The 62 day gap
So Gordon Brown wants to extend the 28 day limit for holding terrorist suspects without charge - presumably to 90 days which Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner of Jean Charles de Menezes & Forest Gate fame has been asking for.
Why? There hasn't been even a single case where the police have been required to release someone after 28 days, when they have indicated they wanted to hold someone for longer but were legally unable to do so.
So why now all this concerted pressure to extend imprisonment to 90 days? Is that why Eliza Manningham-Buller, head of MI5, is choosing at this moment to tell us they know of 1600 supposed terrorist suspects, 200 cells and 30 plots? Is that why Sir Ian Blair tells us the "sky is dark" across Europe? And now Gordon Brown jumps on the bandwagon, showing the same kind of reflex authoritarianism we have got used to from Tony Blair.
Of course we have to take all reasonable actions to protect national security. But locking someone up for 3 months without charge is destroying the very goal of a free society that our security policy is supposed to be safeguarding and we certainly shouldn't do that unless there are over-riding and compelling reasons, in a national emergency situation. And when the police have given no convincing reasons, we should not do so.
This is not the way to fight any threat of terror. We should be looking to the causes of such activities and addressing those, not cracking down indiscriminately in a way that destroys Habeas Corpus, which has been the cornerstone of liberty in our country for 800 years. Yes we should be tough on security. We should also be tough on the causes of insecurity.