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The ludicrous right to claim benefits and enjoy a good standard of living for the jobless

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Remember the panel David Cameron established immediately after the election to examine the case for scrapping Labour's hated Human Rights Act?

As we report elsewhere today, it's just sprung into life with a new report.

But there's not much in there which suggests curtailing the human rights racket, or repatriating power from Strasbourg to Westminster.

Farce: Human rights law will be extended to include the right to enjoy a comfortable standard of living for those out of work courtesy of the taxpayer (picture posed by models)

Instead we get suggestions for yet more 'human rights' - most ludicrously socio-economic rights.

In plain-speak, this means the right to claim benefits and enjoy a good standard of living if jobless (courtesy, presumably, of those who do have jobs).

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It's nonsense - and entirely what was expected of the panel, from the first day it was established, in the immediate aftermath of the election.

David Cameron had repeatedly promised on the campaign trail to do something - anything - about the way the Act was being abused by terrorists, foreign criminals and the rest.

Human rights: new plans to include the right to claim for a good standard of living is exactly what was expecting of the Prime Minister's panel

But he knew that the Lib Dems – who view the Act as an article of faith – would never sanction its abolition.

So, to avoid accusations he had abandoned the pledge altogether, he established the ‘Commission on a Bill of Rights’, which was manned half by Lib Dems and half by Tories.

(Why it was made-up in this way has never been clear, given the Tories have five times more seats in Parliament.)

In theory, it was tasked with considering the case for a British Bill of Rights, with firm proposals due to be produced within two years.

But – given it was stuffed to the gunwales with arch-Liberals such as  Lord Lester QC, Philippe Sands QC, and Baroness Kennedy QC – it really existed only to boot the issue into the political long grass.

And so it has proved.

First, Tory appointee Dr Michael Pinto-Duschinsky quit, after the panel was privately told by Mr Clegg that it need not worry about reflecting the ‘will of Parliament’ – which wished to re-assert its primacy over human rights judges.

Dr Pinto-Duschinsky, a hugely respected political scientist, said of the panel that: ‘The Lib Dem tail is wagging the Conservative dog.’

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Now we have the report we document today, which buries any hopes of delivering meaningful change.

First, the panel says that – despite 15 months of deliberation – it still does not have a clue whether or not the Human Rights act should be abolished.

The consultation it has carried out so far has been hijacked by the pro-human rights lobby to such extent that three-quarters of respondents to its initial consultation want to keep the Act just as it is – despite widespread unhappiness in the wider population.

But, where change is considered, it is framed in terms which would never be acceptable to the Tory party or the public.

There are not many Tory backbenchers who think that, instead of limiting the Act, we should be enshrining in law hugely-expensive new rights to claim benefits and enjoy a comfortable standard of living – funded by the taxpayer.

As Dr Pinto-Duschinsky, now a constitutional affairs expert at Policy Exchange, told the Mail: ‘The suggestion that there be a whole new set of socio-economic rights is a diversionary tactic by some members of the Commission.

‘They want to draw attention from the core question of whether the Strasbourg court should be permitted to overrule our Parliament on matters of political policy.’

The next step will be that the panel recommends no change to the status quo, in which case the issue is dead. Or it will produce final proposals so outlandish that they will never be acceptable.

Either way, Mr Clegg will be delighted. And the abuse of the Human Rights Act will continue unchecked.

 


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