Are human rights at risk?  Inside today’s Guardian Jack Straw argues that Britain is the asylum seekers’ country of choice because people still  have more rights and protection here than anywhere else. Oh yes? On the front page of the paper there is another article which gives a clue as to why  tomorrow’s Convention on Modern Liberty is sold out in London.

A lot of UK citizens take a different view to Jack Straw. The convention is also happening in cities across the country,  including Glasgow,  with video streaming as speaker after speaker explains why they are involved. And you can take part online. So though I am late registering this event it is not too late to listen to  powerful arguments put by the likes of Helena Kennedy, Shami Chakrabarti. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Vince Cable, Timothy Garton Ash…the impressive list goes on and on.

And never too late to care, though if we don’t pay attention to what is happening now it may be too late to stop very stupid legislation.   That Guardian front page story is about Jacquie Smith’s determination to store DNA samples of innocent people for future use. Add to that the Government’s stubborn pledge to carry on with the extraordinary expense of creating a mega database for a national ID card. (Why it makes Fred’s pension look positively cheap.)

“as if Paine, Voltaire and Mill had never existed…”

The Human Rights Act is not an easy read (I wimped out and went for the BBC extract rather than the official site), it attracts the same kind of misinformed scorn, and accumulates almost as many myths,  as health and safety regulations.  But we should guard with our lives  rights to privacy, freedom from torture, freedom from forced labour, freedom of assembly…

So even if it’s too late to go to London you can log on from 9.45 am to the excellent website made by my mate Rob Sharp (here’s the page with the days programme)  – and while you are at it read his blog and another view on the arrogance of politicians, many of them lawyers, who assume that we citizens cannot understand such difficult concepts as liberty.

Lets show em.  For in Britain as things stand now we are all guilty until proved innocent. While I think of it, dear Jacqui, you must remind me to cc you into every email I send, especially on 15 June. This is one Facebook group worth joining I am so pleased to discover there are so many like minds. As Rob says  we are not afraid. Or at least, I think,  not nearly as afraid as you claim we are, so stop trying to ‘protect’ us by nibbling away at our rights.