leaving your human rights behind

Dear David Cameron

The following two comments have been brought to my attention, I wonder if you could clarify them for me.

1. On the Politics show recently you expressed your belief that 'The moment a burglar steps over your threshold and invades your property ... I think they leave their human rights outside.’ In terms of international law, you are of course wrong, as I am sure you are aware. Until you succeed in your aim of abolishing the Human Rights Act, you are also wrong in terms of national law. Were you therefore expressing a personal desire for international law (as well as national law) to be changed in this respect; and if so, could you clarify which rights you think the burglar should 'leave behind'?

In Cameron's Britain, for example, would it be legal (and acceptable) to kill or subject to torture a petty thief if he/she crosses the threshold of your home? If not killing and torture, where would you draw the line? Perhaps you are suggesting that such people should lose their right to a fair trial, their right to be presumed innocent before being found guilty?

2. You illustrated the 'strange decisions' that the Human Rights Act has given rise to by the following example: 'For instance, you get the decision to give the prisoner hard core pornography. If you had a British Bill of Rights that had more common sense written into it, you could probably avoid having some of these things happening.'

I am surprised that your researchers have not bothered to correct you on this score and indeed that you yourself might actually believe this to be a plausible example of the HRA's effects. Dennis Nilson did indeed try to bring a claim to use the HRA to demand access to pornographic magazines but as you should know, the High Court rejected his claim. It is precisely an example of the 'common sense' nature of the Human Rights Act that it does not entitle prisoners to access hard core pornography.

If you really think there needs to be a serious debate about human rights in the UK and elsewhere, a rethinking of centuries of legal, ethical and political thought, then let us at least have this debate without resorting to falsehoods and propaganda. If it is indeed your view that human rights should no longer be regarded as universal, indivisible and inalienable, in contradistinction to international agreement and international law; and if you would be happy to withdraw this country's previous consent to those principles, then we should let the world and the country know. But letting people know in the context of a false debate about what human rights in fact mean and where they come from is doing human beings in this country and elsewhere no service at all.

I would be grateful if you could respond specifically to my questions about your comments, rather than providing me with a blanket statement on Conservative Party policy.

Thank you for your attention.

antarchi