Peter Clarke, former head of Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism squad, has been stirring things up again at Policy Exchange, the right-leaning think tank...
Roger Smith flies the flag for more scrutiny, less originalism
Peter Clarke, former head of Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism squad, has been stirring things up again at Policy Exchange, the right-leaning think tank. At an event on 10th January, he took the opportunity to argue that the Human Rights Act unduly impeded the policing of protests.
Mr Clarke demonstrates an unfortunate tendency to equate protestors with terrorists. “No one”, he wrote in the Daily Telegraph “should be surprised by the ferocity...of the current crop of protestors”. This is a bit sweeping. There is—and often has been—a minority on almost any major march looking for trouble. However, the problems with the current student protests seem much more to have been with young people who got carried away with the excitement of the moment.
Mr Clarke does not like the Human Rights Act. It interferes, he says, with the operational independence of the police. He fears the interference of the judges, observing that “perhaps smashing
