Abu Qatada

has been deported to Jordan because he agreed to go there. Not because of any ruling by anybody. I find the "debate" in the UK around such issues depressing. The tabloids, OK, what would you expect. But people are becoming more credulous and unintelligent in public forums, it seems to me. Victoria Brittain, some kind of intellectual and writer, has mounted a "defence" of Abu Qatada, on the grounds that his home is filled with books and that his children do well at school. Stupid. In bad faith. Since when was having books in the home a defence? So barely literate people in dysfunctional families do not deserve justice? Oh. I feel increasingly that I am something of a lone voice, in that my view is that people should not be detained without being sent to trial for more than a very short period of time. Charge them, try them, give them a fair trial, or let them go. This is not always  being done in the UK. Hence the human rights issues.

Should it have to be spelled out that human rights are for everyone, nasty people as well as nice? If they are not they are meaningless and in fact do not exist? Should it really? Should it have to be pointed out  that if people say or write something which you personally find offensive you should put up with it on the grounds of freedom of speech? In connection with this, I am against the lifting of parliamentary immunity in respect of Marine Le Pen. This has been done because she allegedly said some horrid things that incite racial hatred. Well, of course she did. She's Front National. That's what they are about. That's what the people who voted for them agree with.

Parliamentary privilege and immunity matter a lot for democracy. They are the only guarantee of true freedom of action for elected representatives in the interests of those who elected them (which does not mean just those who voted for them). They are not to be trifled with in the interests of populism. They are not to be restricted to nice people.

non-existent? my arse

the Normster draws our attention to a piece by the Rev. Dr. Peter Mullen, who is a Church of England cleric, about Syria.  The Rev. Dr. Mullen appears to be trying, as a number of commentators have in recent days, to justify leaving the Syrian regime to slaughter its people.  Note, however, this:

I’m afraid we have to repeat the old lesson again and again. Nations act in their perceived national interests. Sometimes the consequences are benign, but it does no good at all to imagine that they will always be so. A particular state may even sometimes take an internationalist stance. But – if its leaders are in their right minds – it will not do so out of a sentimental attachment to non-existent universal values, but only from what it calculates as its own interest.


Nations act in their perceived national interest.  Yep.  But where does Responsibility to Protect come from?  Whose national interests are served by that?  It's likely that Russia at least prefers to retain a client in the Middle East, and sees Syria as precisely that, and that both China and Russia do not want their own minority nationalities to get ideas.  (Sorry chaps, they already have).


Jolly good.  I am no theologian, but Peter Mullen has been ordained and does not believe in universal values?  Who does the Gospel apply to then?  The Ten Commandments?  Only nice people who read the Guardian?  Not a bunch of stone-throwing brown-skin Ay-rabs?  And if what I write here offends anyone, good.


The piece quoted from is to be found in the Telegraph.  Peter Mullen is:

The Rev Dr Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael, Cornhill and St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in the City of London. He is Chaplain to six Livery Companies of the City of London and has written for many publications including the Wall Street Journal.

human rights worries in Europe

well, someone called Ben Ward thinks there is more to worry about than there used to be. He says those interested in human rights should be delighted at last Year's Arab Spring. But - there always is a but - the West did Bad Things - the UK may have been complicit in rendition to Gaddafy's Libya. If you were going to do a profit and loss column exercise on this you'd probably say that Libya's embarking on a path to democracy after decades of dictatorship is more good for Libya than the rendition, if it took place, is bad. You can read the piece here f you want to. Italy and France taking action against Roma because they are Roma is bad. Greece's treatment of migrants is bad. Well, yes. But Mr Ward would have us believe that things have got worse. I disagree. Racism won't go away. But it's worth trying to make it go away. And far more of Europe has a commitment to human rights, democracy and the rule of law than it did when I was young. The response to terrorism is to limit some freedoms. Yep. Has to be done sometimes. That is even written into the European Convention on Human Rights. As I am sure Mr Ward knows.