Why do the Tories want a bill of rights?

So the Conservatives want a new bill of rights to displace the Human Rights Act, which yesterday celebrated its sixth anniversary.

But what was more of a surprise, is the fact that the civil rights organisation Liberty is not exactly averse to the idea of a bill or rights either, as delegates heard at a fringe event held by the new Tory thintank, the Conservative Liberty Forum.

One minister told me in private that removing the European tag from legislation introduced by the Labour government to protect our civil liberties was reason enough.

The indefatigable Shami Chakrabati (listen to her interviewed here) has spent the past three weeks on the party conference circuit defending civil liberties.

She didn't waste her energies trying to dissuade Dominic Grieve, the shadow attorney general, from a Tory idea of trading in the Human Rights Act for a bill of rights. Change it if you must, but only change it for the better, she told him and a packed room of delegates keen to have a debate.