Legal Heavyweights on Hacking of MPs mobile phones

After Andy Coulson's resignation last week in relation to the scandal that MPs (and other 'celebrities') had their phones hacked into - the matter is being considered today before the Standards & Privileges Committee.

The witnesses are due to be -

Professor A W Bradley - a leading academic on Constitutional Law. Students will recognise him from the textbook known as "Wade & Bradley" - a popular textbook on UK Constitutional & Administrative Law



Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC - a widely acclaimed human rights lawyer, who is also a Liberal Democrat Peer. He was named in The Times Law 100 2009 listing the most influential lawyers in Britain - with the comment that he is a “leading public and constitutional lawyer, is still changing the law and pushing the boundaries of reform”.

Rt Hon Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead - was a Law Lord, sitting on the House of Lords Judicial Committee, then the highest court in England (Now replaced by the Supreme Court). He is responsible for many of the leading judgements - and in the Pinochet case wrote in his judgement "International law has made plain that certain types of conduct, including torture and hostage-taking, are not acceptable conduct on the part of anyone. This applies as much to heads of state, or even more so, as it does to everyone else. The contrary conclusion would make a mockery of international law."
Location: The Grimond Room, Portcullis House

Angry MPs

Rosie Winterton made the following remarks in the Commons yesterday -

With regard to the allocation of time for the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, can the Leader of the House tell us whether he thinks there will be adequate time to put right the abject failure of the Deputy Prime Minister to explain why public inquiries into parliamentary constituency changes are to be abolished? It was fairly clear on Monday that the Deputy Prime Minister has employed the services of the Tory grandee, "Sir Gerry Mander", as his special adviser, but surely even he must realise that removing the right of local people to have a say in constituency boundaries is not only wrong in principle, but will also lead to endless expensive judicial reviews in the courts.


We now have clear advice from the Clerk of the House that the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill is similarly ill thought-out and will also end up being challenged in the courts. Those two Bills are prime examples of the betrayal of the promise of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government to have pre-legislative scrutiny wherever possible. Worse than that, they are in the first case anti-democratic and in the second case unworkable. The only thing the Leader of the House should do is withdraw those Bills, go back to the drawing board and come back with legislation that respects our democracy and respects Parliament. I urge him to do so.

On another matter - Tom Watson spoke of  "the tawdry secret" see the clip posted on Washminster yesterday.

Are MPs getting angrier? I it synthetic or are there real issues at stake? Now that the tea party organisers have crossed the Atlantic to advise on tactics, and public sector unions are gearing up to fight the coming cuts - are we about to set politics becoming angrier in Britain?

Your comments please - either via this page or to info@washminster.com