h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There's a lot to go into on this subject: is this a proportionate response to the alleged threat, is the sacrifice of civil liberties tolerable, etc ad infinitum which I'm sure can and will be discussed.

What got me *really* wild this morning was a report on the BBC that Blair was arm twisting the "disloyal" backbenchers who were considering voting against the measures.

When the Government's majority was reduced from 66 to 1 last week on the matter of "glorifying terrorism" then the division on 90 days was withdrawn and assurances given that a compromise would be sought with opposition parties and Labour rebels.

The belief all week has been that the Government would seek a lower figure - I gather that last night the consensus talks broke down and the Government has instead come back with a renewed call for 90 days but introduced measures such as a 1 year review. The point being they want to get this onto the statute book and into law, because once there it will be next to impossible to repeal it.

This reversal is, I regret to say, a slick bit of political maneuvering: they've managed to avoid the possibility of a real defeat last week and have re-secured a new and different position to launch another assault which, again regrettably, may stand now more chance of being successful. They have picked their battles well.

So, I wake up to all this this morning and one phrase however hovers over the airwaves:

"Tony Blair is going to dissenting backbenchers and saying "I'm voting with the Labour Government. Who are you voting with?"

Essentially a divide and conquer strategy - shaming dissenting MP's in Parliament into not going into the 'Nay's' lobby. He's trying to tar them with the same "soft on terror" brush he wants to use against the opposition parties, to attack their credibility on issues of public safety and national security. He's framing the debate on the legal response to terrorism in a manner or political positioning.

Why this gets me so angry with Blair is that this is not the first time he's tried something like this; pitching the debate not on the issue facing Parliament, but rather twisting it into a personal endorsement. The exception this time is it's not a personal endorsement because we all know he plans to step down and not stand for re-election so the issue of electoral success is broadened. It's not his legacy that is at issue it's the Party's continuance in Government and the plea is made to instead support party unity.

This kind of deceit is corrosive in my opinion, because a law which affects the whole nation is resting on the reliability of a few hundred politicians and has the potential to be carried on the dogmatic interests of a few who are being pressured to consider their allegiances over and above representing their constituents who would be subject to a law they create.

By creating this false dividing line ("are you with me or with the opposition?") Blair obfuscates the issue about whether 90 days without trial or charge for a terrorism suspect is just, moral, legal, ethical and proper or practical. My worry is that like with tuition fees, the assault on MP's allegiances will let the Government squeak through with a majority, but not because of the merit of the measures before Parliament, rather in spite of it.


Does anyone else share my angst?

Clive

The vote is tomorrow so time will tell.

I absolutely share your angst. Have already pebble-dashed the radio with muesli shouting at it this morning.

Must email my MP

I find it difficult to believe that it is necessary to keep *anyone* in prison for THREE MONTHS without levelling some kind of charge at them. Yes, it might be a Big Bad Terrorist, but then it might be you or me. How would you like a member of your close family to be held for that long, with nothing to be done about it? Your partner could be in prison and there'd be nothing you could do to help them.

I'm sorry, I think we have to risk the bombs.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Look, it's very simple. Some of them terrorists are funny foreign devils that don't talk English. It takes *much* longer to beat a confession out of them.

Now, Blue - we do not beat confessions from people, we have to send them abroad to have that done. With the possible summer delays at airports we need the 90 days to make sure that they can get where they need to go to, to have a confession beaten from them.....
BCNU - Crescent

I'd be interested to hear the kinds of scenarios that would require a 90 day detention, where the authorities were confident enough of someone's involvement to justify holding them, yet have nothing sufficient to charge them with.

S'intelligence, innit?

well, at least in part it is predicated on the amount of time the police reckon it would take to get computer based evidence " involving sophisticated encrypted computer evidence ".

Which, if nothing else, shows that the people who dreamed this up know damn all about computer encryption.

Heaven only knows what they'll suggest when they become aware of steganography (whereby info could be hidden in anything, pictures, documents, whatever. Unless you know its there you could spend from now until the end of time searching the entire internet) or PGP (Quote from Phil Zimmermann - "If all the computers in the world - approximately 260 million (at time of the quote) - were put to work on a single PGP encrypted message , it would take on average an estimated 12 million times the age of the universe to break a single message" - assuming to cryptanalysis reveals a shortcut).

compared to 12 million times the age of the universe, 90 days seems fairly tame

There was a discussion on slashdot about this as well.

Did anyone else hear this line that 70% of the country supports 90 days? They certainly didn't ask me!

I did some digging - it was a Yougov poll - and the results are published here.
http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/DBD050101009_1.pdf

The proportionate breakdown is actually rather terryfying.

I wonder (without impugning Yougov ) is it possible to generalise support for contentious legislation that affects millions from a poll of just over 2000?

I am with Clive TOTALLY

His point was not about the validity of the 90 days, but the political chicanery which Blair is using to get his own way.And he is right.

As to the 90 days , I have not decided fully what my personal opinion is, but I lean towards accepting that a MUCH longer than the current period is necessary.

I am cognisant of the Civil Liberties , Habeus Corpus etcetera, but we sre facing a entirely new set of circumstances here - witness the Australian arrests yesterday - and I am not sure that Acts of Parliament similar to those which interned foreign nationals at the outbreak of WW11, are not appropriate here and now.

I am NOT advocating internment, merely thinking that 60 days may not be too far out.

Novo

The YouGov poll is somehow linked to the daily Torygraph isn't it? I think this is a self-selecting group of fairly right-wing people and as such they aren't really representative of the nations feelings...

I think you used to get paid for filling in the yougov polls - about 50p.

How many people has terrorism killed and injured in Britain?

How many people have driving accidents killed and injured?

How many are killed and injured by muggers?

How many by spouses, family, acquaintances?

Yes, terrorism is terrifying (kinda the point) but the fuss the government (ie Blair) is making is disproportionate and I for one do not want to live in a Fascist state just because Blair hasn't the common sense and decency to avoid illegal wars and brown-nosing religious extremists in the USA. I cannot forget that Mussonlini and Hitler both got into power by panicking the basically liberal governments of Germany and Italy with the threat of terrorism (communist rather than Islamist, but hey) and whipping up frenzies of terror and hate over incidents that could have been dealt with with far more reason, compassion and expediency. This current fuss, arresting Frenchmen, shooting Brazilians, really proportionate. Really helping. Yeah right. And we give them MORE powers to arrest and detain? It stinks.

Ask yourself where the reasoning behind the 90 days came from and the answer is 'Because the police want it' Are these the same police who's judgment lead to the shooting of an innocent man because he came out of the wrong block of flats?

Another thing to worry about. Did you know that from the 1st January all offences become arrestable. Think about it. Came out at Home Office questions yesterday.

Hi WA

So you and Agapanthus feel that we are almost a police state already?

Interesting ......... and worrying!

I have always innocently imagined that if innocent I had nothing to fear. Obviously I am rather naive.

Novo

Thanks Novo.

You're right it was the "political chicanery" I had in my sights

I'm rushing out but on that front: I caught the first 10 minutes of The Daily Politics just now and apparently opposition has started to fragment on the Tory Benches.

Blair apparently decided that the core of the opposition was opposition to him not to the number of days proposed and that no mythical middle-figure could be found, so he chose to pursue 90 days more aggresively and try to splinter to opposition.

This now appears to be working. The DP already reported Anne Widdecombe and Bill Cash from The Tories, siding with the Government. More may yet abstain. The arthimatic of the vote is starting to head Blair's way I fear.

My contempt for Labour is usually matched only by my contempt for the Tories who collude the with Government too often for my liking in the quaint notion they are missreading the public mood. I hope they don't do so again like they did over Iraq.

Hi Novo,

Yes I worry about a police state when I remember Walter Wolfgang arrested under the prevention of terrorism act.

And I worry about the calibre of the police when they resist a fast track graduate entry scheme. Just how do you get to the top of the police force?

And I think Tone has underestimated the resistance from his own back benchers. We'll see.

You'll forgive me, but *ALL* politics is chicanery. I don't see this as any different to any other action undertaken by this governmemt or any other.

An ability to 'pick battles well' is what marks a good politiian out from a normal one. Thatcher had exactly the same gift. David Davis is showing a huge lack of doing so and thus is losing the job he was secure in two months ago.

I know - I said they'd appeared to have picked their battles well as a mark of begrudging respect. The fact I find the policy in question rather unconscionable and feel that Parliament ought to as well is rather neither here nor there.

Politics as chicanery. To a degree yes - but I do bemoan the fact that policy is being driven by posture and not by representing constituents. I suspect that in the politician's mind these two things are equal. In Blair's assessment I expect he feels he's out manoeuvred the Tories successfully and that what's he's doing is genuinely in the public interest. The more they fail to follow him, the more out of touch and unelectable they become. Thus the confusing dissolution between political expediency and policy intermingle. The public interest is best served by forcing the Tories to hang themselves by their own petards.

Rather like with those pesky non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction, he's convinced and he's just waiting for the rest of us to fall into line.

I had my doubts about all those stories last week, that Blair's power was fading and waning, and this rather confirms it.

I do hope it's a loss tomorrow, but I am anticipating a majority for Blair. Hopefully it'll get eviscerated in the Lords.

<< I do hope it's a loss tomorrow, but I am anticipating a majority for Blair. Hopefully it'll get eviscerated in the Lords.>>

With you there too Clive.

Novo

"I have always innocently imagined that if innocent I had nothing to fear. Obviously I am rather naive.

Novo

Well you've got a lot less to fear than you're average Brazilian user of the London underground. So dont worry too much...not about direct problems from Big Brother anyway.

Its the indirect stuff you have to worry about.

Prior tot he Iraq invasion lots of people in the UK thought is was a bad idea and would INCREASE the risk of terrorism. People told the government this and they chose to ignore it.

Spin forward a few years and the same government are using a poll of 2000 people and the understranably biased views of bombing victims to assert public support for yet more heavy handedness.