In this case, Mr Hague has no leverage for his demands and no support from Britain’s EU partners. Mr Blair is right to say that Mr Hague’s policy would lead to national humiliation or exit from Europe,The Conservative plan to lock up all asylum-seekers in detention centres, which is markedly more punitive than anything practised by previous Tory governments, is offensive, illiberal and a cue for racism and xenophobia. Above all, the present Conservative Party is so fundamentally inward-looking that it seems incapable of providing this country with the leadership it needs.On the eve of the 1987 election, the first in this paper’s history, we warned against a vote for Labour primarily because of a defence policy we judged irresponsible. In keeping with our founding principles, we do not presume to recommend to our readers a vote for a particular party.But, in the exact words we used of Labour 14 years ago, we conclude with regret that the Conservative Party on this occasion “does not deserve to be elected”.. I was born into the Laws.

My father was, I think the most celebrated, busiest and best-paid divorce barrister of his day. So In my childhood, I was educated, clothed, housed, entirely on the proceeds of adultery, cruelty and wilful neglect.My father would come home to me in the nursery and give me news of his triumph in court He would say, “Wonderful day in court, John. Managed to prove adultery by evidence of opportunity and inclination. But really, the only evidence I had was footprints upside down on the dashboard of an Austin 7 motor car parked in Hampstead Garden Suburb.”
My father taught me many things, not just about divorce. But in the middle of his career at the bar he went blind, which was a terrible tragedy for him. It didn’t make much difference to him in court, but my sainted mother had to read aloud to him all this terrible witness evidence in all these awful divorce cases.

They used to travel up to London and the Divorce Court from Henley-on-Thames You can picture the scene in the First Class compartment. And there was my mother, sitting next to my father reading aloud all this private detective evidence of male and female clothing scattered in rooms of the Ritz Hotel, stains on the bedsheets. By that time my father had grown deaf as well as blind so he used to say “Speak up Cath!” The train would grind to a halt somewhere around Slough and the the entire first-class compartment would fall absolutely silent to the ever-diminishing and even more embarrassed tones of my mother in the faint hope of grasping the name of some friend or relative.It was of great importance to me in my life as a writer, because I had to read aloud lots of things to my father I read lots of poetry I might not otherwise have read. And really I would write so I might have something to read aloud to my father. Two things I didn’t have to read were the Sherlock Holmes stories and the plays of Shakepeare, because my father knew all the plays of Shakespeare by heart anyway. He used quotations of no particular relevance to the situation, like Rumpole does. As some people whistle favourite tunes, he would say favourite lines.