― Human Rights
― Equality
― Free Speech
― Privacy
― The Rule of Law

These five ideas are vitally important to the way of life we enjoy today. The battle to establish them in law was long and difficult, and Anthony Lester was at the heart of the thirty-year campaign that resulted in the Human Rights Act, as well as the struggle for race and gender equality that culminated in the Equality Act of 2010.

Today, however, our society is at risk of becoming less equal. From Snowden’s revelations about the power and reach of our own intelligence agencies to the treatment of British Muslims, our civil liberties are under threat as never before. The internet leaves our privacy in jeopardy in myriad ways, our efforts to combat extremism curtail free speech, and cuts to legal aid and interference with access to justice endanger the rule of law. A fierce argument for why we must act now to ensure the survival of the ideals that enable us to live freely, Five Ideas to Fight For is a revealing account of what we need to protect our hard-won rights and freedoms.

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‘Illuminating and accessible…[Lester] speaks with enormous authority…Five Ideas to Fight For summarises what we have gained, and the dangers we still face from political hostility, ignorance and apathy.’

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‘Lester has dedicated his life to these causes. His personal anecdotes...are often frank admissions of how hard his work has been…This is what gives his book its special quality: few other lawyers would be able to do the subject matter justice.’

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‘Passionate, and personal…nobody could finish Five Ideas To Fight For doubting that Anthony Lester has been an immense force for good.’

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‘All the forces that, for decades, abused the human rights of the thalidomide children, are on the rise again in an ugly xenophobic populism: those who have the loudest voices have the smallest vision. They must be repulsed and there is no better person to summon us to the ramparts than the author of this exciting book.’

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‘Animated by the desire to protect fundamental human rights and freedoms in a long and distinguished career in law as a practitioner and lawmaker, Anthony Lester makes a passionate case for the defence of these rights – so hard won and so much under threat today. The legal arena has become an important part of the political struggle for change, a development that is mapped in this beautifully accessible book.’