Tories 'lurching right'

The new shadow home secretary, Dominic Grieve, is trying to prove himself, Mr Huhne suggested

Tuesday, 16, Sep 2008 12:00

Chris Huhne sent a warning to the Conservatives last night, accusing them of moving to the right on civil liberties issues.

The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson said his Tory counterpart Dominic Grieve's policies threatened to destroy the Conservative-Lib Dem alliance on civil liberties currently used to challenge the counterterrorism bill.

Proposals to toughen bail conditions, accelerate the prison-building programme and introduce automatic prison sentences for those carrying knives attracted criticism from Mr Huhne.

He described the latter policy as "a completely uncosted, totally populist bit of tabloid titillation".

"It's quite astonishing," he added. "All of these things adding up to my mind to quite a substantial lurch back to the old populist tradition of the Conservative party and away from the more common approach to civil liberties which we had managed to develop before the recess."

Mr Huhne suggested Mr Grieve felt impulses to drift rightwards on traditional Tory issues of law and order because he was unproven in the field.

"I think in Dominic Grieve we have someone who looks as if they have impeccable liberal credentials. One thing Dominic does not have is the broken nose of an old pugilist like David Davis.

"Funnily enough, it may mean he is rather keener to project his tougher side than David Davis needed to be. He didn't need to prove he was a hard-boiled old Thatcherite. And actually that perhaps gave them a bit of latitude… that he would not have had otherwise."

Mr Huhne said he fears it may not be possible to achieve a similar level of opposition to the counterterrorism bill, which increases pre-charge detention to 42 days, as was seen before the summer recess.

"I certainly hope we're still going to muster the sort of vote we did in the House of Commons which is crucial if we are to sustain the Lords. The Lords get very nervous if they are repeatedly batting back the Commons' majority."

The bill will go through its final stages once parliament returns on October 6th.