There may be trouble ahead

WITH a tiny majority and what could prove fleeting co-operation from irascible backbenchers, David Cameron is anxious to move quickly in his second term. Among the priorities for his first 100 days is the abolition of the Human Rights Act (HRA). It is not his best idea.

The act, passed by a Labour government in 1998, incorporated into British law the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which Britain signed—and indeed helped to write—more than 60 years ago. It allows Britons to challenge human-rights violations in British courts rather than going to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.