Both the Guardian and the Telegraph report that Cherie Blair was heckled at a fringe meeting of the Tory Party conference. The discussion was about the Human Rights Act of 1998, which signed the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law.
Here is how the Guardian reported the events:
As she tried to say that the HRA was there to protect fundamental rights such as the right to life, some activists heckled her but she went on to defend the act. “We should be proud that in our country we do not have an elected dictatorship, and that the courts are there to protect individual rights. And, yes, that does apply to the most unpopular people, whether they are criminals, whether they are Gypsies, whether they are illegal asylum seekers, because in the end we are a decent society and we believe that everybody is entitled to respect and that has to be policed on our behalf.”
Now, what is the impression you get from this bit of reporting? It sounds like Blair is defending the rights of Gypsies and asylum seekers, doesn’t it? It sounds like Tory activists were objecting to this, as they always do in leftist mythology.
Here is the Telegraph:
Paul Bowman, whose teenage daughter Sally Anne was raped before being stabbed and her body defiled, challenged Mrs Blair to explain why “inhuman” murderers should be protected by the law.
She angered delegates at a fringe meeting at Conservative Party conference by suggesting that those who wished to change the Human Rights Act were advocating the return of slavery or disagreed with the sanctity of life.
There were hisses and angry shouts from the crowd, which included a number of victims’ relatives, as Mrs Blair, a leading human rights lawyer, was drowned out and forced to abandon her argument.
Well, that’s rather different isn’t it? She was heckled by victims’ relatives who were complaining about the protection afforded to their tormentors.
EU007 