Black Mental Health UK focuses on the human rights concerns over new community treatment orders.

Former shadow health minister, Tim Lawton slammed CTO’s as psychiatric asbo’s, which will make thousands of people prisoners in their own homes. Health experts working in the community fear that in a risk-adverse climate the danger that clinicians will use the powers too readily present the very real risk of sweeping people into compulsion and restriction when it is neither useful nor appropriate.

While this new law is now over five months old, there are many who are not aware of the changes or what the consequences will be for their lives.

Tom Griffin writes on OpenDemocracy about the afternoon session entitled Liberty, Sovereignty and Republicanism: Can the Leveller Tradition Be Revived In The 21st Century?

The audience were not to be disappointed, with what proved to be a lively and rigorous debate about Britain’s republican past and its relevance today.

There were shades of David Davis as historian Quentin Skinner explained the role of Magna Carta in seventeenth century debates about liberty.

Martin Bright of The Spectator couldn’t make it along, but had this to say:

I think this is an important development on the political landscape and I salute the organisers. I have been impressed by the energy of Henry Porter in getting this onto the agenda and the coalition is an interesting one.

“But I am equally interested in the sceptical voices. An early note of caution was sounded by Paul Evans on the Liberal Conspiracy website. Paul argued that ” we need to collectively hold our noses and get involved in local political parties again instead of lifestyle politics and single-issue pressure groups that sit on soft end of the direct-democracy continuum.”

“The worry is that this could turn out to be a massive act of masochism. One almighty, self-satisfied, complacent and ultimately fruitless national moan.”