Citizen Straw and his politicos will find this a hard Act to follow

The Government is soon going to face challenges in court as individuals seek to enforce their new rights

On my way to speak at a fringe meeting in Brighton last week, I encountered half a dozen armed men in black overalls checking out the venue to make sure nobody was planning to assassinate Jack Straw. Moments later I was accosted by someone who enquired, "Are you virgin?" Not wanting to go into my sexual history so early in the evening, I muttered something about looking for the loo, then realised he wasn't a pervert but an employee of Sir Richard Branson's train company, which was holding a meeting in the same hotel. These surreal juxtapositions happen at party conferences, although, sadly, I cannot blame Virgin for the decrepit railway carriage in which I struggled back to London later in the evening.

On my way to speak at a fringe meeting in Brighton last week, I encountered half a dozen armed men in black overalls checking out the venue to make sure nobody was planning to assassinate Jack Straw. Moments later I was accosted by someone who enquired, "Are you virgin?" Not wanting to go into my sexual history so early in the evening, I muttered something about looking for the loo, then realised he wasn't a pervert but an employee of Sir Richard Branson's train company, which was holding a meeting in the same hotel. These surreal juxtapositions happen at party conferences, although, sadly, I cannot blame Virgin for the decrepit railway carriage in which I struggled back to London later in the evening.

Anyway, the point of this story is that there I was, excited and clutching my speech, ready to engage with the Home Secretary on the implications of the new Human Rights Act. I mean, this is the listening government, isn't it? The Prime Minister said so the day before, in his conference speech, along with a lot of stuff about his "irreducible core" of principles. Oddly, Mr Blair didn't mention the Act, an extraordinary oversight in view of the fact that it embodies the values he was talking about. Ministers complain that journalists haven't shown much interest in this landmark piece of legislation, but it's hardly surprising when they forget to mention it themselves.

Then, just before Mr Straw arrived, someone regretfully confirmed that he wouldn't be able to stay to hear the other speeches. Sure enough, the Home Secretary appeared, accepted congratulations on the Act and joked that the meeting might mark the rehabilitation of his liberal reputation. He took a few questions and then hurried off, leaving behind the Home Office minister Mike O'Brien. Mr O'Brien's name was not on the running-order but, as one of the principal apologists for the Government's disgraceful asylum Bill, he is a man I would very much like to discuss human rights with.

No such luck. Mr O'Brien delivered a standard rant against the Tories, then he too was off to another engagement. That left me and Francesca Klug, author of a new book on the Act, to broaden the discussion into something more than a New Labour love-fest. For no matter how much credit the Government takes for getting the Act on to the statute book, there is no denying that it exposes some very embarrassing contradictions in its record. From today, the right to freedom of expression, to respect for private and family life, to peaceful enjoyment of property, to a fair trial, to liberty and security, even the right to life itself, are enshrined in law. And one of the questions I wanted to ask Mr Straw is how an administration that has signed up for all these things can continue to defend this country's infamous Official Secrets Act.

Its use of that legislation, and its hopelessly inadequate freedom of information Bill, hardly reveal a wholehearted commitment to press freedom and a fully-informed citizenry. Nor is it clear how ministers can support Article 3, which declares that "no one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment", yet pass laws that prevent victims of torture seeking refuge in Britain. Mr Blair himself said on Tuesday that he would not exploit the asylum issue to win votes. Yet the pronouncements of his own ministers, especially during the Afghan hostage crisis in February, fall far short of that principled stand.

Equally puzzling is the silence of the Home Office over the summer, when terrified families were hounded from their homes by baying mobs in search of paedophiles. Were those men, who had either been wrongly identified or had completed sentences imposed by a court of law, not entitled to any of the rights listed above? All this suggests that ministers have not fully grasped the implications, legal and cultural, of their own legislation. But the Government is soon going to face challenges both in court, as individuals seek to enforce their new rights, and in the national conversation that will be stimulated by the Act.

It may happen slowly, in a country unused to the kind of debate that has been going on in other European nations for more than two centuries. Mr Straw himself said that he wanted the Act to generate controversy and "a much more striking and well-developed sense of what it means to be a citizen". But experience elsewhere shows that citizens are more unruly than subjects, and happier about giving their rulers a hard time. I suspect that the era when the men from the ministry could say their piece and disappear, as they did on Wednesday evening, may be drawing to a close.