Lord Hermer's idiocy is boundless
There is a long and ignominious tradition of idiotic comments by ministers thrust into the political centre-stage with no previous political background. But, fierce as the competition is, none of them come close to Lord Hermer for political idiocy.
Speaking to the BBC, the Attorney General has said that accusations of a two-tier justice system are 'disgusting' and 'wrong', posing 'dangers' to the UK's 'essential institutions'.
'I think it's offensive to our police. It's offensive to our crown prosecutors who are trying to apply the law in the best faith. It is offensive to the courts, where independent judges are applying the law to reach the right sentences', he went on.
We will come to the specifics of this in a moment. First, however – although you wouldn't know it given Lord Hermer's penchant for shooting his mouth on whatever he seems to think matters – it is important to note that the role of Attorney General is not meant to be that of government trouble-maker-in-chief.
It is meant to be that of a quiet, sagacious legal adviser. Lord Hermer, however, seems to treat it as a chance to pretend to be a heavyweight politician whose opinions the world needs to know.
Last month, for example, Lord Hermer told the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) that both Nigel Farage's Reform and Kemi Badenoch's Tories had adopted Nazi ideology by asserting that national law supersedes international agreements, in reference to the idea of withdrawing Britain from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR): 'The claim that international law is fine as far as it goes, but can be put aside when conditions change, is a claim that was made in the early 1930s by 'realist' jurists in Germany, most notably Carl Schmitt'. It was a grotesque comparison for which he was later forced to issue a humiliating apology.
Then there was his role in the handover of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, which he asserted was about 'honouring our obligations under international law' – even though the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion on the issue was not legally binding.
It is remarkable how often Lord Hermer, a renowned KC, seems to speak before fully engaging his brain.Which brings us to today's comments. Lord Hermer was referring to – dismissing, rather – accusations after the riots last summer, when it was argued that the rioters were treated unduly harshly.
But he of all people will surely be aware that there is another element to accusations of two-tier justice, which he appears to have ignored altogether: the way in which the so-called Free Palestine marches have been allowed to continue with minimal intervention despite open chants calling for 'globalising the intifada' (ie killing Jews) and support for terror against Jews.
I simply do not see how it is possible not to accept that there is two-tier justice, when the hate marches have not merely been protected by the police – but when counter-demonstrators condemning Hamas or peacefully waving Israeli flags have been arrested.
Hermer clearly fancies himself as some sort of moral conscience, when in reality he is merely the latest – albeit the most exalted and most egregious – of political buffoons embarrassing himself and the Government of which he is a part.
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