Tim Worstall

Changes to the law allow Mrs May to confiscate Britons’ passports if they plan to travel abroad to take part in terror training camps, or carry out other terror-related activities. Mrs May said the powers could be used against people whose “actual or suspected” activities had given the security services concern. Try people and convict [...]

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David Cameron is considering a temporary withdrawal from the European human rights convention in order to finally remove Abu Qatada from Britain. The Prime Minister held a ‘council of war’ with senior ministers yesterday to find a way of deporting the hate preacher to his native Jordan to face terror charges, according to sources. Home [...]

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Mediadem closely follows CCMR’s interventionist agenda. In the policy brief co-authored by Dr Craufurd Smith, it said: “Liberal conceptions of media freedom focus on editorial freedom for government interference…. [however] states may also be required to take positive measures to curtail the influence of powerful economic or political groups…. this entails that neither the media, [...]

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Folks, we have free speech in Britain. Yes, free speech does indeed mean being able to mock the beliefs of others. Upset people even. It is not that idiots are allowed to jump for joy at the death of another. Or that they have permission in some manner. It is that they have an absolute [...]

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Over here. For the jurisdiction of publication is not where the servers or printing presses are. It’s where the reader is. Meaning that the entire world’s online press is now caught in UK regulation.

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British citizens could be forced to carry ID cards to access free NHS care as part of crackdown on health tourism Any excuse will do. For the bureaucracy just hates the idea that we can wadner around unidentified. Almost as if we owned the country.

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Yes, yes, large numbers of jurors are fools, just like large sections of the population are (how else to explain the Labour Party?). And yes, most certainly, it would be more efficient to have it all done by judges and magistrates and never the common people get a look see. However, at root here, we’re [...]

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I have to admit that I don’t like the sound of this. In a new assault on planning rules, the Law Commission began a consultation, which is backed by ministers, which could lead to the centuries-old entitlement to daylight being ditched to stop home owners holding up building projects. It’s a Common Law right: The [...]

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Legal advice reportedly sent to David Cameron warns that church could be sued under human rights legislation if they refuse to allow the services to proceed. Exemption granted to the Church of England by the Coalition Bill to prevent it having to conduct gay marriages is “eminently challenge-able” in the European Court of Human Rights. [...]

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So while we’re all talking about whether we should try to leave the EU, reform it, reform the relationship with it, lead from the centre or become the revolutionary vanguard of it, here’s Eric Pickles showing what the fucking problem is: Britons should be free to wear religious symbols because “faith galvanises our communities”, Eric [...]

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Apologies, the force field that usually manages to maintain reality around here, even when quoting from The Guardian, seems to have failed for a few minutes this morning. The reaction to this story should be appended to the facts of this one and vice versa. If you’re the traditional sort of right wing authoritarian that [...]

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Mustn’t let them get away with this sort of nonsense: Venezuelan intelligence officers have raided the home of a Twitter user suspected of spreading destabilising rumours about the health of Hugo Chávez ahead of an inauguration that the ailing president looks increasingly unlikely to attend. …. Medina, who was not at home, is accused of [...]

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Don’t these people know the meaning of free speech? A Kuwaiti court sentenced a man to two years in prison on Monday for insulting the country’s ruler on Twitter, his lawyer said, the second person to be jailed for the offence in as many days. An outrage I say!

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Material produced and distributed by Ahmed Faraz ended up in the hands of almost every major terrorist in Britain. Among his customers were Mohammed Sidique Khan, the leader of the July 7 bomb plot, and members of the trans-Atlantic airline gang, who cited his texts in their suicide videos. Court of Appeal judges found the [...]

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The US has made a fetish of first amendment rights. We should follow France’s example in restricting bigotry’s free expression I’m afraid it’s the same old argument. I practice free speech, you are homophobic/racist/genderist/misogynist, they are spouting hate speech. I’m perfectly happy with the restrictions of libel (although perhaps not the specific English laws about [...]

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Lawyers at an Indian court hearing the case of a fatal gang-rape say they will refuse to defend the men accused of taking part in the brutal attack. The 23-year-old victim died in hospital at the weekend after 13-day struggle to survive injuries so grievous that part of her intestines had to be removed. The [...]

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But a further 28% of voters thought that gay people should be allowed to get married to each other and religious organisations should be required to provide wedding ceremonies to gay people. That’s what the problem is. Someone wants to start the “Catholic Church which provides gay marriages despite Il Papa“? Go for it. Have [...]

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Secret trials would enable justice to be done in cases where the Government would otherwise have to pay compensation, the former head of MI5 says. Writing in The Times today, Baroness Manningham-Buller says that because secret material cannot be used in court, the Government is forced to settle claims whose merits have not been scrutinised [...]

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Abu Qatada, the extremist cleric, will be back on the streets of Britain today and allowed to roam free for eight hours a day after a court ruled he cannot be deported. The decision means that the security services and police will now have to watch him around the clock in a surveillance operation that [...]

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A British citizen whose family believe he is being tortured by American secret agents has suddenly had all his rights as a UK national removed by the Home Secretary. Mahdi Hashi – who MI5 once tried to recruit as a spy – has been deprived of his British passport, denied access to consular assistance and [...]

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