A Shield and a Safeguard

The Portuguese foreign minister has let the side down for Britain's oldest alliance by suggesting that European countries - possibly including the Poodle Archipelago - should offer asylum to nearly two hundred terrorist terror suspects who have no case to answer and are thus currently enjoying the status of guests at the Guantánomaly. Barack Obama has said he will close the site, and the Portuguese foreign minister seems to think that European countries should take some sort of interest in whether the ex-detainees are tortured further. He used the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to post an open letter to his counterparts in the EU and on the Portuguese government website.

Our own Glorious Successor, apparently unaware of the policies of Jack Straw, the pronouncements of Agent Smith or the pursuits of James Purnell, observed that "in a country like Britain with a strong tradition of democracy, it is all too easy to take our rights for granted", and claimed that the Human Rights Act, which his government has ignored or trampled at every opportunity, was "shield and a safeguard for us all". The Minister of Dawn Raids and Deportations celebrated the anniversary by pandering to the Daily Mail and deciding not to appoint a successor to Lord Lester, a "founding father of the Human Rights Act" who has finally taken the hint on New New Labour's attitude to human rights and walked out in disgust.