No to 42 - 1 comment

So many issues seem to have gone by without my comment, recently, but I'd rather not add the issue of the detention of terrorist suspects to the list. That said, Bob Piper has perfectly summed up for me the bloody-mindedness of the entire plan to go out on an international limb (so to speak), and increase the limit from 28 days to 42:

One of the most futile aspects of what is termed 'The Great War' was the trench warfare that claimed so many lives.

Armies dug into trenches fought for months on end over the control of a series of fields. Tens of thousands of men lost their lives and when you look back on it you have to think, why? What was that all about?

So it seems with 42 day detention orders. Of course, not in the degree of severity as the shocking conflict in the Somme and elsewhere, but in terms of the futility of the whole exercise.

Before Gordon Brown and his Home Secretary decide to order their troops to go over the top, the Generals should be asking the Chief of Staff.... why are we doing this? The cannon fodder should refuse to leave the treenches unless they get answers a bloody sight better than we have had so far [...]

The Government is busy making concessions to the anticipated Labour rebels, still without explaining why the UK needs a measure at all that goes far, far further than those taken by those liberal democracies who, by their very nature, are terrorist targets. It's thoroughly mystifying; justifiably concerning to the many political liberals who expect to be at home within the Labour Party; and if a defeat does prompt a no-confidence vote in the Prime Minister or Government, it would represent a staggeringly unnecessary own-goal, over an issue that means little to voters, and doesn't encapsulate any ideological principle of ours. The whole business is a vote-loser from start to finish.

As a matter of principle I have to hope the Labour rebels stand firm. Even if the immediate consequences for the Prime Minister are bad, the sooner the Government ends its obsession with unnecessary, grandiose, and illiberal criminal justice legislation, and focusses its entire attention on addressing the UK's social ills, and empowering the population - things that are achievable (if hard) and which can improve the lives (and win the votes) of millions.