US president suggests he may embark on a state visit
Battle joined to defend democracy
Police palestine protest
BATTLE was joined to defend the right to protest today as the government launched a twin-track attack on the Palestine solidarity movement.
Top cabinet minister Michael Gove launched a mendacious smear attack on the pro-Palestine protests while Lord Walney, the government’s “independent adviser” on political disruption, published his long-trailed report full of repressive measures.
Yet even while moving to attack democratic rights, the government was handed a stinging rebuke by High Court judges who ruled today that earlier measures by the Home Office to make it easier to ban protests were unlawful.
More from this author
ANDREW MURRAY casts an eye over past upheavals and asks whether the left can find a fire escape before the world goes up in flames
But Business Secretary downplays prospect of full nationalisation and declines to extend emergency assistance to Port Talbot or Grangemouth
ANDREW MURRAY wonders whether recent opinion polling and a fresh local authority by-election result in Ilford are an indication that the time is ripe for the left to make inroads
