Britain’s rights
THE Left loves to claim that quitting the European Court of Human Rights would turn Britain into some kind of authoritarian nightmare state.
Leaving the ECHR would put us on a par with Putin’s Russia or Belarus, they shriek.
Chief among their arguments is that the court vitally underpins the Good Friday Agreement which brought peace to Northern Ireland.
Without it, they claim Belfast would be plunged back into sectarian hate.
Yet a report from legal experts today blows that idea out of the water.
The Policy Exchange insists there is nothing in the detail of the Agreement that prevents the UK from leaving the ECHR whenever we like.
Where once the idea of breaking with the Strasbourg court seemed politically impossible, now even Labour grandees like Jack Straw and David Blunkett are calling for it.
They recognise that it is probably the only way to stop lawyers and soft judges using its outdated framework to allow small boat illegal migrants and dangerous foreign criminals the right to stay on totally spurious rights grounds.
As long as Britain remains a member of the ECHR, there is a danger we will never be fully in control of our borders.
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Green folly
ED Miliband’s current energy policy is to ban new drilling for oil and gas in British waters while paying exorbitant fees to import them from other countries when wind farms prove unreliable.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is right to call this “absurd”.
Britain is already a world leader in climate change.
It is madness to put our energy security at risk for decades by ignoring huge reserves of fossil fuels in the North Sea.
That should be used to power our grid while we wait for clean power sources to work properly.
Fracking to open up huge natural shale gas fields should also be back on the agenda.
Eco zealot Miliband’s unnecessary green gamble threatens to plunge us all into darkness.
Never again
JON Venables has been given countless chances — at vast public expense — to change his life.
He has failed every time.
Venables is a monster consumed by depraved urges. Seemingly, he will never be reformed.
Yet here we are again with him preparing yet another bid for freedom.
Once more the family of his toddler victim James Bulger will be put through the wringer.
The Parole Board must refuse him.
