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Voting by Prisoners

I hope that hon. Members will forgive me, but we only have five minutes each, and I do not want to overrun. Traditional social and political liberalism has now been replaced by a raw economic liberalism—or perhaps a Labourist punitionism—since May 2010. There are no Roy Jenkins, no Jo Grimonds, no Michael Foots and no leading Liberals such as the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy) and the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) to stand up for unpopular or even lost causes. The press has only to indicate its displeasure at a proposal for giving prisoners serving short sentences the right to vote, and MPs of all parties queue up to join this illiberal campaign. Populist illiberalism is the new politics of much of the continent, and it is a shame to see it arrive in the Commons. I hope that my country does not tear up the treaty or quit the Council of Europe. However, the fact that we are having this debate shows how far we have moved from the promotion of human rights that Winston Churchill and his successors up to May 2010 always believed in.