times. I wrote: Prison Overcrowding and Indeterminate Sentences You report that the Justice Minister is pressing the Home Secretary...