The New! Safer 100% Better! Internment Recipe from 'New' Labour, Guaranteed 100% Protection from Pesky Human Rights Laws!

Charles Clarke has done the semi-decent thing here by watering down the house arrest proposals. The fact that I actually have to applaud him for this is slightly depressing and a telling comment on 'New' Labour's civil authoritarianism. He has recognised that morally and legally he hasn't got much of a leg to stand on...but since when has politics had anything to do with morals!

Consequently Clarke has left himself an escape hatch by keeping the future option of derogating from the European Convention on Human Rights in future. So the beast is not yet fully slain and there remains the prospect of unrestricted house arrest arriving in this country in the near future, we must alas put our fate in the hands of the judges...