Dominic Raab is proceeding with extreme caution in his ‘overhaul’ of human rights

Reading between the lines of the deputy prime minister’s interview, John Rentoul detects a can’t-do spirit

Mr Raab can hear the fading of the applause he won at Tory party conference (PA)

Since Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister and justice secretary, announced at the Conservative Party conference that he would “overhaul” the Human Rights Act, the legal world has been agog to find out what this might consist of.

The only clue in his speech to the nature of the overhaul was his citing of an old case of a violent man convicted of beating his ex-partner who avoided deportation by claiming the right to family life. After Raab’s speech, lawyers pointed out that the law had since been changed.

Raab’s interview with The Sunday Telegraph was his first chance to set out in more detail what he plans to do about the Act, which is important because it gives direct effect in British law to the rights – including the right to private and family life – set out in the European Convention on Human Rights.