Rubbing the sleep from its eyes, Britain's premier human rights organisation has snuffled sluggishly from its summer slumber, ready to shuffle valiantly to the aid of the oppressed.
Is there a problem, they wonder?
News reaches me that Liberty has finally got round to replying to some of the inquiries about where it stands on the Badman review of HE. This was published something like six weeks ago, but no doubt the freedom fighters have had other things on their minds, like Shami's latest TV appearance.
If Liberty are going to stir themselves into action, that's good news. There's plenty for them to get angry about in relation to the Badman review:
1. Presumption of innocence. It should not be for parents to prove anything to the state.
2. Warrantless searches. Even freed criminals are not subject to search of their homes without a warrant.
3. Discrimination. Preschooling families are not subject to warrantless searches etc. Why should HE families have to endure this? Or is the intention to extend the new laws to everyone?
4. Breach of right to family life (protected under the Human Rights Act)?
5. Breach of right to education according to ones principles (ditto)?
I think this will create a problem for Liberty. Their instincts will be to follow the woolly lefty line of "balancing the human rights of parents and child". If Shami does come out with this line, it will have the unfortunate result of making her sound clearly and unequivocally like a cross betweeen David Blunkett and Charles Clark.
This would, I'm sure you'll agree, be rather unfortunate.
Another alternative is of course to recognise that there are some pretty fundamental civil liberties in play here: the presumption of innocence and warrantless searches (although the latter is now a liberty that is honoured more in the breach than in the observance). Can Liberty really come out and say that these are going to have to be secondary considerations?
My prediction - Liberty will equivocate. They will say that entry should be demanded sensitively, or some words to that effect.
Or then again, maybe they'll find it more tactful to curl up and go back to sleep.