There can't be much better nourishment for the liberal soul than being in a room with Julian Huppert, Shami Chakrabarti, Ming Campbell and Evan Harris. A packed fringe meeting at Lib Dem Conference in Birmingham gathered to hear these esteemed speakers along with Tom Brake and Yasmin Alibai-Brown discuss the Human Rights Act.
I hadn't realised that Julian Huppert had once been a Council member of Liberty, but, frankly, it makes sense.
I tweeted my way through the meeting and I've picked up some tweets from some others.
The key message was that the Human Rights Act is vital, despite its constant trashing in the press, and that we as Liberal Democrats will fight tooth and nail to keep it in its present form as an integral part of British law.
One thing I thought was particularly relevant was Ming's comment that the rule of law was much more important than democracy. It makes a lot of sense especially after listening to a former Afghan MP talk a couple of days before about the problems women face in that country because the laws passed by Parliament are simply not enforced on the ground.
I hope the tweets give you something of the flavour of the meeting. And, for the record, I didn't think the red wine was that bad.
1 comment:
It was a really interesting meeting - will be interesting to compare the videos from all three party conferences.
Could have done with a larger room though!
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