James: Agree with your first paragraph, subject to what I say above.
Obviously, I’m sad to say, I agree less with your second paragraph though! You say that unless the courts have more power Parliament can trample our rights at a whim, but that raises two questions.

Firstly, from where do courts derive their legitimacy? I don’t believe in some sort of quasi-divine basis upon which power is exercised. I believe it should be exercised at, and only at, the will of the demos (and I have views on when I think that demos should agree to power being exercised, which are fairly restrictive and respectful of liberties). I don’t view the state as some institution inherent upon our existence.

Secondly, what “rights” are trampled, and how do they become “rights”? You say yourself that the only reason people have “rights” under the HRA is because Parliament has decided that it won’t do certain things. You believe that there is a higher “qualification”, from what I can tell, as to what powers should or can be legitimately exercised by the state. This is all a bit too much like the convergence theory for me… I could be convinced as to the need for a bill of rights, which constricts Parliament, but I’d be concerned it was a mere fig-leaf and a sovereign Parliament acting responsibly isn’t doing such a terribly bad job at the moment. I disagree with the intrusions of liberty which are taking place, but don’t believe they violate some quasi-divine code.

[In relation to the name of my blog, I believe that Parliament should trust people more, but that is a very separate concept to that of trusting *the* people. I see Parliament as a necessary embodiment of collective will on a restricted range of issues, but I do have grave concerns over it purporting to be acting out of will of "the people" - as this very often connotates a small group deciding what it is "the people" are meant to want or believe, when there'll actually be a great diversity of wills and opinions.]

Not as eloquent as I’ve sometimes put it…but I haven’t had lunch yet, am hungover and in a hurry. Sorry. I think it just about does the job!

If L-C can be a success, then I’m happy. Tactical voting is a natural phenomena under FPTP anyway, and the positive reponses to L-C have made me a lot less bitter over the last two weeks.

However, for the debate at hand, I think essentially Cameron has, and is positioning himself, in the centre ground. If you accept the compass (which I’m assuming we do) as a valid analysis, he’s taking centre ground economically and authority/liberty.

LibDems are much better on liberty, but it’s good to see the Tories rejecting their authoritarian wing on certain issues, if not all of them. HRA is a distraction anyway, unless we withdraw from ECHR and thus EU as well (not going to happen), the terms are still binding.

But should the courts have greater powers in extreme situations? Absolutely, otherwise human rights legislation is worthless and politicians can just trample on our rights on a whim (your blog is called “trust people” yet you seem remarkably keen on parliamentary - as opposed to popular - sovereignty). That doesn’t mean going down the route of politicising the courts as we’ve seen in the US. We’re already signed up to the ECHR (something which even UKIP supported in the last General Election), but that is a convoluted route. Why wouldn’t we want British courts deliberating on British cases with human rights legislation tailored to British circumstances in the first instance?

So he can still be a defender of civil liberties and the answer to all our civil liberty prayers?