PETER HITCHENS: There’s no such thing as Human Rights

Human rights do not exist. They are an invention, made out of pure wind. If you are seriously interested in staying free, you should not rely on these flatulent, vague phrases to help you.

They are in fact a weapon in the hands of those who wish to remove your liberty and transform society, though this is probably an accident. It is only in the past 50 years or so that radical judges have realised these baseless declarations can be used (for example) to abolish national frontiers or give criminals the right to vote.

You may agree with these policies. But shouldn’t such things be decided by an elected parliament? That is not the view of the new wave of activist lawyers who have begun to dominate the courts since the Blair government’s revolutionary Judicial Appointments Commission began…