The Guardian today has a story about Lord Lester’s disgust and disappointment as Labour’s human rights record. Oh, well. You’ll remember he resigned as a government adviser last month.
I doubt the government is all that heartbroken at his going; they got the small amount of political kudos they wanted from his appointment last year, and could probably do without an “adviser” who wants policies quite different from theirs. I have to say I think he was naive in the extreme if he thought the government was likely to increase its exposure to international human rights litigation at the moment – and he probably now realises it was a mistake for him ever to have accepted his appointment as a “goat”. Those LibDems who have been arguing for some time in common with the Tories that Gordon Brown’s government is authoritarian can be rightly miffed that Lord Lester lent himself to Brown’s cause for so long.
Sadly, you make a very good point here. being a libertarian would not sit well within this government. I’m not too sure it would have worked in some of the earlier British governments either. They all tend to let power go to their heads as they pursue their own agendas and forget that they are actually there as representatives of the people. In America the very name House of Representatives is a continual reminder of that fact.