Gordon Brown the great giver of freedom

Or so he claimed this week when he made a speech on "liberty" in which he outlined a series of constitutional changes which he says will make the British government a "better servant of the people". Of course it is all an illusion. We are supposed to believe that Gordon Brown and Jack Straw who voted for and implemented some of the most draconian restrictions of personal freedom in this country now are offering us some of these rights back as a great leap forward. This is so ridiculous that even this Cabinet of non-entities must realise that they are not going to fool the electorate, OK maybe not they do seem to have an endless capacity for self-delusion.

Henry Porter has written a nice article for today's Observer that makes some excellent points about this matter, including this rather nice analogy "Putting Jack Straw in charge of the consultation process on a bill of rights is like turning over a campaign against prostitution to the head of an escort agency." I also liked this description of Jack Straw "Such a man can only see a bill of rights as political tool and a way of further entrenching the powers of government and the executive."

As Henry Porter says about Jack Straw, "He presents his case with the persuasive rhetoric of balance - balancing rights with duties, balancing public safety with individual freedom - yet it must be evident that Straw, who only two weeks ago announced a further attack on freedom of speech with proposed laws against the incitement of hatred of gays, is hardly the man, as Brown has suggested, to 'investigate the idea of freedom of expression audit for future legislation'. Ask yourself where he stood as Foreign Secretary on rendition. We heard not a peep out of him as Blair attacked jury trial, habeas corpus, the right to silence, the exclusion of hearsay evidence from court proceedings, double jeopardy, the principle that a man cannot be punished without a court deciding the law has been broken. Ask yourself who was speaking but did nothing when Walter Wolfgang was hauled out of a Labour conference. Now he comes to us burbling about constitutional renewal and the 'relevance of rights'."

This Government scares me; the left wing of politics has always had controlling coercive tendencies but under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, this Labour Government has exceeded all expectations. This Government with a Home Office run by such renowned libertarians as David Blunkett, Charles Clarke and John Reid has eroded civil liberties, whilst the rest of the Cabinet has concentrated on feathering their nests and power for powers sake.