King’s Bench: To what extent were you involved in politics prior to your appointment as Attorney-General?

Lord Goldsmith: I was actually heavily involved in politics when I was at University and maintained my interest subsequently but wasn’t properly active on the national political scene. However, when I became Chairman of the Bar I was very engaged in political issues but of course not from a party political standpoint. One of the interesting features is that Charles Clarke [former Education and Home Secretary] and I were together very much involved in student politics at Cambridge but whereas I didn’t want a full-time political career, Charles did and he went on from his role at the Cambridge Union to become a full-time politician. What is interesting is how thirty years later, through very different routes, we came to sit around the same Cabinet table.

KB: Do the dual roles of politician and lawyer encompassed in the position of Attorney-General pose a fundamental conflict of interest?

LG: No. I think it is critically important that there is, at the heart of Government, a senior lawyer who can help the Government reach effective and lawful solutions in order to meet its objectives. This is especially important since the role of the Lord Chancellor has changed so radically, as the Attorney-General is now only the position left which has to be filled by a senior lawyer.

KB: Isn’t there the danger that the role becomes an overly political one?

LG: The Attorney-General stands at the interface between politics and the law; between the executive and the judiciary. It is therefore important to understand the nature of political life because so many of the decisions that are taken (although they are not political decisions) are made in a political context. That does not mean that you allow political considerations to interfere with your judgment as to what the law requires or as to what the public interest is. But it would be naïve if you didn’t understand what commentators and the world were concerned about.

KB: The advice you gave as to the legality of the Iraq War has proven to be perhaps the most controversial decision of your tenure (and indeed of the previous administration). What do you say to those of your critics who argue that your lack of experience in international law prior to your appointment had a bearing on the advice you gave?

LG: Absolute nonsense. People seem to forget that one of the benefits of being Attorney-General is that you have, as I had, extensive advice within Government on all aspects of the law from people with great knowledge and experience in the various areas. I believed that the advice I gave was right; I still believe that it was right and there are a large number of lawyers who agree with me. Indeed there were a large number of countries that took the same view, which is why the coalition in Iraq has so many different countries included.

KB: Do the Government’s recent revelations about the practice of rendition by the United States on British territory indicate further at a culture of subservience to the United States?

LG: I don’t think it shows that the UK Government was subservient to the United States. I know myself that that wasn’t the case – even if quite a number of the disagreements between us were played out in private and not in public. However I am deeply concerned about this information. We don’t know the full extent of the issues over the two people who were said to have been on the planes that landed on Diego Garcia. I do strongly disapprove of the American practice of extraordinary rendition (by which I mean kidnapping to take people to places where they can be subjected to interrogation methods that we would regard as unlawful) and am troubled by why it is that the United States did not reveal the presence of these two people. I therefore support the calls for a detailed investigation as to what actually took place and as to what the Government is doing to check all the flights that third parties have suggested may have been rendition flights.

KB: Despite the failure of the previous administration to raise the terror detention limit, Gordon Brown seems insistent on pushing to raise the limit to 42 days. Do you think that such measures are again inching us towards internment?

LG: I would put it differently. I am against raising the period of pre-charge detention beyond where it is at the moment, unless it can be shown that it is a necessary thing to do. I don’t think there is evidence to show that it is necessary to do so and I therefore believe that it is counterproductive as well as wrong in principle: counterproductive because it sends the message that we are not a just society which values the liberties of individuals and wrong in principle because I believe that personal liberty is a critical fundamental right that should only be taken away when there is a very strong justification for it.

KB: Are you in favour of the admissibility of phone intercept evidence in court?

LG: I am in favour of it subject to appropriate safeguards. These, first of all, have to include appropriate safeguards for individual privacy so that phone-taps shouldn’t take place unless they are justified in the first place. We have got these already. Secondly, the intelligence agency or the state should not be required to produce evidence which is inculpatory if they wish not to do so because it would reveal secret methods or capabilities. Thirdly, methods have to be found to ensure that the disclosure of phone-tapping is dealt with in a proportionate manner so that the resources of the intelligence agencies are not wasted on fishing expeditions. But I do believe that it is in principle important to allow intercept evidence to be used in court as it will help the prosecution of some of the most dangerous criminals in the country.

KB: How much damage do you think the cash for honours scandal has done to public trust in politics and in the Labour Party?

LG: There is no doubt that cash for honours caused a great deal of damage to the image of politics and indeed to the Labour Party and it is a consequence of the funding arrangements we have. I think we have now reached the stage where the funding arrangements of our political parties are really broken beyond repair and we need a radical new approach so that people don’t start to think that politics is about grubby money-raising. When you look at the way things stand at the moment in politics, if you are going to get your message across, you have to raise money in order to publicise it. The sums that are raised by British political parties remain still insignificant compared to the moneys which are raised in the United States.

KB: Is public funding the solution?

LG: I suspect that partial public funding, though it is unpalatable to many people, has to be part of the future solution.

KB: What do you consider to have been your greatest achievement as Attorney-General?

LG: Transforming the Crown Prosecution Service and taking it from a backward-looking service to a forward-looking service proud to serve the public and the communities in which it works, which plays a central role in the criminal justice system. The CPS has new powers, new responsibilities and new status. They are better protectors of liberties, stronger at prosecuting cases and in facing their role as not just protectors of justice but as the defenders of victims and people too.

KB: Is there anything that you wish you had been able to see through?

LG: I served as Attorney-General longer than I ever intended to do and therefore wanted to step down. However, I think I would have liked to have seen through the reforms of the Serious Fraud Office. I concentrated my early years on volume work, that is work in the Crown Court and the magistrates’ courts, and was turning my attention to fraud cases. We did make a number of important changes to the law but it remains an area I would have liked to have seen through. I would also have liked to have seen employed lawyers, particularly in Government services, really being treated as equals within the profession which is what they are and deserve to be. However there remain pockets of resistance to this.

KB: Why did you decide to join Debevoise & Plimpton?

LG: I thought very hard about what I wanted to do and had a lot of offers, including quite a lot of pressure to come back to the Bar. But I wanted a new challenge and I strongly believe that with the globalisation of the law you need the globalisation of legal practice. Business, commerce and consumers now operate across frontiers in ways they never have before. This offered me the opportunity of a global law practice which I find challenging and rewarding. Debevoise is also a firm which has a strong ethos of public service and pro bono which I strongly support and provided the opportunity for me to continue with these whilst being a full-time lawyer.

KB: What do you expect the future holds for you?

LG: I am someone who has always found new challenges as I have gone through life. Sometimes have been unexpected – for instance I never planned to be Attorney-General. I remain a member of the House of Lords and continue to take part in the legislative process. However I am very much enjoying my present role and have no plans to change it. On the contrary, my present plans are to expand what we are doing here. Personally, despite all the globetrotting that I have been doing recently, I very much hope that my future will involve some appearances in the English courts. That has been my life and so I hope that I will continue to be available for hire!

King’s Bench: How and why did you first get involved in politics?

Imran Khan: No social reformer has ever single-handedly changed a country. It is only through politics that you can change a country. Even Gandhi was also a brilliant politician who mobilized the people and had an entire political party behind him.

My idea was always to stay in social work. I had thought about going into education after building the hospital but realized that that was not enough. NGOs can fill some of the cracks, but here in Pakistan we have huge fault lines which can only be corrected by political action backed by strong will. The only way we can change this country is to bring in the proper people at the helm of leadership; people who are conscientious, who want to change the society.

KB: To what extent do you think your popularity stems from your status as a celebrated sporting figure as opposed to your political stature and principles?

IK: It might be true that in early days of my politics people didn’t really know what we were saying, but our message has been successful. For example, since our inception twelve years ago, we have been advocating the independence of the judiciary. Today there is consensus in the whole country about independence of judiciary. Moreover all the main political parties are actually doing their politics on our objectives and agenda. This is our political success.

Another example is accountability which is a term we introduced to the political discourse in 1996. All subsequent governments exploited this issue and established courts and bureaus but then only paid lip-service to them and brushed everything under the carpet. The same disgraceful action has been repeated under the National Reconciliation Ordinance, a deal done through the Pakistan People’s Party to forgive all the financial corruption of politicians. So people have now realized what we are fighting for. This is the reason our vote bank is growing faster than any other party.

KB: Who are your political heroes?

IK: I greatly admire Nelson Mandela for his vision, credibility and selflessness. I also have a great deal of respect for Mohammad Ali Jinnah (the founder of Pakistan) and Mahathir Muhammad (former Malaysian Prime Minister). Both made great sacrifices but did not compromise on their principles.

KB: What does your party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, stand for?

IK: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is committed to bringing political stability through credible democracy and bringing transparency and accountability to the leadership of government through an independent justice system. We believe in federalism and in giving autonomy to the provinces, as envisaged in the 1973 Constitution but never granted.

The PTI is not merely a political party; it is a broad-based, grass roots movement that embraces the interests of all Pakistanis. People whose cultural and ethnic diversities blend into common goals and aspirations for a just society based on a democratic culture and the rule of law.

KB: The Economist recently labelled your country, Pakistan, as ‘the world’s most dangerous state’. Do you agree?

IK: I don’t agree but if United States keeps supporting a dictator and things go on as they are, then I am afraid this might become true. I find Pakistanis very talented, vibrant and also in fact moderate by nature. If they were trusted and given the chance to have their say in the system then they would themselves eliminate extremists by the vote. When elections have been held, the extremists have always been sidelined. It is only under military dictatorships when moderate politicians are suppressed that militants and extremists find a fertile breeding ground. Currently the whole system is controlled by a single man and no one has any trust or say in the system. People are deprived of all basic needs; there is frustration and hopelessness. This is one of the reasons you have seen such an increase in suicide bombings in Pakistan when just few years back they weren’t heard of.

KB: What, in your view, has given rise to the unprecedented levels of extremism in Pakistan?

IK: There has been an increase and it is due to lack of a representative government. Militancy was also encouraged by the Agencies during and after the Afghan War for Jihad in Kashmir. The solution lies in having a true sovereign state with an independent foreign policy first and then providing autonomy to the provinces as envisaged in the 1973 Constitution (in letter and spirit). We had been victims of terrorism long before 9/11 and are now suffering more due to a new form of militancy generated by the US war on terror on our western border. One area in which we truly differ from the Americans is that of the execution of anti-terrorism plans. The US is promoting a single-track military option whereas we would advance a political solution first and keep the threat of military action in reserve.

KB: The Bush administration has stood behind President Musharraf in spite of the events of the last few months. How close a relationship should Pakistan have with the United States?

IK: The US administration should stand behind people of Pakistan rather just one person, particularly when he is so unpopular within the country. In fact this is the main reason for the huge anti-American sentiment in our country. Because the US is supporting a dictator who has no public support in Pakistan, the majority which is against him has also turned against the US. The US administration should back the democratic process rather than personalities.

KB: What is your personal political ambition?

IK: My ambition is to bring about a social and economic revolution in Pakistan through justice at all levels of society and moderation. I aim to take the Pakistani people out of this plight through education and enlightenment.

KB: It now appears that Benazir Bhutto was killed on the orders of Baitullah Mehsud, although some still blame the Government. Who do you think is responsible for her death?

IK: It is very difficult to say. It could have been any of the groups that are now fighting against the Pakistan army. Benazir Bhutto had specifically stated that she would fight against al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the fundamentalists. So, clearly, each of these various groups may have been responsible. It could have also been the stakeholders, people who had been in power for nine years who were threatened by her. This is why an independent inquiry is needed.

KB: Do you fear for your life?

IK: I have no fear of death. When I came into politics I always thought there was the possibility that I would be killed. My lack of fear is due to my growing faith in Islam. Spirituality does two things for you: firstly, you become more selfless, and secondly, you learn to trust in providence.

KB: What is your vision for the future of Pakistan?

IK: My vision is huge. I want Pakistan to be a modern Islamic welfare state that is based on the freedom of man. Our potential can only be realised in a free environment. This means freedom from illiteracy, freedom from all forms of state oppression, equal opportunities for all citizens, a proper system of law and order and reducing the size of the bureaucracy. I believe in an efficient state that allows for the natural genius of people to evolve and develop, which does not impinge on people’s individual rights.

KB: What can supporters of your movement in the UK do to help your cause?

IK: One of Pakistan’s greatest assets are the overseas Pakistanis especially students because they are learning skills in very competitive environments. I think they can provide real hope by attracting the funds and skills that will propel Pakistan into the future. However this will only happen when we get the system right in Pakistan. If we have a corrupt system which serves as a deterrent to our overseas nationals bringing in their skills and capital, this great asset becomes totally ineffective.

I would want students in UK to keep creating awareness both inside and outside Pakistan and prepare themselves to take responsibility in the future when our party embarks on serious nation-building.

Our thanks go to Ali Zaidi for facilitating this interview.

King’s Bench: What made you decide to become a lawyer?

Miriam Gonzalez: I was probably too young at the time I decided to become a lawyer. At first I actually wanted to be a diplomat. Luckily during my five year degree, I realised that I wasn’t cut out in any shape or form to be a diplomat, and became very interested in the legal aspects. I went to Bruges afterwards to add a European flavour, which happened to be around the time that telecoms liberalisation was exploding in Europe. I had never had a vocation but it was a really interesting moment in terms of regulatory issues in the telecommunications area. I thought it was the perfect combination of law and politics: much more practical than diplomacy and offering the chance of making more of a difference.

KB: Why did you choose to specialise in European trade law?

MG: It wasn’t a conscious decision and I didn’t specialize in it during my degree. In Spain we don’t have specialisation – it is very different from the UK in that sense. However it became a conscious choice in my last year at Bruges. Everything was happening very fast and I am a person who works very much on the basis of adrenaline. So I never mapped out a path whether it was to becoming a lawyer or indeed anything else. There is always a huge element of good luck and chance.

KB: How did you break into a legal profession within the European Union?

MG: I was a pretty obnoxious student – one of those that applied for everything. One of the scholarships I received was for the College of Europe, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Spain. I thought this would offer me an interesting legal angle. You have to understand the Spanish perspective. By the time I finished my degree it was very clear in Spain that the EU meant more than just cash coming into our infrastructure and that actually there were legal implications. This new legal relationship was not something they explained well at University.

You’ve asked me about something that I feel really strongly about. Even today I see an enormous number of firm lawyers who know a lot about their areas of specialisation but have very little knowledge of the EU system and of the kind of obligations that they must advise their clients on in relation to it. There is also an element of Euroscepticism: “Oh it doesn’t matter because we don’t like it…” Well whether you like it or not does not matter. You have to understand it and in Spain the only way to understand it was to go abroad.

KB: What was it like working in the EU Commission?

MG: The Commission was a fantastic experience. I was very lucky to be brought straight from College into leading the telecoms negotiations team at the WTO. These were professionally some of the happiest years. And then as I was being dropped back into the EU system, Chris Patten came along and asked me to be his advisor on the Middle East, North Africa, and Latin America. I said yes and again bypassed the whole bureaucracy [laughs]. I had five fantastic years with him and learned an enormous amount. I then worked for Benita Ferrero, but only for a few months. I didn’t have the typical career at the Commission; I always managed to do things that I found really interesting.

Having said all that, I realize there are many inadequacies in the Commission. It has received some bad press and has been stereotyped a fair amount. I spent a year at the Foreign Office dealing with similar issues as in the Commission but frankly I was much happier at the Commission. There was greater flexibility and also a great level of commitment: you get a team of five or six young, committed people who get a policy done within six months. They are also very original in the manner in which they tackle certain issues, such as the Electronic Commerce Directive. There is no way that could have been produced within a national administration. Having looked at it from the outside, I have less of a problem now defending the Commission then I did from the inside.

When people see the Commission as ‘Brussels’, it looks like a terrifying monster. In reality it is not so big. It struggles with resources, but works on the basis that there are a lot of committed people. In Simon Jenkins’ biography, the head of his cabinet wrote that in Brussels you get a lot of first and a lot of third-rate people but not enough second-rate and this is a problem because it is the second-rate people who sustain an administration. This is very accurate.

KB: What are your views on the reformed document of ‘EU Constitution’? Is it of any real significance?

MG: I suffered learning about the constitution when I was still in Brussels. It is a document of very little real relevance to the structure of the EU. There were a variety of mistakes with the EU embarking on it in the first place but they are treaty maniacs [laughs]. They cannot live without having some project to reform. I have always been of the opinion that we need to stop this and get back to basic implementation to first prove that a good job can be done. The EU is almost like an adolescent, constantly questioning the purpose of existence and it is all a bit silly. Having said that, I don’t feel that this treaty is a big deal and it is certainly not a constitution – they should have never called it a constitution. Yes it changes bits and pieces, but the fuss that was created around this referendum was unnecessary. Calling Javier Solana the Highest Foreign Minister won’t change anything important as he will have the same powers. I do not believe this is something that really worries citizens. What worries most people are the day-to-day issues.

KB: How would you describe your experience, thus far, at DLA Piper?

MG: Again I have been really lucky to find DLA. When I was looking for a job, while still at the Foreign Office, I wanted to leave the administration and get back into private practice. I had worked for BT many years ago and wasn’t looking for a law firm at all but for an in-house role. At DLA we met and got on very well. I have been lucky because this is one of the firms that is expanding so it isn’t as stuffy or as protocol-led. It is about taking action, finding new products and innovating. I don’t think I could have found this kind of dynamism in many other law firms.

KB: Is working in a business law firm a world apart from the EU?

MG: Not really. A lot of what I do is advice on EU regulatory issues so it is actually very similar. One issue I am a bit obsessive about concerns the great amount impractical advice about EU regulation that is being dispensed. There is an enormous amount of legal advice that clients get about litigating on the various EU articles. We are strongly of the opinion that in advising a client you must offer both the legal advice and the policy advice, but make the distinction clear.

KB: What would you describe as the greatest challenge of your job?

MG: The greatest challenge was coming to run a practice that was not already set up. I really had to start from scratch: finding the team, the clients and building up our reputation. This can be unnerving in a way because some in months it works well while others it is more difficult, but you need to keep going regardless. It is very challenging but this is precisely why I like to do it. In general I feel there is really bad advice out there on some of the issues we deal with, so it is very rewarding to do a good job and have clients returning to us for more advice.

KB: Has being the wife of a prominent politician affected your career?

MG: No it hasn’t really. It affects you at home because it is always a bit of a struggle to work and take care of two kids. And of course the more demanding the job of your husband is, the more that bounces back on you. But again this has been a product of chance because I am aware of the fact that in other political parties there is more of an expectation for the wife to play a certain role. I feel that the Lib Dems are quite modern in this respect and don’t expect me to be a flowerpot.

KB: If you had not become a lawyer, would you have liked to be involved in politics?

MG: I would have loved to be a politician and still want to become one someday. It obviously would only make sense in Spain and so there is a geography challenge [laughs] but I feel very strongly about politics. I still follow the situation in Spain in great detail and I try to do so as much as possible without it interfering with my job.

KB: What do you value most about having lived and worked in and with so many different countries?

MG: The most important lesson you take away is understanding that your manner of doing things is different. On an international level you see people of so many different nationalities taking completely different approaches to the same issue. It is a very humbling experience because we miss an enormous amount due to the way we are programmed along cultural lines. I hope you don’t mind me saying that I think the people who do get out are the best people that I have met both in the professional and the personal sense. They are the most interesting and the least threatened by change. That being said, this does come hand in hand with problems. When you live and travel internationally you lose a bit of your roots and can start to feel that you are never exactly complete anywhere. I think, though, that this is a price worth paying. Here at DLA we put a lot of emphasis on having international teams; in my team I now have people from New Zealand, the United States, Colombia, Spain, Britain and you really do get the best of everybody by doing this. There is no point in thinking that you are the best because this is never true. There will always be someone who knows more or just as much as you do.

The educational content almost outweighs the explicit, taking an innovative slant on issues such as racism, pornography and homosexuality; and even providing some sound economic advice: the economy is unstable; the only safe investment is in porn. But don’t worry learning is made easy and fun with songs such as “What Do You Do with a B.A. in English?” and “It Sucks To Be Me”. The general Avenue Q approach is to shout about issues we normally whisper with the aim of making us laugh at ourselves and more importantly, at each other.

The puppets are controlled by multi-talented actors who multi-task: singing, acting, and puppeteering all at once, professionally and with indefatigable energy.

After the show I caught up with the wonderful Simon Lipkin who plays Trekkie and Nicky.

King’s Bench: Were you sure that you wanted to act above all other things when you first decided to pursue a career in acting?

Simon Lipkin: Yes, absolutely. I was never good at anything else [he lies!! We went to the same posh school.] I would always spend time in the theatre, or at concerts.

KB: Do you miss not having experienced the uni life at all?

SL: Well, I grew up quickly. I went to the Sylvia Young School where I did academic work two days a week and would spend the other three days doing voice-overs and acting. I suppose when I gained a scholarship to a performing arts college at sixteen I had a similar experience but I have never been particularly interested in the uni scene.

KB: Avenue Q script approaches certain controversial issues with sensitivity but when the show first opened did you fear criticism?

SL: The song ‘Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist’, for example, is not meant as an insult to cultural diversity; it is not about the superiority of blacks or whites. We just nudge against issues that may be on people’s minds. It is all for comic value, which is why we poke fun at a diversity of races and no race is singled out.

KB: What has driven your success? The idea of fame or a love of acting?

SL: Absolutely not fame in the slightest – fame scares me and the small amount of fame I get from doing the show scares me. I do it because I love what I do and the absolute buzz from making an audience laugh or cry, which is a little bit wanky, I know….

KB: What has been your most embarrassing moment on stage?

SL: I have had several. Once my trousers fell down while I was playing in Joseph. It was a quick change and ran across the stage which is when it happened but I got a cheer from the audience. At least it is nice to know that you’re appreciated. I also wore a nappy on-stage once which was quite embarrassing and got caught in a deck chair. I am quite clumsy in general.

KB: Is there anyone you have felt uncomfortable performing in front of when doing Avenue Q?

SL: My grandmother – she’s lived through a war but she wasn’t ready for that.

Here she discusses her first published book, Headspace.

King’s Bench: How did the idea for this book originate?

Amber Marks: In court, when I heard a police officer outline his proposals for side-stepping the law on stop and search by using dogs to sniff out cannabis smokers in local pubs. Within months I was encountering police dogs everywhere I went and began fraternising with police dog handlers while researching the legal status and the political and scientific history of police dogs. I was invited to present my research at an MoD conference on security applications of the science of smell. At the conference I learned about sniffer mice, yeast, robots, rats, moths etc. The experience was an interesting one and as a result I developed a penchant for participating in security conferences and my research broadened out into the science of smell, the militarization of biology and the reliability of security technologies. I realised that present-day police and military applications of smell could be used to illustrate the implications of a surveillance society for personal privacy and individual autonomy.

KB: Did the book involve special research?

AM: I interviewed numerous police dog handlers, members of the public and the legal profession.  I attended police dog shows, police dog training sessions and seminars, lectures on bioethics, surveillance and the legal regulation of technology. I conducted library research into the historical use of animals in the courtroom and on the battlefield, chemical and biological warfare and ‘less than lethal’ weapons, political/financial/ legal/philosophical aspects of surveillance, novel developments in forensic science (its financial drive, political convenience and reliability).  I researched the use of smell in literature and interviewed a literary professor about Aldous Huxley’s use of smell as a technology of control in Brave New World.  I accompanied MoD scientists to conferences on the science of smell and conversed with a number of leading scientists in this field.  I researched the scientific history of smell (from the odour of sanctity to recent developments in neuroscience and the mind/brain debate over the existence of the ghost in the machine). I attended a number of security events between 2004 and 2007, and interviewed numerous civil liberties campaigners and civil servants, documenting the emergence of a surveillance society.

Read a review of ‘Headspace’

King’s Bench: Can you describe your route into the legal profession?

Alan Dashwood: It was actually rather circuitous – my first degree was in Classics. I then studied Law at Oxford and qualified for the Bar, but instead of practising as a barrister I became an academic. I had a period as Legal Secretary to Advocate General J-P Warner at the European Court of Justice during the late 1970s. It was a very exciting time to be there, since the Court was developing its jurisprudence on freedom of movement.

In 1987 I became a Director in the Legal Service of the Council, and returned to a Chair at Cambridge in the mid-1990s. It was only then that I completed pupillage, and now I have a fairly busy but specialised practice focusing entirely on EU law, and acting mostly for the UK government.

KB: Studying in the late 1960s, what initially attracted you to European Law?

AD: It was very new indeed in those days, before even Britain’s membership of the Community. The subject seemed intellectually exciting and challenging. It is a rare thing to be present at the creation of a new legal system, particularly one developing quite so rapidly – I fell for it then and I have never fallen out of love with it.

KB: For the students of King’s College, EU Law is taught during the first year. How do you think that this subject equips law students to be able academics, and ultimately, able lawyers?

AD: If you want to practice law in one way or another, in one of the Member States, studying EU law at an early stage is exceptionally important. It affects so many aspects of the substance of all law, making it vital for students to be able to grasp the fundamental organisations of your national legal system.

KB: Has European law developed in the way that you expected?

AD: I doubt that anyone could have predicted that EU law would develop as vigorously as it has done. In particular, the fundamental rights jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice has never disappointed its admirers.

KB: As a former Director, can you describe the role of the Legal Service of the Council of the European Union?

AD: It is a body that I enormously admire, in a sense adopting the role of an independent umpire between the Member States. It is a very curious role, and even though I left the Council prior to the recent great expansion, we were still looking after a 12-headed client. These days, that has become a 27-headed client, with whom the Legal Service can only work provided they are fully trusted by the delegations to give impartial advice.

All of the Legal Service’s endeavours are against a backdrop of the political inclinations of Member States, and maintaining this tradition of independence means that it remains highly respected by both the delegations in Brussels and the Court of Justice. Working with the Legal Service was immensely intellectually stimulating, having to react very quickly to complex and technical questions and present the position to a group of cynical diplomats, whose chief interest is bending the debate in their favour.

KB: How do you expect enlargement to affect the EU, both at an institutional level and at ground level for the original Member States?

AD: I am entirely in favour of expansion to accommodate the states of Eastern Europe. The first major challenge for Union was to establish peace in Europe following the Second World War. It succeeded in an extraordinary way. The second challenge was to bring prosperity to the less economically developed Member States and to strengthen democracy in countries where this was needed – it is too easy to forget that until fairly recently, Spain, Portugal and Greece were dictatorships. The third great challenge has been to repeat that success story with the countries of central and Eastern Europe, thereby creating a new security structure in our continent, following the collapse of the Soviet empire.

The future of Europe as a whole will depend upon the success of expansion, and it will certainly place the institutions under considerable strain. I am perhaps more optimistic about their ability to react to strain than some commentators, because I have seen them working from the inside. We certainly need some of the constitutional changes included in the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe (now the Reform Treaty).

KB: What do you think the ramifications of a possible future Conservative government withdrawing from the European Treaty might be?

AD: Absolutely inconceivable! I cannot see that we would ever withdraw from Europe, it would of course be an immensely complex task, a massive amount of legal unravelling, during which time the government might come to its senses. We would be reduced to being a small country on the edge of a regional power, and I cannot believe that this is what the British public ever wanted.

I believe that the British want to be part of history, and not akin to Switzerland. Withdrawal would deprive us of international influence, for example in negotiations such as the Doha round. I cannot imagine any of the three main parties adopting such a stance, and thankfully we do not need to worry about UKIP forming a government. I think the real danger is that our government will be so afraid of Euro-scepticism that as a nation we will fail to make the most of our membership of the EU.

KB: As the founding Editor of the European Law Review, how would you describe the function of such journals?

AD: The original function of the European Law Review was to disseminate information about the developments of Europe, in the academic world but also in the professions. We wanted people to understand how important this area was going to be. Nowadays, this remains the function with the difference that most readers no longer need convincing as to the significance of European law. There are excellent EU Law courses at British universities, making our students better prepared for legal practice than many of their continental European counterparts. Likewise the British legal profession has adapted to the opportunities of Union membership at least as well as those of the other Member States. A very large proportion of international business finds its way to the London law firms and chambers, or their Brussels branches.

I’m now one of the joint Editors of (what is regarded by some as the competitor of the European Law Review!) the Common Market Law Review. Even if there was a bit of competition between us in the early days, there is now ample space for both publications.

KB: Can you offer any advice to students in terms of having their work published?

AD: It is an excellent thing for law schools to produce home grown publications, since it is an excellent way of starting off. One has to aspire. If you are expecting to be published, your work needs to have a strong element of originality and be supported by careful research. There is no reason why a law student with a strong interest in a specific area of law shouldn’t produce work which is of publishable standard before the end of their studies.

KB: As the judge of the forthcoming King’s Bench Essay Prize, what should essay writers aspire to?

AD: Clarity. Producing a well-structured set of arguments, clearly indicating from the offset the thesis that they aim to establish. Analysis of relevant cases and legislation is unavoidable and drawing strong conclusions crucial. Overall, the essay must be a well shaped one – coherence is all.

KB: To lighten the tone a little, what is your favourite legal joke?

AD: I am quite a jolly sort of person, but pretty useless with jokes! I have a rather dry one, which is in fact a true story. It concerns the first President of the Commission of the EEC, Dr. Walter Halstein. In the course of a Commission debate over several days, he was criticised by colleagues who noticed that he was taking the opposite position to one he had previously been defending vigorously. Halstein replied rather pompously, “I always reserve the right to be more intelligent today than I was yesterday”. To which, came the reply: “Well, we had better adjourn until tomorrow then!”

KB: And finally, a random fact about yourself.

AD: I enjoy trout fishing – mostly in Scotland. Cambridge is about the worst place in the country for a game fisherman to live, because the rivers are too slow and muddy!

King’s Bench: Why did you start up Fathers 4 Justice?

Matt O’Connor: During a bitter divorce, I went through the family courts system and was surprised to find that it was entirely secret. It, in fact, seemed more akin to what you would expect in North Korea than in a progressive twenty-first century democracy. It is a highly abusive and damaging process to everyone concerned and most importantly to the children. The lack of accountability and scrutiny has created a muddy backwater in the British legal system which needs to be addressed and changed. My aim was to create awareness about this fundamentally flawed and abusive family justice system and to raise the wider problem of fatherlessness in society and its consequences.

KB: How and why did you decide to go about your campaigns such a unique way?

MO: I don’t believe in playing by anybody else’s rulebook and I think that humour is always important – it engages people. Also, if you use ridicule, satire or subversion against the State, well, the Government can’t argue with the sound of laughter.

KB: Don’t you think, at least to an extent, that your methods get in the way of your message?

MO: If people don’t know you, you don’t stand a chance at all. So to be effective it is important to understand how the media sees things. Clearly they have their own views on what they think is interesting and what makes a good story and their view of what constitutes a good story might be different from what we would want to get across. Particularly if you are a small group with limited funds, as we were, it is very difficult to get your voice heard. Our methods have meant that we always punch above our weight in terms of press coverage. You’ve just got to get on with it and hope that people understand what we are about – and I think that on the whole people do. We are probably the Marmite of protest groups; you either love us or hate us.

KB: Is Fathers 4 Justice just about flash-in-the-pan headlines or do you also campaign seriously on specific issues?

MO: We are campaigning right across the board to try and create a cultural change and it is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. We are trying to make fatherlessness unacceptable in the same way as slavery is now unacceptable (remember Wilberforce spent his entire life fighting it). Admittedly this issue is not as dramatic, but we need to make sure that people aware of the problems fatherlessness gives rise to and that it is understood that parents – both parents – are absolutely vital in the welfare and upbringing of their children. Even when the two birth parents are no longer in a relationship together, it is important to ensure that there is family cohesion after a family unit separates.

KB: With the amount of press coverage you expressly seek (and get), do you receive a corollary level of media intrusion into your own private life?

MO: Well… We have been monitored by button-hole cameras and parabolic directional microphones, my landline has been tapped, my car and those of people who work for me have been stopped through the number-plate recognition technology by police looking for superhero costumes and my ex-wife and press officer have been offered £25,000 each to dish the dirt on me. So not much! It’s all good stuff – fuck ‘em I say. I published a book last year that already contains anything they could want to say about me.

KB: You criticised the family courts for not being open, but the reason they are closed is to protect the best interests of the children. What is so wrong about that?

MO: Call me old-fashioned but I would actually like to see something called evidence in the legal world when people make statements like that. The fact is that there is no evidence whatsoever to support that argument. I made this challenge to Mark Potter who is the President of the Family Law Division and he asked me for evidence suggesting that the family justice system is damaging to children! Until 1964 the family courts were completely open. Indeed the original reason the courts were closed was to protect the interests of the parents, not the children.

Given that there is no empirical evidence and that there are open family courts all over world (in fact in some countries proceedings are filmed), this ‘child’s best interest’ argument is probably the most fraudulent claim in the history of British justice. Nobody has kept any records on the outcomes for children, so nobody knows what has happened to the children. These are absolutely life-shattering decisions and they are taken by a single person, in secret who is totally unscrutinised and unsackable and yet rules on these issues day-in, day-out. That is what is wrong.

KB: Some people have argued that your group is anti-women…

MO: That is an extremely ignorant claim for anybody to make. Fathers 4 Justice is run by a large number women and has been since its inception. Our membership also includes partners of fathers, mothers and grandmothers. This is not about men versus women. It is about establishing an old-fashioned principle called equality.

KB: Others have said that this is all just some kind of ego trip for you…

MO: If this was an ego trip I would have stuck to designing bars and hotels and the stuff I was doing beforehand. It would have infinitely more rewarding: more women, more money and more booze! I do have an ego, as most politicians do – you need one to be able to run a group like this one. But when you have been through what we have and have the battle scars to prove it, things do get cut down to size.

KB: Do you think that you have made a difference?

MO: Absolutely. We are now a household name and have gotten people talking about the issues. We have had great media exposure and have even become a part of popular culture and are regularly pastiched by the likes of Catherine Tate. In addition we have been international for while now and have operations in the United States, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands. As far as the legal ramifications go, the shockwaves are still running through the legal industry. I have been to many conferences and we have certainly overturned the views of the status quo in the justice system. Our main stumbling block, however, is finding the political will to change things.

KB: What is the truth behind the alleged plot to kidnap Leo Blair?

MO: The story came about interestingly. Before you get a story published about you, you usually get a call from the publication the evening before saying something like ‘We’re going to be running this story. Would you like to comment?’ However, there was no such call from The Sun prior to their front page splash. At 10.20 I got a call from Newsnight saying that we were on the front cover of The Sun newspaper and asking for a response. There was no substance to the story at all. What happened, as far as we can establish, is that at a demonstration a few weeks earlier, just in the run-up to Christmas, there were Special Branch people swimming around with their parabolic directional microphones (as there often were). They were probably listening to a couple of people chattering away casually when someone said something like, ‘God could you imagine if we could steal that Tony Blair’s son?’ The Sun story had no names and there were no arrests – that is how tissue-thin the whole thing was.

In my opinion, there was a bit of criminal malfeasance on the part of Scotland Yard. The story certainly went to Downing Street who together with Scotland Yard must have leaked it to The Sun. The Sun would only have run a story with a picture of the Prime Minister and his son on the front page with the agreement of the Blairs, who are close friends of Rebecca Wade, the editor. The Blairs managed to keep virtually every story about their children out of the press, including some which arguably had a public interest element. This makes you wonder why this particular story was put out. I can understand why he would want to protect the privacy of his family, but what I cannot stand is the hypocrisy. He was either that desperate to get us banned or perhaps he was just getting back at us for powder-bombing him a couple of years prior. It was a stitch up and a brilliant one at that. I certainly take my hat off to the PR people who pulled it off. If I had been trying to stitch us up, that is exactly how I would have done it.

KB: If there was nothing to the story then why did you subsequently break the group up?

MO: I think we all got quite nervous after that. We were getting bombed to bits in the press at that particular time and there was quite a lot of undercover stuff going on. The level of intrusion was relentless so we felt that we needed to pack up for a while which we did until we took the National Lottery off air live on BBC1. We rebuilt the organisation and created something that would have longevity rather than just being flash-in-the-pan. We all felt that it was really important to make sure that Fathers 4 Justice prevailed in the long term.

KB: Are the rumours true that there might be a Fathers 4 Justice film in the offing?

MO: Yes. We have a film lined up with the producers of Calendar Girls. We are hoping to begin production on that this year with a view to releasing it in 2009. We also have a musical lined up. It will be a tragic comedy a kind of Monty Python meets Billy Elliot. The music is currently being worked on by the producer of Jerry Springer the Opera. So there are all sorts of weird and wonderful things going on.

KB: What does the future hold for Matt O’Connor?

MO: Today I announced that I will be standing in the London mayoral election (for the English Democrats). I am launching both in Edinburgh and London. This reflects one of our central themes which is the flow of taxes from London to Scotland. I will be campaigning on three main issues: greater local democracy, civil liberties, and strong families and communities. The deaths of 27 teenagers last year on the streets of London indicate the systemic failure of the London Assembly to deal with the social effects of what is actually driving young offending, teenage pregnancies, abortions, violent crime and gang culture. These issues are all linked in with the social disease of family breakdown and we have recently been doing a lot of community work campaigning for more power to be given at the local level to deal with these issues. We are building a really fantastic case and have a very controversial advertising campaign.

We are aiming to create a bit of a splash and get more people engaged in politics. It is really important to get people who really do care to play a positive role in our democracy and to break the paralysis that grips the political discourse in this country. We need to challenge the status quo of our three main party leaders – Mr Brown, Mr Beige and Mr Bland – and turn this Parliament of cross-dressers into a dynamic one with people of new ideas, new vision and fresh thinking,

Fathers 4 Justice: The Inside Story, by Matt O’Connor, is published by Orion, price £18.99

King’s Bench: What was your route into the legal profession?

AC: I decided to study law when my parents were involved in a piece of litigation over the compulsory purchase of our family home for the construction of a bypass. The case ended up in the High Court and I was very interested in the process. During the subsequent school holidays I had the opportunity to go to court at Preston with a barrister called David Waddington (later Home Secretary). I just found it fascinating.

KB: Admission to the Bar has always been very competitive. How much more competitive is it now than it was for you?

AC: It is significantly more competitive now. I joined a Bar of under three thousand; it is now over twelve thousand. Then again the Bar has grown in proportion to the growth of economic activity in the country. So I would say it is probably twenty per cent more difficult to get into now than it was then.

KB: Earlier this year Lord Neuberger’s Working Party recommended that the number of BVC places should be limited. Do you agree?

AC: I wish I didn’t, but on practical grounds I do agree. I think there are an awful lot of people qualifying to be barristers who have absolutely no chance of practicing at the Bar. On the other hand one could argue that the BVC is a useful qualification to have. But I think the selection policy for the BVC ought to be more rigorous than it is. Allowing students to believe that they can become barristers while knowing that they have almost no chance isn’t in my view very helpful.

KB: Though far more prevalent in your time, the perception persists today that the Bar is geared towards the socio-economic elite. To what extent is this the reality?

AC: I am the head of a large set of chambers in London and our selection policy certainly has nothing to do with the socio-economic elite. We simply take the best people we can get. There obviously are economic factors: in order to complete studying you have to effectively be a student for five years and people from wealthier homes may find that easier.

KB: The Government appears to be again pressing for an increase in maximum detention time limits. However, you recently called the entire debate “sterile”. Why?

AC: I think you’re talking about a very unintelligent debate. I do accept that probably for political reasons alone, it will be necessary to put a maximum number of days into the legislation. However talking about a precise number of days is very unintelligent and in my view unintelligible.

A very small number of people have been held for up to the current maximum of twenty-eight days. Nobody should be held for a day more than is necessary in the interests of justice; nor for a day less. I would put the judgment of the detention period into the hands of senior judges with heavy criminal expertise who can make a judgment on what is appropriate on an examination of the evidence. I was traduced the other day by the director of Liberty, Shami Chakrabati, as being in favour of what she called internment. That kind of inaccurate criticism simply devalues the intelligibility of the debate.

KB: Doesn’t the inevitable unaccountability leave the judiciary an inappropriate degree of discretion, if only in view of public perception?

AC: I think the public perception of the judiciary is pretty good on the whole. We have the best system of judicial review in the world. Judges have shown themselves to be very robust in intervening in administrative action when appropriate. Personally I think the protection provided by judicial review to a member of the public who may have been arrested is much stronger than the protection afforded by an arbitrary number of days.

KB: Is this a purely principled position or one based on information you have access to outside the public domain?

AC: It is an entirely principled position based in part on material that I have access to outside of the public domain. In my view my privileged access to some information of that kind enables me to take a more accurate and principled view than many others who criticise what I do without seeing that material.

KB: The previous Government proposed that lecturers inform on students suspected of involvement in extremism and more recently Lord West, the Security Minister, said that people should begin to snitch on their neighbours. The Government’s post-7/7 rhetoric was that the terrorists should not be allowed to change our way of life. Isn’t this exactly what is happening?

AC: The current violent Jihadism problem has certainly changed our way of life to a point and we have to be very careful to ensure that any changes to our law are proportional to the necessity of the circumstances.

Regarding snitching, I hope that any citizen who believed that a terrorist lived next door would consider it their duty to inform the police. Giving such information does not send them to jail – it merely starts an investigation which is an entirely responsible thing for a member of the public to do. I think Lord West in slightly colourful language was merely stating the obvious.

KB: Don’t these measures and the enforcement of them help to engender an inaccurate and deeply harmful caricature of Islam?

AC: We should always be careful that at every turn we make it clear that this not about Islam. The vast majority, all bar an infinitesimal group, of Muslims in this country are totally opposed to terrorism. That infinitesimal minority is responsible for the caricature of Islam and they cannot blame the rest of society for reacting against what they are doing.

I do think, however, that there is a need for more action to be taken at a local level to ensure that Muslims are not in any way discriminated against. Far more could be done by local authorities, local voluntary organisations and Muslim organisations to ensure that there is a stronger level of understanding of what true Islam as compared with the caricature. On the whole mainstream, peaceful, responsible Muslim opinion is not as fully represented as it should be.

KB: John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, recently added his voice to those of a growing number of influential figures saying that Britain is slowly moving towards a police state. Do you agree with him?

AC: As I have told John Sentamu, who is a friend of mine, I think he was talking complete nonsense. It was a very unwise piece language. A police state means a state like Zimbabwe, Pakistan or indeed Uganda, where John came from. One should be very careful in one’s choice of words. Yes he was sounding a legitimate warning, but his conclusion was hyperbolic beyond belief and I think he probably recognises that.

KB: The Madeleine McCann story has reopened the debate over the extent of media intrusion into private life. Is it finally time for the legislature to check this trend, perhaps with a French-style privacy law?

AC: Mr and Mrs McCann invited the media intrusion into their lives so I don’t think they’re in a very strong position to complain about it. The episode has revealed significant disparities between the Portuguese legal system and our own and there may be a need to look at more shared standards in terms of what information is used by the police and prosecuting authorities. There are other such countries in the EU and the Council of Europe.

However, I do think that we have an unacceptable level of intrusion by the media into people’s lives. I am afraid that the Press Complaints Commission is a weak organisation which does very little to protect private rights. The press will only have themselves to blame if a French-style law of privacy is imposed. I am actually opposed to such a law. I would like to see the Press Complaints Commission toughened up and the press accepting the need for a more responsible approach.

KB: How did your pioneering role campaigning for the rights of transsexuals come about?

AC: When I was an MP someone wrote to me describing the problems he was having as a female-to-male transsexual. It seemed to me a genuine civil rights issue which would only be addressed if an MP took it on board and I am very proud to have started the Parliamentary campaign that produced the first Bill on this issue.

KB: And finally, a random fact about yourself.

AC: I am a supporter of Burnley FC and have been since I was six years old.

King’s Bench: To start with, could you briefly describe your beginnings in Birmingham?

Moazzam Begg: My father and mother, originally from India, migrated to Pakistan and then to the UK where my father was a banker and my mother a psychology student. My mother died when I was six years old, around the time I was beginning my primary education. This was at a Jewish school, so I grew up with mostly Jewish kids as my closest friends. There was a paradox in that at the same time as the Arab/Israeli War was being waged, I was walking around waving Israeli flags with the Star of David emblazoned on my blazer. But as a child I was mostly unaware of the conflicts and I look back on my time there with great nostalgia.

KB: You grew up at the time of the rise of National Front and the Anti-Paki League and in your teenage years you joined the Birmingham Lynx Gang. Was this your radicalisation or a young man looking for security?

MB: I think the latter. Our group’s raison d’être was anti-racism – repelling the skinheads, the neo-Nazis and other such groups. It was comprised predominantly of people of Pakistani origin but also included Algerians, Afro-Caribbeans, and even some Irish kids. We had nothing to do with politics. We went pubbing, clubbing, some people took drugs and others were involved in petty crime. We were adolescent members of a gang and did things that no good Muslim should.

KB: As you grew older you drifted away from the Lynx and soon after went on a trip to Pakistan that was to have a great impact on your life. Why did you go and what exactly did you see and learn?

MB: I had by now begun to affiliate myself increasingly with Islam and the greater Muslim world and went to Pakistan to visit an aunt and to further explore my faith. While I was there I learnt of the history of politics in Pakistan and visited a refugee camp on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. I met people, many of whom were Kashmiris, who had seen completely innocent members of their families raped, imprisoned and murdered. I thus became aware of the reality of this conflict for the first time. The experience had huge impact on me and soon afterward when the genocide in Bosnia happened, I felt the urge to help and began to visit there regularly with a newfound zeal.

KB: Were you ever tempted to take up arms?

MB: Yes the temptation was always there. Anyone rendering aid in that situation would look to do more than merely fatten up the sheep before the slaughter. In Bosnia I very briefly joined up with the Bosnian Army Foreign Volunteer Force. It was a sudden decision. But it was winter and there was not a great deal of fighting going on. If there had been, I might well have taken up arms. However I was not trained and did not even know how to fire a weapon. Clearly I was not going to be sent to the frontline unless I knew those things.

KB: In this the period of your life you have been described as a ‘war tourist’.

MB: Well I certainly did not go for tourism. The reality is that in war zones, people need help and people go there to help. I went to these war zones to help people. Anyone else in that position would be described as an aid worker. But because of the present climate of Islamophobia people look for new categories to reflect their own insecurities.

KB: How did you find out about 9/11 and what was your reaction?

MB: By this time I had moved with my young family to Pakistan and eventually on to Afghanistan and was working towards setting up a girls’ school near the Pakistani border. A friend of mine came over quite late one night saying that America was under attack and that tens of thousands of people had been killed. There were no televisions because of the Taliban’s rules so I did not see the pictures or find out the specifics of what had happened until I had returned to Pakistan. At the time the impact did not really hit home until I realised we would have to evacuate when in early October the first set of cruise missiles landed in Kabul. After a long and difficult journey my family and I eventually made it back to Islamabad.

KB: And then late one night, three months later you received a knock on the door…

MB: I opened the door to face a group of people, mostly Pakistani agents, all dressed as civilians, with guns in hand and one pointed directly at me. I also saw tasers and stun guns crackling in the background. Nobody said a word before they forced their way in, pushed me to the ground and shackled my hands and legs. They were about to put a hood over my head when I saw them walking towards the room where my wife and children were sleeping. I asked them not to go in. I was then hooded and put in the back of a vehicle. During the drive someone lifted my hood to take a photograph while another, evidently an American, produced a pair of handcuffs and told me that they were given to him by the widow of a 9/11 victim to capture the perpetrators. It was then that I realised who these people were.

KB: You then began the most horrific journey from Kandahar to Bagram and eventually to the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay. How were you treated in each of these places?

MB: The interesting thing is that with Pakistan being a third world nation, I had expected to be slapped around a little bit. But the Pakistanis were apologetic; some even spoke to me in terms of endearment. It was hypocritical but in the six weeks I spent in Kandahar they did not hit or harm me at all. The irony is that it was when I was taken into American custody that the brutality began.

The moment I was handed over, I was slammed on to the floor, kneed in the back and in the head and with my hands shackled behind my back and raised above my head I was made to bow and walk simultaneously. I was then taken into an aircraft and flown from Kandahar to Bagram where I was to undergo processing.

Processing lasted between two and three hours and was probably the most brutal period of the whole incarceration. It was so malicious. I was dragged through the mud in the freezing cold, shackled and re-shackled, kicked and screamed at. Meanwhile the dogs, which were barking all around, were so close I could actually feel their saliva dripping on to me. I was shaved and then they sliced off my clothes and searched me in the most demeaning way. I was then taken into an interrogation room naked with the shackles cutting so deep I could not feel my hands for weeks. If there is any worse humiliation than your own in that situation, it is watching somebody else’s. I saw this process repeated again and again.

KB: What were the living conditions like?

MB: At Bagram, where I was held in a communal cell made up of razor wire, I did not see natural light for a year and did not eat any fresh food for a whole year. The physical brutality for me was not as bad as Kandahar, but I saw two people being beaten so badly that it led to their deaths. As for me personally, they used the sounds of woman screaming in the cell next door and suggested that it was my wife. They also waved pictures of my wife and children in my face all the time asking me to confess to things that I did not even know existed. So by the time I left Bagram I was actually looking forward to going to Guantánamo.

When I did arrive in Guantánamo in February 2003, I was taken straight into a solitary confinement cell, an 8ft by 6ft converted shipping container. This again had no access to natural light. There was a soldier watching on at any given time. This became my home for almost two years.

KB: In such conditions, how did you manage to keep sane?

MB: I did crack up on a couple of occasions. However these were the exception rather than the rule. I began to resign myself to the place and to my fate and decided that I would use the time to grow in every way that I could: spiritually, physically and mentally. I engaged in conversation with the guards, many of whom many were decent people, memorised large sections of the Koran and made lists of everything that I could remember: every country in the world, every capital city, books that I wanted to read when I got home. I just did everything I possibly could to remind myself of a world outside.

KB: And then on January 25, 2005 you were finally released from Guantánamo. How difficult did you find the process of going from years of solitary confinement to being surrounded by family and friends?

MB: I was not the emotional mess that I thought I would be. I was in Guantánamo and Bagram for a great period of time, but when I made that decision to use the time to better myself in a way that I had not done before, I did not look back and was still in that frame of mind when I arrived in Britain. Yes I was euphoric, but I was not a bag of nerves.

One of the hardest things for me, though, was all the space and freedom. In a large room, I would find myself pacing up and down – three steps forward, three steps back. I still do it sometimes. Having psychologically confined myself to my cell-space for so long, I found the readjustment process difficult. Quite apart from that, my children had all grown a great deal. In fact we had a child that I had not actually seen before. There was so much to talk about, but at the same time so little to say; I just didn’t know where to start.

KB: How do you spend your time now?

MB: I work as an outreach worker and a spokesman for Cage Prisoners, a human rights organisation which campaigns for the rights of detainees illegally held at Guantánamo and elsewhere. They in fact campaigned for me while I detained. I also work closely with Amnesty International, former detainees and the families of detainees.

KB: What is your perspective on the so-called ‘war on terror’?

MB: I have to say that it is a war of terror. When people talk about terrorism they have to understand that it is reciprocal. The fact that one person uses a suicide bomb to kill innocent people and another uses a carpet bomb or a cruise missile cannot be the basis for a distinction between a justified act and a wrongful one. They are both wrong. When I was taken from my house in the way that I was, I was kidnapped. There is no other way to describe it. It is called abduction and false imprisonment – tactics used only by terrorists and not legitimate governments.

KB: What, in your view, is the best way forward in Iraq?

MB: Withdrawal and engagement with the enemy. That is the lesson of Northern Ireland. When I met Martin McGuiness, who was a commander of the IRA, he told me of the various things he was involved in and two weeks later he was standing in Stormont with Tony Blair on one side and Ian Paisley on the other. When on the one hand you have the American and British governments saying, “We don’t talk to terrorists”, the reaction on the other is, “Well since they won’t talk to us, we’ll talk to them in the only language they understand”. This approach has led to the status quo.

KB: In the face of all of these difficulties and all you have been through, why are you so optimistic for the future?

MB: When I returned here there was a huge anti-war movement which changed an otherwise very adversarial situation in this country. The movement has embraced Muslims and people from disparate groups and has recognised the effects of foreign policy and now internal policy on criminalising communities. I gave a talk the other week in Preston and was quite surprised to see two skinheads sitting in the audience. At the end of the talk, one of them told me that listening to me had changed his view. He was so happy that when he bought my book he didn’t want his change back! This is what gives me hope and as long as there are people who are willing to engage and talk common sense, there will always be hope. However I still feel we are treading on eggshells. It could take just one terrorist attack to change all this.

KB: Finally can you tell us a random fact about yourself?

MB: I love going camping in Snowdonia with my children.

Only 26, this home grown North London lady has achieved a lot in a short period of time. Expelled from a convent, she eventually tamed her wild ways and graduated from Guildhall University with a degree in Design. Olivia now finds herself a far cry from the Account Manager position she found herself in when she embarked on her career.

Olivia is warm and witty, her sense of humour is endless and before I can even begin to ask her a question she says something that almost reduces me to tears, of laughter.

King’s Bench: Olivia, I can’t believe you were an Accounts Manager! How on earth have you ended up being where you are today?

Olivia Lee: I was sat in my office one day, staring out of the window watching this tramp and thinking to myself, I’d rather be him than be me right now. I had an Epiphany – so I went into TV production and worked as a marketing manager for a while, but I soon realised that I was working on the wrong side of the camera.

KB: (Laughing)..ok, not quite the answer I was expecting. What about the perks of your career, have you ever got any cool freebies?

OL: I get a lot of clothes with the job and that’s always a plus! I did once get a shuffle though, but it was before they had come out and no-one knew what they were, so it made it all the more exclusive.

KB: Have you ever used you name to get into a club?

OL: No! I use other people’s, far more useful. I often call myself Kylie, sometimes Davina works too.

KB: You choose to stay out of the limelight a lot, you have turned down a lot of opportunities to do press and really make your name known. Why is that?

OL: I want to live a normal life as much as I can, something which I guess sounds odd when you do the job I do.

KB: You work in a tough industry though, how far would you go to land a job?

OL: I would go so far as to give a half decent audition, maybe even learn my lines!

KB: One of your first roles was as Kelly Foxwell in the Basil Brush Show, was it as fun as you made it look or is kid’s TV really hard going?

OL: It was amazing fun! But it wasn’t easy, there were a lot of innuendo’s and cheekiness, you couldn’t push it too far, you had to keep a balance. In fact I landed that role on one of the rare occasions when I did preparation, and it paid off!!

KB: You just finished doing unanimous (Olivia presented the aftershow on E4), did you think it was going to be the next Big Brother?

OL: Not at all. I wanted to do Unanimous because there are few intelligent reality shows out there, but this was one of them. It wasn’t based on watching people lull around a house, doing day-to-day stuff – it was a tactical game, they had to try and come up with a strategy. It was a test of wills to see what people are willing to do for money.

KB: What is next for you?

OL: Hopefully a lot more of the same. I feel that there are not enough funny women out there and I would like to fly that flag.

KB: And you are doing it very well so far, but do you have any regrets?

OL: None. You learn something from every job and you have to be able to look back and laugh. However, there are a lot of films that I can’t bring myself to watch.

KB: Your job it to make other people laugh, but what makes you smile?

OL: Gas. And the word ‘phelch’, huge comedy value for me, and occasionally the word ‘salamander’.

KB: What’s the best advice you have ever been given?

OL: To be patient. And to always floss.

KB: What do you think of the whole Big Brother situation at the moment? Jade’s career look like it will soon in been tatters, but do you think she is really a racist?

OL: I don’t believe that she is a racist no. But she is a bully. She obviously didn’t think before she spoke and a lot of what she has said may have been taken out of context. She has undoubtedly learnt a valuable and very expensive lesson.

KB: As you career progresses, you will have the opportunity to work with bigger and better names – who would you most like to work with?

OL: It would be very cool to do something with Christopher Guest and Larry David.

Watch Olivia on ‘Balls of Steel’ starting on 9th February, Channel 4 at 11pm. Also look out for here in the forthcoming ‘Anually Retentive’ on BBC3 in March and in ‘Law of the Playground’ in the summer on Channel 4.