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13 June 2014 / Roger Smith
Issue: 7610 / Categories: Opinion , Human rights
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Signs of hope

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It’s not all doom & gloom for legal aid & human rights lawyers, says Roger Smith

Legal aid and human rights lawyers are having a pretty torrid time at the present. Thank heaven for three reasons to celebrate a bit of relief.

Steady as she goes

Labour proceeds with caution these days. Given that the Conservative Party sought to demonise Tony Blair as a swivel-eyed lefty, we can probably anticipate little let up as the election approaches in critique of Labour’s current leadership as much the same. This seems rather at odds with much of what senior Labour figures actually say. Certainly the shadow Lord Chancellor, Sadiq Khan, must be rather grateful for the rightwing press painting him as a radical firebrand, given what he actually says.

Khan used The Telegraph to announce a pretty mild Labour approach to the Human Rights Act, albeit that it was heralded with the momentous “Labour will shift power back to the courts”. His argument was that Labour was unhappy with any notion that the UK Supreme

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