Even so, Hoffmann is right to suggest that where a national court has properly taken account of Strasbourg rulings, the European Court should be slow to interfere. The whole point of passing the Human Rights Act was to enable courts in Britain to apply the European Convention, making it less likely that an appeal to Strasbourg would be either necessary or successful.

Now, though, both Labour and the Conservatives are promising reforms. The Tories want to replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights "to better tailor, but also strengthen, the protection of our core rights".

I have no idea what this means. But if they intend to make some aspects of the Human Rights Convention harder to enforce in our own courts, the Strasbourg judges would have greater justification for finding against the UK. And it would also undermine what I regard as Hoffmann's best point: that our courts are just as able to interpret the convention as the European judges.

The government, meanwhile, has recently published a Green Paper on "Rights and Responsibilities". This makes it clear that giving individuals "justiciable" rights - ones that can be enforced in the courts - is the last thing Labour wants to do. That would involve empowering the judges.