Well, he didn’t quite say that in terms, as we lawyers say. But he did agree with the thrust of JB’s comment on my David Pannick fisk, in his interview in the Times today. Like JB, and like me, he doesn’t really get this “bill of rights and responsibilities” stuff ministers are going on about:
I’m puzzled because we are bound by the European Convention on Human Rights . . . it seems inconceivable that the UK would remove its membership of the http://www.lependart.com Council of Europe, so the international obligations we then assumed remain binding on us . . . It is not absolutely plain what duties it would impose . . . you could impose a duty to obey the law, but that exists; you could spell out that you must pay your taxes, but we all know that. I don’t suppose it will say: you have a duty not to barge in front of the bus queue . . . I don’t really see the point of it.
Quite. Does anybody see the point?
The point is that politicians have to be seen to be against “rights” because those are for criminals and muslims.
Normal people are just made substantive promises that they will get something or be able to do something.