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I like this phrase ‘acted unlawfully’. You only really see it used when someone important has been up to something a bit dodgy. Today, it’s Jack Straw who…

…acted unlawfully by failing to provide some prisoners with access to courses to show they were safe for release, appeal judges have ruled.

Why is it never said that [insert cabinet minister] ‘broke the law’? Why did they not say that Harold Shipman ‘acted unlawfully’ when he murdered all those pensioners?

Not that I’m equating Straw’s illegal detention of prisoners with Shipman’s illegal killing of old people, obviously. It’s just that this looks like a soft pedalling of language to me.

Cabinet ministers don’t break the law, they act unlawfully. They’re not punished. They ‘review the judgement’ and ‘consider an appeal’. The implications and consequences of their actions are softened along with the language.

Usually, its only prisoners or asylum seekers (Straw is something of a recidivist) that suffer, so not many people are that bothered. It’ll be interesting to see what happens should Straw ever get around to inflicting himself on a middle class journalist.