Secondly the concept of a Some Humans’ Rights Act drives a coach and four through quite a lot of things we’ve signed up to internationally, although there are obviously cases where this already (presumably legally) exists, like benefits entitlement, visas, work permits etc. where Johnny Foreigner has his life made difficult. Extending that to actual fundamental human rights strikes me as a step too far, though. Of course, the idea that the ECHR itself is explicitly designed to adapt to changing times and is therefore open to them to edit (if they can negotiate agreement on it) is conspicuous by its absence.

There’s also the obvious point that a Bill of Rights is approximately nowhere on the list of what a rational constitutional physician would prescribe for Mr. UK’s various ills; where’s a better voting system, extending devolution, reducing the power of the Civil Service, abolishing the establishment of the C of E, extending Freedom of Information etc.?

I’ll have to blog this properly next week, but my read on from what’s already filtering out of the MoJ by way of ‘let’s start the denate’ speeches is Straw’s ‘British Bill of Rights’ is that it will try to do two things.

One will be to try to reign in the judiciary by finding ways to define in law not just what our rights are but how they should be interpreted in law.

And the second will be to try to draw demarcation lines between the rights of British citizens and the rights of non-citizens, which will amount to watering down HRA for Johnny Foreigner to make it a bit easier to toss him out the country.

- Scrapping the oldest office of the crown only to be told that, erm… they don’t have the authority? Check.

- Diminishing that office by splicing it with a newly-created (largely synonymous) Justice Secretary, and then handing that office to Jack Straw? Check.

- Using the Parliament Act to force legislation pas the neutered Lords more times in a decade than it had been in the preceding five? Check.

- Introducing a Human Rights Act, supposedly inviolable, before realising that giving the people rights means the government has to, erm… abide by that agreement – and then repeatedly trying to wriggle out of their commitment? Check.

- Changing the language of all subsequent attempts at constitutional reform by using the phrase “rights and obligations” whenever referring to the people who must abide by their latest whim? Check.

And, of course, the most significant:

- Reforming the House of Lords with nothing to put in its place? Check.

- Having already buggered up the Lords once, proposing further reforms to create a diminished second chamber elected on a popular basis but with no concurrent revision of either its purpose or that of the Commons, meaning the Lords will have to function on two-thirds the number of members, and will be utterly unable to give future bills the scrutiny they need? Check.

And those are just off the top of my head.

The thing that really surprises me is how they don’t seem to realise that the changes they’ve made and are making to increase government power could equally well be used by the Tories when they get back into office. Unless that’s the reason for the recent noises about electoral reform (based, as far as I can tell, on the chaotic and impossible-to-understand system used to elect Harriet Harman Deputy Leader).

God, they’re a shower of incompetent (devious? Dunno…) shits. It’s almost enough to make me commit categorically to voting Tory. Almost…