That Jesse Norman piece might as well have been sung by his near-namesake for all the sense it made. Not for the first time, the Tories seem incapable of ‘getting’ New Labour beyond an straw figure of The Evil Stalinist Baby-Munchers – as if Thatcherism and neo-liberal economics – and New Labour’s acquiescence to both – never really happened.

S & Marper won their case against the UK, with a unanimous ruling from the 17 judges in the Grand Chamber of the European Court that keeping their samples

“failed to strike a fair balance between the competing public and private interests,” and that the UK government “had overstepped any acceptable margin of appreciation in this regard”.

The court also ruled “the retention in question constituted a disproportionate interference with the applicants’ right to respect for private life and could not be regarded as necessary in a democratic society”. (the BBC)

The judgement in S & Marper v UK.