Here’s a question they don’t often ask in polls: what has the Human Rights Act ever done to you? Victims of the Human Rights Act are pretty hard to come by, while myths about outrages perpetrated in its name are so widespread as to be collectible. Over the course of the past week I made it a bit of a hobby.
There was the one about a suspect, besieged by police on a rooftop, who was given KFC and Pepsi because the cops were obliged to protect his human rights. The story’s a bit old – this week it celebrates its ninth anniversary, in fact – but you’ll still find it mentioned occasionally in latterday attacks on the act. The police did provide the suspect with a takeaway in the course of negotiating his surrender (a common tactic) but his human rights weren’t involved. You can’t demand chicken under the Human Rights Act, although the 2006 headline “Kentucky Fried Farce that shows folly of the Human Rights Act” might possibly have led tabloid readers to believe otherwise.
Likewise – tick these off if you’ve heard them – you can’t claim the right to remain in the UK because you have a cat, Dennis Nilsen did not win the right to receive hardcore porn under the act and police do not withhold photographs of escaped prisoners in order to protect their human rights.
Despite their perpetuation by tabloids – and the odd home secretary – these tales are now mostly better known as myths, or at least as gross distortions. But new ones come along all the time: often it’s just a matter of slyly inserting the words “human rights” into a story about everyday injustice or incompetence, thereby implicating the Human Rights Act in a situation where it has never been invoked.
The art of a good story
Such distortion is not, sadly, confined to the tabloid press, or even to stories about human rights. Some years ago I was asked to step in to cover an arts story: the Beck’s Futures Award show at the ICA. I had no experience as an arts correspondent - or any relevant expertise -but I figured I could fake it if I kept my mouth shut. Among the shortlisted artists exhibiting was a young man who made evanescent little sculptures – monkeys, rabbits, squirrels – out of the fluff he scratched up from a newly laid carpet using his fingernails. I was impressed - they looked like frozen smoke - but what did I know?One of the other arts correspondents told me that the artist charged £8,000 to come to your house, lay a new carpet in an empty room, and scratch you up some animals. Nice work, I thought, if you can get it. But I said nothing.
Because of a time restriction, we were obliged to interview the artists as a pack.When we came to the carpet guy, the correspondent I’d spoken with earlier asked him about his £8,000 fee for a domestic commission. The artist looked at him blankly, and said he’d never done such a sculpture in a private home. When asked whether £8,000 was what he would charge if he had, he pointed out that the fluff animals were pretty transient creations, held together with static electricity and hairspray, and he couldn’t imagine anyone offering that amount. Finally, the exasperated correspondent said, “If I gave you £8,000, would you make one for me?” The artist, now deeply perplexed, quietly said that he would have to think about it.
Not being a proper arts correspondent, the only information I took away from this encounter was that the artist had never accepted a private carpet fluff commission, or been offered one, or entertained the figure of £8,000 for such an assignment. As a result the piece I filed failed to contain the line: “For £8,000, the artist … said he would visit a patron’s home, lay a new piece of carpet, scrape away and mould personalised sculptures.” I had to read that interesting fact in another newspaper the next morning.
@IAmTimDowling
