Harrow School, 1615/Wikimedia
The Prime Minister has delayed plans to scrap the Human Rights Act, but we are told this is only a delay about getting the changes right, not about abandoning the changes altogether. Human rights are still very much in trouble, and it doesn’t surprise me, because I would argue that David Cameron and a third of his cabinet were raised in institutions which undermined their human rights. I believe that if we continue to tolerate the practise of deliberately raising small children out-with their homes and families, we are perpetuating a systemic flaw in how rights are valued.
When David Cameron left home aged seven his right to respect for private family life and home, under article 8 of the HRA, was contravened. Attending a preparatory school in the seventies, it is highly likely that his correspondence was not private either, as letters home were often checked as late as the 1990s. I wouldn’t like to speculate as to the level of freedom of thought under article 9 he experienced, or whether he endured punishment without breaking the law (article 7), or degrading and inhuman treatment (article 3) as was not uncommon in boarding schools of the era. While corporal punishment was on the wane in the eighties, due to fashion and complaints rather than a genuine belief that beating children wasn’t very nice, it was not outlawed in private schools until 1999. We do know that he was made to write a Georgic, some sort of weird repetitive writing task, which would nowadays be classed as menial and degrading. Living in an institution surrounded only by other wealthy upper class young men, we might question whether his freedom of assembly and association under article 11 was upheld. And anyone who has ever tried to borrow so much as a herbal tea-bag from an ex public school boy will have felt the wrath of what an upbringing where article 1 protocol 1, that freedom to peacefully enjoy ones possessions, is not respected, can do to a person.
