And so, near the top of Lord Layard's list for improving human happiness, comes the following recommendation: much higher rates of income tax to tame the rat race.

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His views were backed by legal practitioners including Liberal Democrat Lord Goodhart, a former chair of the law reform group JUSTICE, and Lord Pannick, a crossbench peer and human rights lawyer, among others.

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They represented an "enlarging awareness of what it is to be human", said Lord Bragg.

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Lord Pannick argued that there was no danger of a successful challenge under human rights law, because the European Court of Human Rights precedent was firmly against the idea that people had a human right to a particular kind of religious marriage - so if a marriage was refused for religious reasons, the courts would uphold that decision.

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Home Office minister Lord West of Spithead warned of "problems" with the European Court of Human Rights if the proposals in the Crime and Security Bill are rejected.

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Mr Maguire claims the Lord Advocate and Mr Kerr were in breach of Article 2 of the European Court of Human Rights as they failed to hold a prompt inquiry into the deaths of people who contracted Hep C.

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As a visual spectacle, it rivals anything in The Lord of the Rings or King Kong, precisely because you know you're seeing a human being in action.

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