What a ridiculous argument at the end there from the Telegraph man, though. A poor conclusion. Of course if the police were made aware of or pursued each and every rape claim to its full conclusion, which they cannot be and do not currently (not necessarily through their fault), the rape conviction rate would go up and the false claims would go down. This is another attempt to diminish a serious crime using the convenience of terrorism in this instance. Which I might point out to the Telegraph writer has it's own fully dedicated URGENT crime team. Perhaps if he had bothered to consider that rape is way more prevalent than even terrorism he might be asking his fellow menfolk some more probing questions. We certainly do when it comes to terrorism after all and we certainly expect muslims to condemn it first before we permit excuses from them. All this does is highlight the exceptional whinging excusing stupidity of Liberty regards terrorism arrests. Hardly surprising with that ghastly twit Shami in charge.

I'm adding you to my humble blogroll. I've long admired your comments at Harry's Place and stance on Islam. There are few British women (conservative) bloggers out there ....but the ones we do have are exceptional ;)

Alison

adirtymartini.typepad.com

I tend to immediately flick channels the moment Chakrabarti  appears. You know exactly what she's going to say on any given topic.  It's the unassailable moral arrogance, and the absence of even a hint of humour that makes me despise her.  Plus the fact that she is invariably on the opposite side to me.  Prevaricating pixie prig.

I'm not so sure that you are all judging this lady aright. My doubts as to the competency of your judgements spring not from her being the director of Liberty but from her being an alumna of the British-American Project(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British-American_Project)  - a project inspired by President Ronald Reagan. What is more, she is also a Governor of the Ditchley Foundation, a British organisation which aims to promote Anglo-American relations.

It's been my experience that dangerous, treacherous  and annoying little oiks don't generally join the establishment to such an extent so as to support our right to advance our kind of politics and to such an extent so as to associate with President Reagan and James Goldsmith and support Anglo-American relations - all of which are, usually, anathema to the left- wing and the hard of thinking. Just click on the link to see which of our great multi-nationals support the British-American Project.

Furthermore, the Ditchley Foundation enjoys very broad cross-party support in both our countries. No, on balance, and given her huge forensic attainments, I think that Shami Chakrabati is exactly what she seems to be - a campaigner for liberty (and Liberty, naturally) and a, sometimes by our lights (but we might be wrong), a vociferous defender of the very freedoms which we, in our haste to defend our societies against the Shariah threat, might be only too tempted to ditch.

I don't particularly like her public personna - but that's just me, I can be, I am, a very socially conservative person and I dislike the brash and the new - but when I listen to her, even though I often disagree with her, I find that her arguments and her reasonings are sound and deserving of proper refutations - in as much as I am able to do so.

I've never met the lady but I do have a profound respect for her intellect and for her ability to reason from our Constitution. I'm often in conflict with her conclusions but seldom in conflict with her idea that liberty and freedom under a just law is, and must be, paramount.

I have followed her career over the last ten, or so, years and I have to say that I would be very hard-pressed indeed to label her as either right-wing or left-wing. However, I would say this: occassionally she seems to me to defend a silly model of freedom but mostly she defends exactly the models of freedom and liberty which I, myself, support.

Her stance against the horrific and unjustified ATCSA 2001 was something which I will never forget - an Act which truly will live in infamy for all of its days and which was compleately unwarranted and removed so many freedoms from the British peoples that I still cannot believe that our Parliament passed it into law. That it is still on the Statute books is a disgrace to our nations and Mrs. Chakrabati's principled stand against the passing of that Act remains, for me, something I will always treasure and something that I will always support her for doing.

I do not see her as the demon which you all do. I see her, and Liberty, as the defenders of our historic freedoms - sometimes a little silly, but then, who isn't, and sometimes a little too strident, perhaps. However, she is no coward and no mincer of words - she sees freedom, as I do, as indivisible: and she is definitely no supporter of Islam's crude attempts to remove our freedoms. That very notion would be, for her, simply not tenable or endurable.

In my opinion you are tilting at a friend, not at an enemy. That you perceive her, and Liberty, to be the enemy indicates to me that you have not thought through exactly what freedom means. She would defend not only 'the them' against 'the you' but 'the you' against the them' - and that's why I support her and Liberty.

She, and Liberty, share my view of freedom. I don't have to like her style, and I don't, in order to agree with her thesis - but I do agree with her thesis - Liberty's thesis - of fundamental freedoms and fundamental liberties.

She, and Liberty, are anathema to Islam. She is our friend, not our enemy, for she, and Liberty, supports our freedom and she has comprehensively attacked the political legacy of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

She is Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University, a red-brick I'll grant you but a reasonably good one, a member of the Council and Court of Governors of the London School of Economics and a Governor of the British Film Institute, a Visiting Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford and a Master of the Bench of the Middle Temple. She is also a Governor of the Ditchley Foundation, as I have previously mentioned. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2007 Queen's Birthday Honours.

I repeat, she is not our enemy. She is a staunch defender of freedom and liberty. I support her. I believe that you should do so, also.

Well I don't, because she is utterly useless - worse than useless - on Islam, which is the greatest threat to our liberty at the moment. And horribly sanctimonious.

I don't either for the exact same reasons. She's appauling. I read some of her arguments against profiling in terrorism arrests shortly after July 7 2005 and she couldn't even argue her own point with the journalist - and wound up hoisting herself on her own petard. She's another self serving schemer. Nothing more.  There are way more people who work to support anglo american relations and some who even contribute to the civil liberties discussion in a meaningful way - she isn't one of them.