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The key to understanding the impact of the Human Rights Act in the U.K. is to appreciate that civil liberties and human rights are not two sides of the same coin.
Do I have any advice for someone new to No. 10? Never open the door in your nightie. And that everybody has to adjust to it in a way that's right for their family.
Part of the reason I moved from law to politics was an increasingly profound belief that how we rebuild after the 2008 crash is going to define us for a generation.
From a victim's point of view, our justice system is hardly fit for purpose. No doubt individual failings by police and prosecutors provide part of the explanation.
One doesn't like to appear vulgarly inquisitive. But if everyone one knows has suddenly started murdering everyone else, it would be terribly nice to know about it.
The secret of good health and happiness is to have rather small illnesses throughout your life which you can rely on to stop you doing anything you don't want to do.
The Max Clifford case shows that when the police and prosecutors quietly hold their nerve they can succeed, whatever the public profile or popularity of the accused.
Britain outside the E.U. would be less able to respond with the speed and strength we need to tackle complex and growing cross-border threats to all our communities.
Islam is a way of life which opens the heart to the meaning of existence. Thus any increase of outward splendor is usually a sign of a decrease in inward illumination
Significant cuts to funding for the police, for the Crown Prosecution Service, for probation etc, have put the long-term viability of our criminal justice system in doubt.
The law seems like a sort of maze through which a client must be led to safety, a collection of reefs, rocks, and underwater hazards through which he or she must be piloted.
Life as a barrister never was terribly real to me, and courtrooms were always a place of fantasy to me. They had nothing to do with discovering the truth, really, of course.
If the vote that is progressive is split then all that does is open up the path for the Brexit party and allow it to pretend it represents the majority view in this country.
I have no problem with saying I am a socialist or with saying I'm a feminist. That's how I was when I was 15, and you know, I haven't grown out of it and probably never will.
No power on earth, however, can abolish the merciless class distinction between those who are physically desirable and the lonely, pallid, spotted, silent, unfancied majority.
I don't want to give this impression that I grew up in Liverpool in a cardboard box in abject poverty, but that didn't mean there weren't anxieties in my childhood about money.
There is a world of difference between not disclosing fine detail and relying on broad and generalised assertions. The first may be understandable; the second is not acceptable.
The officers of the branch of the Force (the Obscene Publications Squad) have a discouraging club tie, on which a book is depicted being cut in half by a larger pair of scissors.
I spent five years prosecuting some of the most dangerous terrorists in this country, so it would be quite difficult for people to pin the charge of being soft on terrorism on me.
I think it is what you do with your wealth that is important. I don't believe in accumulating money for money's sake. It's one of the reasons I want to do more about helping women.
The government must be open enough to provide robust impact assessments of leaving the single market or the customs union, including region-by-region and sector-by-sector analysis.
The E.U. has data systems that enable police and border guards to work together in real time to intercept wanted persons; and the European arrest warrant ensures their speedy return.
It's really important we make the case that this is not the country of Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson. That intolerance and hatred and division is not representative of our country.
People say that human rights is a Western construct foisted on others. But that's not true. Equality, dignity, respect and justice are as much an integral part of the Islamic tradition.
As we leave the E.U., freedom of movement falls away, because it's an E.U. rule... What we then have to say is, 'What then is on the blank piece of paper that is an immigration policy?'
Check-ups are, in my experience, a grave mistake; all they do is allow the quack of your choice to tell you that you have some sort of complaint that you were far happier not knowing about.
It would be helpful if everybody would focus on getting the right outcome from Brexit. An aggressive stand by the EU will only feed into those who promote the narrative of "better off out".
The framework for everything I've done has been human rights. That is about protecting the vulnerable and giving people access to courts where they wouldn't otherwise have access to courts.
People will go to endless trouble to divorce one person and then marry someone who is exactly the same, except probably a bit poorer and a bit nastier. I don't think anybody learns anything.
I think most people accept that it is necessary to have some surveillance in a democratic society. I think most people accept that it's important to have limits and clear safeguards on that.
In the U.K., we have always had international ambitions and international responsibilities. These obviously predate the E.U.; we have been trading and doing business in Europe for centuries.
You can't please people who don't really know you and, you know, I do think that one of the things I do want to do is please the people who matter to me and please the people that do know me.
If you really probe, people are anxious about their job, anxious about their home, their children's future. Obviously it gets translated into things like immigration, but that is nothing new.
Voting Liberal is a non-thing. Historically, it might be a good idea to have a Conservative government, because change is a good thing. But I don't know that I could bring myself to vote Tory.
We need to remind ourselves that Europe will be our biggest trading partner for the next several decades and probably beyond, so getting the deal with Europe right should be our primary focus.
We will vote down a blind Brexit. This isn't about frustrating the process. It's about stopping a destructive Tory Brexit. It's about fighting for our values and about fighting for our country.
From my experience both as DPP and previously as a human rights lawyer, I know that human rights and effective protection from terrorism are not incompatible. On the contrary, they go hand in hand.
If every child matters, every child has the right to a good start in life. If every child matters, every child has the right to be included. And that is so important for children with special needs.
Finally, when happiness came knocking on my door, I'd be waiting. I'd open the door and say: "Where have you been? What took you so long? And if you just give me a moment I'll pack and go with you."
We must stand up for the principle of parliamentary democracy and not allow the government's failure in the Brexit process to be a licence for the U.K. to crash out of the E.U. without an agreement.
When... I told my father I wanted to be a writer, he had asked me to consider my unfortunate wife, who would have me about the house all day 'wearing a dressing gown, brewing tea and stumped for words'.
The trouble with real life is that you don't know whether you're the hero or just some nice chap who gets bumped off in chapter five to show what a rotter the villain is without anyone minding too much.
My immediate instinct when faced with the questions from The Mail on Sunday ten days ago was to protect my family's privacy and particularly my son in his first term at university, living away from home.
It's not good enough to believe women matter if they only matter in the U.K. They have to matter everywhere. As long as there's an idea that women don't matter in the world, then all women are diminished.
Dying is a matter of slapstick and pratfalls. The ageing process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous.
If immigration is simply seen as a numbers game, nobody will ever win that debate. The question should be: what is it we want to achieve? What do we expect of those who are arriving? What is the basic deal?
Like everyone, I am formed by my background, and mine was - well, we didn't have a lot of money. I didn't live in a cardboard box, but I did live in a place where, at the end of the week, the money was gone.
If you go into a police station and report a burglary the first question is not: 'Are you telling the truth?' If you are the victim of a sexual offence, very often in the past that has been the first question.
I think the problem is, exceptional women will always succeed. But there are plenty of less-exceptional men who succeed. Until we get the less-exceptional women succeeding equally, we do not have full equality.
Understanding how your business affects human rights and using that knowledge to shape appropriate policies and practices is crucial to achieving what should be the goal of all corporations - sustainable growth.