Call 999 and report Jack Straw!

The Leader of the House is no modern-day champion of free speech, says peter briffa

Ibet Jack Straw can hardly believe his luck. The veil row rumbles on, with Gordon Brown the latest colleague to join the fray (he agrees, if you're keeping score). A week ago, Straw was an ex-Home Secretary, ex-Foreign Secretary, current Leader of the House of Commons and future nobody. Now he's talked of as Brown's deputy PM.

Moreover, even those who disagree with him (Peter Hain and John Prescott, by the way) have bent over backwards to say that it's good we're at least having this debate.

Jack Straw, champion of free speech! Who'd have thought it? This is the same Jack Straw, remember, who as Home Secretary introduced the Macpherson Report, with its philosophy of 'institutionalised racism', requiring the police to investigate "any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person".

Was Jack Straw stirring up hatred? Hardly. But neither was the Pope, and nor were the Danish cartoonists

But before you dial 999 to get Straw prosecuted, what about last February's Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, which Straw voted for and which only failed to get through the Commons by one vote? What was that about?

Well as Paul Goggins, then a Home Office Minister, explained: "For a prosecution to succeed, it would be necessary to prove either that someone intended to stir up hatred, or that they were aware that their actions or words would stir up religious hatred, yet they continued."

Was Jack Straw stirring up hatred? Hardly. But neither was the Pope, and nor were the Danish cartoonists. But it didn't take long, once a few riots had taken place, for the bien- pensants to hint darkly that they'd known all along what they were doing – and yet they continued.

If that law had been passed, you can be sure there would now be several people demanding Straw be prosecuted under it. Close shave, Jack.

FIRST POSTED OCTOBER 12, 2006