I never said it was perfect however I believe it right that we should bring back to our country the final say regarding the law.

So you do not seem to believe in democracy then? Can you produce proof your allegation of "election- rigging" Can you provide some proof of the "truckloads of cash" to spend?

I did not vote for Ukip but I know they have had good results in the Local elections for some time now and more than a decade ago they did well in the Euro elections and last year they became the largest party in the EU parliament. So like them or loath them to suggest they have not earned a platform is undemocratic. Will you be suggesting that at the next election Labour gets 1/59 share of the media coverage? I wonder!

No. Please spare us more of your "we was robbed" fiction. The public voted fair and square having listened to and rejected all the Labour scare stories about the NHS, zero hour contracts, the rich not paying taxes, food banks etc etc. The sooner you accept the result and move on the less angry you will be.

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It would also impact on the quality of our MP's in my opinion, by letting in the lower echelons of the minor parties.

Would our Parliament be improved by having the 82nd best UKIP candidate in it, or the 24th best Green party candidate (given that the leader could barely string 2 sentences together)? How rigorous are the selection policies of the minor parties? How does the 82nd best UKIP candidate compare in experience, education and intellect to the 243rd best Conservative candidate?

I suspect there are a few of their own MP's that the SNP would rather not have in Parliament now, and would have had a more rigorous selection process if they knew they would win 56 seats.

At least with the current system you know exactly which candidate you are casting your vote for.

Who's "we"?

Not really. It was a disaster when it was first implemented in Greece (at the business end of the phalanx) - bringing down the entire Athenian empire within years. The Greeks very quickly discovered that he who controls the flow of information controls the democracy and the entire system was wide open to be "gamed" by the likes of Alcibiades and other such demagogues.

Plato nary had a good word to say about it. Alexander The Great paid little more than lip service. The Romans thought it was quaint etc. etc.

The notion that democracy is self-evidently the finest political system in the world is a relatively new idea. In truth it was the Spartan system which right up until the first World War was universally admired.

Would that we have the original Greek interpretation of representative democracy anyhow - where politicians are selected purely on the strength of their abilities, must balance the books at the end of each year, are forced to account for the actions under direct inquiry from the citizenry, fight at or near the front of the phalanx during war and face the threat of ostracism (or worse) in the event of incompetence.

Politicians these days have it easy.

What it will mean is that instead of our Supreme Court making decisions, based on ECHR agreements. For as long as we remain a member of the EU, then any UK subject will still have the right to appeal to the European Court of Justice. Repealing the Human Rights Act will just help serve the lawyers.

Unless of course, this bunch of misfits really are intent on leaving the EU

This seems to sum things up nicely: www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/econ ... -tree.html

This seems to sum things up nicely: www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/econ ... -tree.html

Quote Dally="Dally"This seems to sum things up nicely: www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/econ ... -tree.html'" Only if you happen to be a rabid neo-liberal

Quote Dally="Dally"This seems to sum things up nicely: www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/econ ... -tree.html'" Only if you happen to be a rabid neo-liberal

The HRA was brought in to do exactly the opposite. Too many cases were being taken to the ECHR to overturn a British decision (and mostly under the 1990s Conservative government...), so the principles Cod'ead listed were brought fully into British law in 1998 to enable British courts to consider them and make decisions. Hopefully this would (and probably did) save the exchequer a few pennies by avoiding government lawyers having to schlepp over to Strasbourg to defend a case when it could more easily be done here.

If the HRA is repealed (unless we also decide to withdraw from the convention and join Kazakhstan and Belarus outside it), all that will happen is that millions of £ of public money will be spent defending HR cases outside the UK. It's a knee jerk policy in response to successful applications by people the government don't like, and those applications are based largely on crappy decision making by the government's own staff in the first place.

We do have a "proud and well earned history of justice and ... human rights". Let's not ditch it for the sake of a political soundbite and media crying.

Yep. Our courts can decide these cases and either losing party can ultimately go to the ECJ. In practice there's little point as a group of senior judges has already considered your case and rejected it so you may as well accept the decision. Repealing the HRA will mean that every case can now go there.