The writer is in Australia.
There are some terrible ideas that just won’t die. That’s because the progressives love them so much they’ll keep trying and trying. This column is about one such idea, a bill of rights. Now as readers will know I was a huge and vocal opponent of the lockdown thuggery and authoritarianism of the Covid two-and-a-half years. More than a few fellow anti-lockdowners asked me if a bill of rights would have helped. Unequivocal answer: No. My longstanding opposition to a bill of rights was only strengthened due to what we saw during the lockdown thuggery. Why? Well, we’ve just lived through the biggest experiment in protecting (or not) civil liberties ever. Lockdowns imposed what retired U.K. Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption called “the biggest inroads on our civil liberties in 300 years”. And how many democracies had judges who did anything to push back? Zero. You can’t point to a single case anywhere in the democratic world of judges invoking one to roll back or limit the lockdown thuggery and authoritarianism. Not in the U.S. with its potent and entrenched bill of rights. Not in my native Canada with its even more potent and entrenched bill of rights (the top Canadian judges being even more activist than the U.S. ones in striking down laws and intervening in social policy-making). Not in Britain with its powerful statutory version of a bill of rights, one so potent many cheerleading, pro-bill of rights law professors in Britain consider it virtually as potent as the U.S. model.
In none of those countries did the unelected top judges step in to soften or curtail the lockdown thuggery. Nor did it happen in continental Europe. In fact nowhere. There were two cases in the world, one in Scotland and one in the U.S., where the court said, in effect, “if that big box store gets to open then so does this church”. Wins, but not bill of rights wins. So if you think that, say, U.S. First Amendment jurisprudence would have helped, we lived through a real life experiment and the answer is now clear. No it would not have helped!
Second point. Even if you ignore the clear evidence of the lockdown years it is also the case that no non-U.S. country can buy the U.S. First Amendment case law. All post WWII countries with bills of rights – ones that were entrenched or enacted in the last half century or less – include equality type rights. And these virtually always are held to trump the free speech and religious liberty rights. You are going to end up with judges who copy the EU and Canada and Britain, not the U.S. They’re going to go down the virtually unconstrained path of ‘proportionality analysis’, which takes us to the next point.
Thirdly, when you buy a bill of rights you are simply buying the views of the unelected judges (and more broadly of the lawyerly caste, and they were all-in for the lockdown thuggery). That’s because bills of rights deal in amorphous, loosely articulated entitlements – ‘right to free speech’, ‘freedom of assembly’ and so on. As Jeremy Bentham noted over 200 years ago, people tend to assume these amorphously articulated entitlements mean you can say anything. Wrong, and wrong for good reason. Even the U.S. with its First Amendment imposes all sorts of limits on speech from no inciting violence to no kiddie porn. It’s just that those limits will now be laid down by an unaccountable, unelected judiciary rather than by an elected and removable politician. Be clear. That is why activist progressives would walk barefoot over broken glass to get a bill of rights. They think, rightly, that the judicial caste will deliver more of their first-order political and moral preferences and druthers than the democratic process.
And here it’s worth making two ancillary observations. Firstly, 60 years ago the median lawyer was to the political Right of the median voter. Today, the median lawyer is a standard deviation or more to the political Left. (The data on this from the U.S. where political donations are public information are scary.) These are your future judges. Have you seen our law schools? Have you seen what the current High Court of Australia is doing even without a bill of rights? Because it’ll be much worse with one. My second ancillary observation is this. Having spent a big chunk of my professional life arguing against the undemocratic nature of bills of rights, in no small part because when you buy one you are simply buying the worldview and druthers of the judges and lawyerly caste, I cannot understand why Bruce Lehrman and his team did not opt for a jury defamation trial. (I say this now because I openly said it at the time.) I would never, ever put my fate in the hands of a judge on an issue of facts and what conclusions to draw from them. That’s not because of insincerity worries or real or apparent bias. It’s because I believe that tradies, secretaries, grannies, truck drivers, waitresses et al. would likely see the evidence very differently than would most members of the inner-city judicial caste. Give me a jury any day! And if you doubt there’s much of a worldview difference just recall how most judges were for Yes and most voters for No in last year’s Voice referendum. (In the openly Yes camp this included retired Chief Justices, a sitting superior court Justice, Bar Councils, Law Societies, an over-exuberant KC, the list goes on.)
Fourthly, and this surprises many, in terms of what people can say there is more scope today, right now, to speak your mind in no national bill of rights Australia (re hate speech type claims, re campaign finance rules, re speech related to religion) than there is in my native Canada. Or in the EU or Britain. All have powerful bills of rights in play. That is what you’d be buying because, to repeat myself, the U.S. First Amendment (which did nothing during Covid) is not what’s for sale in today’s bill of rights marketplace.
Fifthly, along with the transfer of social policymaking power to the judges that comes with a bill of rights you magnify by orders of magnitude the issue of who gets appointed to the top courts. Is there sentient being anywhere who believes the Coalition would do a good or even a barely tolerable job in picking top judges who brought with them a commitment to interpretive conservatism? Just look at what the Coalition did in giving us a top court that decided the Love case (the worst-reasoned constitutional case I have ever read from any jurisdiction, not to mention its reliance on identity politics fluffery such as ‘otherness’ etcetera). Or whose judges delivered the woeful Ridd decision. Or that overturned the 20-year-old Al-Kateb case and forced the release of very dangerous people (who aren’t going to be living in nice parts of cities near the lawyerly caste). Oh, and while we’re on the topic of Coalition appointees, it was Team Coalition that appointed the President of the Australian Human Rights Commission who (while silent during all the lockdown thuggery) initiated this new push for a bill of rights. The e-Safety Commissioner was the Coalition’s too!
Personally, I don’t think it’s even in Labour’s interest to bring one in – it was the High Court, remember, that landed the party in its current mess by overturning Al-Kateb. Try to have secure borders with a bill of rights! So no, a bill of rights is still a terrible idea.
James Allan is the Garrick Professor of Law at Queensland University. This article first appeared in Spectator Australia.
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If Matt Hancock had a shred of integrity he would have resigned immediately. It looks like he is going to have to be dragged out kicking and screaming. The sooner the better.
Currently he’s not ‘kicking and screaming’ … he’s in the warm if slimy embrace of Mr Toad.
We were in LONDON for the anti Lockdown demo
Join every anti Lockdown even you can
Stand in the park South Hill Park Bracknell every Sunday 10am meet fellow lockdown sceptics
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Like the rest of his colleagues he doesn’t, but this isn’t the point, he has a NWO/Big Pharma agenda and an ever growing brown paper envelope stuffed with rewards for the 15 months of state totalitarianism. Integrity (along with morals and all the other bunkum) has NOTHING to do with this. We are in for a summer of ever diminishing civil rights, check this for starters from next Thursday…
From 1 July this year, if you’re registered with a GP in England, the government will be taking a copy of every medical event your GP recorded on their systems since you first registered with them. (Your children’s records, too, if you have children.) According to the NHS website, the events – called ‘codes’ – it will collect include: “Data about diagnoses, symptoms, observations, test results, medications, allergies, immunisations, referrals, recalls and appointments, including information about physical, mental and sexual health”.
Every single one of these events will be linked to your NHS number, your full postcode and your date of birth. Does that sound like “anonymous” data to you?
This clumsy groping incident with an old student girlfriend from twenty years ago is co-ordinated to deflect from other far more important things, Hancock gets (VERY WELL) paid regardless, and don’t worry his missus is fully on board with all the faux outrage – and laughing. More provincial standard Tory panto for the plebs, just as with Brexit negotiations, but look how easily the punters fell for it.
“Oh no we didn’t!”
“Oh YES YOU DID!!”
Oh really Toby, give it up. You aren’t Hancock (after all you are supposed to be a sceptic…) so we can never put your declaration of moral virtue to the test.
Is the GP data grab definitely from 1st July? I thought it had been deferred from 23rd June to either August or September?
As I understand it the date the legislation comes into law remains 1st July 2021, but the actual date that sharing commences with NHS digital is the 1st September 2021, as per the NHS website:
Isn’t it funny how destroying an entire economy, lying to the people under your care, and killing tens of thousands of people is ok with everyone, but go and kiss your assistant on camera and everyone just goes crazy?
I’m not saying that what he did is ok, but in the grand scheme of things that’s nothing.
That bit isn’t new. The upstanding Great British Public have a strong salacious streak that, despite protestations, quite likes this sort of indulgence.
That’s because the British are repressed hypocritical puritans at heart who’d love not to be but daren’t. They’d all be wearing black and have starched ruff collars if they were still in fashion while getting up to all kinds of devious stuff behind the scenes. This definitely isn’t new, it’s a staple observation on these islands.
To use Jungian terms, they don’t confront their shadow, they politely deny it exists!
Love this comment. Nail on the head.
I would add that the British treat sex scandals as if they are some kind of naughty soft porn that they get to indulge in once every few years.
It’s not just the British public. We’ve seen the same thing with our American cousins and Cuomo. Andrew Cuomo is directly responsible for the death of many nursing home patients because he ordered the nursing homes to take covid patients because he didn’t want to use the hospital ships Donald Trump sent in and give Donald Trump the credit. Cuomo is nothing less than a murderer
But no one cares about this. What they care about is that Cuomo made sexually harassing comments to a variety of women
Exactly.
Its not the affair, its the ignoring of draconian rules that he implemented and expected everyone else to follow
if he allowed us to leave the house for a run once a week and he was found out to have done it once a day it would be the same
this is the greatest attack on liberties the world has ever seen
the major architect thinks it doesn’t apply to him
Exactly!
Be honest, is he alone? Well there was Cummins and Ferguson and the Scottish woman but they were only the ones that got caught. I suspect they are all at it and just haven’t been caught – yet. He is a horrid little reptile yet has (had) a wife and children and a girlfriend. He will never be tried for the harm he actually did. Good to be rid of him whatever the “reason” though.
You are correct, it is a funny old world where gross incompetent, corruption, malfeasance, lying, killings 10,000s people, needlessly holding an entire nation prisoner in their homes for 15 months, destroying hundreds of thousands of livelihoods and bankrupting a nation are all perfectly fine but having a little peck and a grope is a resining matter. Still, just be grateful he is going. Only problem is he will be replaced with someone equally corrupt and incompetent.
It is, however, the context of what he did that makes it such a disgraceful and unforgiveable act.
Not to me it isn’t.
Hancockwomble’s affair is an utter irrelevance, his totalitarianism is what is important
The point is that this “event” provided the public and more especially the MSM the opportunity to put on a face of defiance and bravado – MSM could for once become loud with their indignation.
All of a sudden the public had an outlet, a way to blow off steam after fifteen months of misery.
Wancock and his philandering are nought but a diversion.
Simple kiddology.
“in public office with positions of responsibility “should act with the appropriate moral and ethics that come with that role”. “
A bit late for that to have any credibility re. this shower – led by the biggest sociopathic liar of them all. The ‘reshuffle’ scenario is quite credible.
Resignation or sacking? Weeell … I’ve already said I reckon on him staying as a useful idiot/lightning conductor. But – other scenarios are distinctly possible – mainly resulting from internal pressure like this, and there is a case that the same shit from another arse will gain ‘credibility’ amongst the GBP. There’s certainly a surfeit of the gullible.
Let him rot in the cabinet and fester outwards. Encroaching on all biological matter around like a pulsating glub of fungi, devouring any semblance of respectability for all who dare be near to this thing.
Let it all come tumbling down around them. The stink will be horrendous
‘Embracing’ a ‘longtime friend’?
How coy.
We’re better off with Hancock staying in post. We don’t want someone more efficient and honest imposing lockdowns. Better an obvious clown/liar than one who hides it better. There’s very little in this for us.
In a weird way I agree. At least if he stays, most people will ignore any further drivel he comes out with and perhaps, just perhaps, normal life will resume. The duped will, hopefully, open their eyes and see what we’ve seen from day 1.
Fortunately for us efficient and honest people just do not exist in government. It’s a sad state of affairs when we have to rely on government incompetence to protect us from government tyranny, but that’s how it is
Someone who appears efficient and honest, for a while, to the general public
I disagree. He has hugely undermined public trust in the pantomime. A lead authority figure has been exposed as lying to and laughing at the people from the start.
They will find it v hard to extend the restrictions now.
Masks and stayin’ apart – hugely undermined.
And it is not finished for Hancock. Malcolm Kendrick’s piece on his blog about being a gp in care homes is devastating. Read it if you have not.
This was Hancock’s show, and it was essentially euthanasia. More painful than euthanasia.
“Only obeying orders” said middle managers.
And whose orders, and what was he being promised by Vallance and co for his unquestioning obedience to their agenda?
Hancock shouldn’t be allowed to resign. He should be [words deleted for legal reasons]
The only desirable outcome is for him to be banished from office, forever, for his part in the biggest misfeasance in public office we’ve ever witnessed in this country, along with the rest of the cabinet, SAGE and others. He has probably committed some other crimes too.
Anything else is really an irrelevance. I have no sympathy for him personally, but unless he is paying for the right crimes, any punishment for him doesn’t interest me.
At last a bit of good news! Watching the demise of the man who, drunk on power, has brought untold misery and suffering to the people of the U.K. for the last 15 months. Even journalists in the daily telegraph are saying he should go. With Hancock’s half hour gone next in the firing line will be Doris himself.
Our main enemy is the Big Lie. Hancock resigning allows the govt to move on and continue with the lies.
This smells of sh*t, sorry. It seems like an engineered operation to have him removed. Something else is going down. Why did the Queen say of Hancock the other day, “that poor man!” That whole clinch thing looks too set up. I’m not buying it – I’m sure its a cover up for something much more mendacious, like all the other cover ups we know about (and don’t know about!) and he’s the fall guy to save their bacon. Be glad to see the back of the evil sod, regardless.
Again, going back to Andrew Cuomo, the New York Governor who filled the nursing homes with covid patients. If Andrew Cuomo had gone down for that, plenty of other Democrat Governors would have also fallen, because they did the same thing. Instead he was targeted for sexual harassment complaints which means the other Democrat Governors were saved.
Same deal with Wankcock. If he went down for his handling of covid, the corruption the malfeasance, the incompetence and just general spitefulness, he could take a lot of people down with him because they’re all equally guilty. If he goes down for having an affair he goes down alone.
Exactly. They’re happy to throw one of their own under the bus if it saves their sorry arses. They all deserve the gallows.
He still has to face those charges. And he may not be loyal now.
Yes – possibly – but if you look at ALL the other pictures published of the two main players in each other’s vicinity – they always seem to look enamoured of each other. I do think they were up to hanky panky even if it might have been staged for other reasons like the kind of engineered operation you posit. And if it is an engineered operation it won’t be anything good for the British people.
I don’t think it matters much whether it is engineered or not. It’s just another distraction. Covid was not an emergency, NPIs don’t work, the vaccines are not needed. Covid was not an emergency, NPIs don’t work, the vaccines are not needed. Covid was not an emergency, NPIs don’t work, the vaccines are not needed. Covid was not an emergency, NPIs don’t work, the vaccines are not needed…..
Ah the cult of the personality, its all the UK MSM are ‘good’ at.
Its an irrelevance and sidetracks attention from the real issues, however much an odious man getting ‘fired’ might feel good for a few seconds.
He’s taking a leaf out of “Professor” Neil Ferguson’s book: create a reason to resign which distracts the indignant public from the REAL reasons he should resign. And then crop up in public life a few months later, as if nothing happened.
…. I heard there was a protest going on in London today …
I confess I have repeatedly broken almost all of the Covid rules, er sorry about that. I assume the matter is now closed, no fines or anything?
It’s not a question of political expediency, but of character, here is a man that deceives his wife of 15 years standing – who he knows, and probably no doubts loves – so what chance have we ( the man/woman in the street) he doesn’t know. That trust has gone, he can redeem himself but not in that office – false in one false in all. I leave it to Bojo to dust down his classical notes in Latin.
There is much else to dig into. Did Gina pass information to her pharmaceutically involved father in Rephine – did his company benefit? Having a daughter so ahem close to the Minister gave her access to all the Government plans and information.
I see her father offers Crisis Management. I wonder if he wrote that resignation letter? Or Gina did and he read it?
Wankcock resigns.
Now how about the rest of em?
All neatly scripted, while the vaxxed numbers keep on rising and the economy contracting. The damage has been done, and MH will be well recompensed for his invaluable opening knock for the UK Big Pharma 1st XI.
“Well played that man, jolly bad luck with that damned awkward yorker….”.
And go crying all the way to the “offshore island” bank.
I don’t think it is scripted, but I agree it’s just a distraction. No reason to celebrate. Our target is the mad, evil narrative, the Big Lie. There are too many of them pushing it for it to be possible to defeat it by removing a few individuals.
Yes, here is the link:
Matt Hancock resigns as Health Secretary after kissing aide scandal
https://mol.im/a/9728531
Ta.
He’s gone! The bloody dog is dead! (Well, not literally, but it’s a start.)
So making decisions that lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of OAP’s, shutting down the health service for over a year, resulting in millions of delayed treatments and tens of thousands more premature deaths, not to mention handing over billions of OUR money to friends and family are not reasons to quit. But being caught canoodling your mistress is.
Watch your back Hancock. This isn’t over.
Scumbag 2 is out!
Although as correctly predicted it isn’t because he killed thousands and is corrupt, but because he grabbed a ass. Depending on who takes over and where handycock get’s shuffled/paid off too should reveal who was behind this manipulation.
meet the new boss.. same as the ..
https://www.wef.org.in/sajid-javid/
Hancock going is bad news for sceptics. It allows the govt to move on. Him staying would have been preferable. Sadly the govt’s political instincts still function fairly well. I think they knew it would be a step too far to keep him on.
meet the new boss.. same as the ..
https://www.wef.org.in/sajid-javid/
Replacement just announces – Sajid Javid.
Not sure whether that’s good or not but at least it isn’t Zahawi or Gove both of whom I consider dangerous to the point of evil.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/06/26/sajid-javid-replace-matt-hancock-health-secretary/
meet the new boss.. same as the ..
https://www.wef.org.in/sajid-javid/
Erm…. the whole lot of them are evil.
He’s just a fall guy.
His un-elected replacement will promise to stay true and steer Britain to freedom, so the public will give him the benefit of the doubt and sit back and do nothing but occasionally moan as the scripted agenda to collapse and reset society has another year to metastasise.
How long you think they’ve been sitting on those cctv pics of Hancock snogging? Timing is everything. All the mounting grievances and frustrations at their promise breaking and double standards (freedom day postponed, G7 restriction flouting etc.) have been turned manifest and smeared over that little creep before he is ‘booted’ out the door, to enjoy the lavish kickbacks he accumulated while dragging the country closer to hell.
And in the weakened and naive mind of the common pleb, some justice will have been served somewhere and there might be some change now, so they can breathe a sigh of relief that they don’t personally have to do something about it and risk being called a conspiracy theorist by their pleb friends and pleb neighbours who have all taken the vaccine like good little boys and girls yet continue to live in fear and ignorance, never spending even a fraction of the time seeking the truth that they spend obsessing over sports or fashion or what their pleb friends are doing on social media.
Fuck.
meet the new boss.. same as the ..
https://www.wef.org.in/sajid-javid/
meet the new boss.. same as the ..
https://www.wef.org.in/sajid-javid/
What I find utterly astounding is the lengths that ‘PAPS’ and ‘Journos’ will go to in order to get this sort of lurid photo / story. And the MSM as a whole slavering all over it. A story that whatever we may think of mendacious Mancock, will still have a horendous effect on numerous innocents. I imagine his wife, children and other family are going through their own personal hell because of this. Especially the children FFS.
OK he might deserve it, but do they?
Yet the mercenary MSM and pap bastards can’t ask a single probing question about evidnce for lockdowns, the laying down of crazy COVID laws on their audiences, ‘gene therapy’ efficacy/dangers, forced faceknickers, rule of six, magical graphs, fictional stats, generic removal of civil liberties, a potential crime against humanity and pandemic mendacity. Real journos would have a field day with all these blatant lies and bullshit.
I suppose we get what we deserve in the end. They are simply catering to the masses that make up their audince as whilst simultaneously licking the hands that feed them.
Whatever happened to real investigative mainstream journalism and old school hacks who went after the real stories that affect the lives of real people?
We miss you guys.