SO-CALLED human rights lawyer Phil Shiner is a wicked crook, a thief and a liar.
His firm, Public Interest Lawyers, accepted millions in legal aid to pursue British soldiers for entirely made-up accusations of abuse in the Iraq War.
A public inquiry, set up in the wake of his sham crusade and backed by useful idiots on the Left like Jeremy Corbyn, cost taxpayers a further £25million.
Shiner’s charlatanism was systematic fraud on an industrial — and wholly immoral — scale.
And that’s before taking into account the mental trauma he inflicted on entirely innocent members of our Armed Forces.
Having served with courage and honour in the cauldron of Iraq, many servicemen suffered years of immense stress and fear as they were hounded by Shiner’s mob.
Incredibly, although Shiner pleaded guilty to fraud, a judge spared him jail because the offences were “a long time ago”.
And so a conman who spent years lying about miscarriages of justice was yesterday the wholly undeserved beneficiary of one.
LABOUR spent more than a decade in a state of near permanent outrage over accusations of Tory sleaze.
But as Keir Starmer found over the freebies scandal, charges of hypocrisy now hit harder simply because of repeated promises he would be different.
So The Sun’s revelations of the number of ministers’ family members now on the public payroll or in key political jobs at the heart of Government is another unhappy look.
It should be said that none of this is against the rules — and the Tories did similar.
But what does it say to voters struggling to get on in their own careers and livelihoods when our political leaders give all the plum jobs to family and friends?
ONCE again, it’s all very well for ministers to hail an intelligence-sharing deal with the lame-duck German government to smash people-smuggling gangs.
But without a proper deterrent, its effect on small boat crossings will be negligible.
Instead Home Secretary Yvette Cooper could listen to the German opposition now favourites to form the next government in Berlin.
They say the European Court of Human Rights is now guilty of massive overreach on migration cases.
By next year, Germany may well be on the path to quitting the ECHR as the only way to get a grip on its borders.
Will Labour ever ponder doing the same?
