Defending the bill that would allow for secret courts, Ken Clarke favoured bracing pub rhetoric over fusspotty legal precedent
The Commons has debated the justice and security bill. That's the one that allows for secret courts. It is very controversial, and it's mainly Tories who are against it.
Ken Clarke, the minister without portfolio (you can tell it's him because he has a big red portfolio marked "minister without portfolio") had the job of defending the bill's main provisions.
Usually, when lawyers get to work debating the law, you get a whole series of arcane, detailed, fusspotty points being made. They sound as if they are arguing with an invisible judge; Mr Clarke sounds as if he is in the pub, having a heated debate about whether that goal was offside.
Sometimes when he disagrees with someone he doesn't have time to rebut what they say. Instead, he makes a noise I can only transcribe as "Wurgghhh!" Which seems to be just as effective.
Rather than argue through precedent, he will say something like – and I quote from the debate – "I am not in favour of ministerial pig's ears!" And you imagine the barman saying they don't stock pig's ears, but would a bag of pork scratchings do?
The row centres over something called "closed material proceedings", which means that the court can go into secret session in a civil case, usually where a terrorist suspect is suing the government for colluding over their "extraordinary rendition" and torture. At the moment, the government has to use the "public interest immunity" system to keep its secrets secret, even though the rest of the hearing is in public.
The net result is that ministers feel caught between a rock and a hard place. The fact that the courts cannot hear all the relevant evidence means they often find for the plaintiff, and millions have to be forked out from public funds. That's money that could otherwise go to worthier causes, such as messing up the west coast mainline rail franchise, or Trident submarines.
But opponents of the bill say the principle of justice being seen to be done is so important that the government should be prepared to pay whatever it takes to protect it. Mr Clarke does not agree. He seemed to be blaming human rights lawyers, adding carefully: "Some of my best friends are human rights lawyers." It was rather in the manner of a bloke with a pint saying that some of his best friends support Manchester United: it may be true, but you sense that that's not what he actually likes about them.
And, he said with exasperation, every time he made a concession, they came forward with more demands. "I am left in wonder at their ingenuity at providing endless amendments," he said.
There is an undercurrent of anti-American feeling here, never entirely absent from the Tory benches. It's assumed that the Americans won't want to share their intelligence secrets with us if they are going to risk having them blurted out in public. The opponents loathe the idea that our ancient legal system can be stood on its head merely to suit the convenience of the CIA.
Or, as Tony Hancock said: "Magna Carta – did she die in vain?"