No laughing matter

The prime minister and the home secretary are pursuing a campaign of opposition to the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA 1998), which they blame for preventing the deportation of foreign criminals. The illustrations on which they have based their complaints have repeatedly misrepresented the facts. As the world now knows, the home secretary referred at the Conservative party conference earlier this month to “the illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because—and I am not making this up—he had a pet cat”. This was untrue. If the home secretary did not make it up someone made it up on her behalf. The immigrant had a cat but the Judicial Communications Office issued a statement pointing out that the cat had nothing to do with the decision. The lawyers in the case confirmed this. Nor did the case involve a criminal conviction. The immigrant was a student seeking leave to remain in the UK because he had established a long term relationship (over four years) with a