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Terrorism Bill

My Lords, I want to echo what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester said about the extent to which British legislation becomes an instance and, indeed, a model for legislation in many other Commonwealth countries—not least, in countries which are far more threatened with tyranny than ourselves. That is highly striking, as anyone who follows the discussions of the Commonwealth Heads of Government will be well aware. Our legislation is closely copied, particularly in a large number of African countries. We should bear that in mind. When my grandmother was a young woman she was brought up on the glorification of Garibaldi, so much so that it became the name of a famous biscuit. My grandmother was an extremely respectable and conventional lady but she thought Garibaldi was simply wonderful. When my mother was a young woman she began to admire very greatly those who sought to bring about the franchise for women by putting little firebrands into postboxes. She admired this because years and years of effort to get the women’s franchise by every possible moderate method had been relatively unsuccessful. When I was a young woman I was brought up to admire Nelson Mandela because apartheid had been in existence by then for many decades, steadily getting worse, and it was only when, in effect, he adopted a policy of limited violence against property—not against human beings—that the position of the South African government became intolerable. Was my family wrong to glorify each of those people?