An Englishman's home is his castle

The government is advancing legislation that will give the authorities power to confiscate houses left unoccupied for more than six months. The right to hold private property forms one of the primary strands of English Common Law, and can be traced back to Magna Carta. Many other age-old rights are under threat by the current government, which seems to have become fatally corrupted by the exercise of power (recently they have threatened the right to trial by jury, the primacy of Parliament, and the independence of the judiciary).

An Englishman’s home is his castle. The saying can be traced back to Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634) who was a parliamentary defender of the Common Law against the arbitrary and dictatorial powers of the state (Et domus sua cuique tutissimum refugium - One's home is the safest refuge of all). I’m not a great fan of David Cameron (I’ve seen too many PR people to be taken in by the surface gloss of “niceness”) but he represents the only force the government is afraid of – and as things cannot go on as they are, Cameron will have to be given a chance.