Tory peer Lord Hanningfield is just out after a couple of months in HMP Standford Hill, a minimum security open prison of the type that the newspapers which support his party routinely characterise as ‘holiday camps’.
True, he still has to wear one of those electronic tags, and is subject to a 7.15pm curfew, which must somewhat curtail one’s opportunities to enjoy a G&T or two with the chaps at the local Conservative Club.
But he’s an old man, and I guess the punishment was pretty much in line with the gravity of his offences, which consisted in ripping the taxpayer off for £14,000 by fiddling his House of Lords expenses. Continue reading
Making the transition from Government to opposition requires that Labour recognises as quickly as possible where it went wrong, on what issues it was most decisively rejected, and seeks to distance itself from its past. Civil liberties is a prime example, and one on which the Tory performance largely bears out its opposition stance: Labour has already begun to move — by accepting the abandonment of ID Cards, for example, and abstaining yesterday on the extension of 28 day detention. But the paper trail on torture revealed in today’s 