The need for a British human rights act was one of the few issues of contention to surface at the nationwide Convention on Modern Liberty held last ­Saturday, writes Michael Cross.

Dominic Grieve QC MP (pictured), shadow attorney general, said a future Conservative government would introduce such an act, which would ‘have to be compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights’. However Lady Kennedy (Helena Kennedy QC, pictured) warned that granting citizen-specific rights could open the way to withdrawing them from non-citizens.

On other matters, the convention was unanimous. More than 1,500 people attended the sold-out event to hear Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty, former shadow home secretary David Davis MP and musician Brian Eno attack government policies on issues ranging from torture to the ‘database state’.