In May, in his first major policy speech, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced the sweeping away of the “Big Brother” state that Blair had constructed: no more ID cards or national identity register, new restrictions on the storage of DNA, tighter regulation of the closed-circuit television surveillance that had made the British the most monitored people on earth, and so on. All this and not one mention of “human rights” – an absence that reflects the political sensitivity of human rights in Britain today, and that tacitly acknowledges that when the stakes are high, the Human Rights Act cannot be relied upon.
事实上，即便人权的原则得到了推进，《人权法案》如今却遭到了忽视。在副首相尼克·克列格5月发表的第一次重要政策演说中，他声明要推翻布莱尔所建成的“老大哥”国家（意指国家监控公民一切行为）：不再有身份证或者人口登记，对DNA信息的存储设立新限制，收紧对闭路电视监控的规管（此网络已经令英国人成为全球受监控程度最严重的人民）等等。他说了那么多，却一句都没提到“人权”——这既反映出人权在当今英国的敏感性，同时也在默默地承认：在这种关键时刻，《人权法案》可是靠不住的。