Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Following my brief report from the front line of the ippr fringe, I've read Jack Straw's speech to the conference. Straw heads the Ministry of Justice and is Michael Wills' boss. So those initiatives which Wills is set to announce will be signed off by Jack. He told the Conference that his new role includes being lord chancellor:
"you can tell how modern it is from the dress I'll have to wear on state occasions - embroidered gown, frock coat, breeches, buckled shoes, silk tights.
But comrades, you should know that in a key step on the forward march to socialism, I'm dispensing with the wig".
Ha, ha. Mention of the concerns Geoffrey Bindman raised about conflicts of interest came there none. The headlines in the papers were all about 'have a go' Jack. Like the whole conference, this was in part a deliberate distraction, positioning himself to attract positive coverage from the Tory press so that policy issues would be ignored. This is what he said about the coming British Bill of Rights and...
It is from our mutual obligations that the rights we have must flow.
That was well understood by those who inspired and drafted the European Convention on Human Rights. They were British lawyers - senior Conservatives, as it happens.
That was also well understood by the first MPs who called for the European Convention to be brought into British law. Again, they were senior Conservatives.
The Convention, the Human Rights Act, set out values which are British above all.
Their language echoes down the corridors of our history, as far back as the Magna Carta - the right to life, the right to a fair trial, the right to marry, the right to free speech.
Only today's Conservatives, in their political confusion and intellectual meltdown, would contemplate abandoning these rights. We will not do so.
Instead, we are developing and consulting on a British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, which will build on the Human Rights Act and which would bring out more clearly the responsibilities we owe to each other - above all to observe the law and to respect the rights of others.
This British bill and the consultation with it is part of the major programme of constitutional change which Gordon Brown announced in his first key statement to Parliament as prime minister.
This programme is about what it means to be British.
Most other countries, through the traumas of revolution, occupation or colonisation, have had to argue what it means to be a citizen.
We have escaped these traumas, but we've escaped the argument too, so that we have only an instinct but not an articulation of what it means to be British.
So as part of this work we will be launching a great public debate on a British Statement of Values.
It won't be long now. Will the "British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities" be the same, quite different, or linked to the "British Statement of Values"? The latter, from what Michael Wills was saying, will almost certainly be drawn up by 1,000 regular people. But will they have the authority to discuss what Jack Straw wears when he takes on the oldest office of state in the land?
