Terror laws
It's a pity Gordon Brown has tarnished his escutcheon by trying to show he is tough on terror through doubling the pre-charge detention period from 28 to 56 days - particularly since he is also ignoring the second half of the couplet: tough on the causes of terror.
There are several strong reasons why 56 days (or anything over 28) would be ill-advised and counter-productive. Above all, the case for it has simply not been made out. Even John Reid when Home Secretary admitted that the police had not produced any evidence to warrant it. On 11 June I put down a PQ asking "on how many occasions since 25 July 2006 (when the 28-day period was introduced) have the police been obliged by the 28-day pre-charge detention period to release terrorist suspects whom they still wished to detain beyond that period; and what the date and circumstances were of each case? In answer the Home Secretary said: "The police do not centrally hold information on the circumstances of each terrorist case where a suspect is not charged within the 28 day pre-charge detention period". A blatantly evasive reply. I therefore put down a further PQ on 12 July asking if the Home Secretary will seek the information requested from each police force. It was answered on 23 July as follows: "As part of the consultation on forthcoming counter-terrorism legislation, we are looking, in conjunction with the police, at how the existing maximum period of pre-charge detention has operated in practice and whether there are any lessons to be learnt from that". It could not say it more clearly: we don't know, and have no intention of finding out because we fear there is no such evidence.
That is the really essential point: it is wrong to introduce any punitive legislation when there is no evidence-based case to warrant it - and when there is a strong case against it. Internment has never worked, in Northern Ireland or anywhere else, and since the flow of intelligence from the Muslim community to the police is far and away the most most effective means of countering terrorist activity, to shut it down (which detaining people for nearly 2 months without trial is very likely to do in its impact on Muslim opinion) is utterly counter-productive.
But there are other arguments too. 28 days already exceeds the pre-charge detention period in most other democracies, so why do we need twice that period here? And why aren't other anti-terrorist measures now proposed - particularly post-charge questioning and the use of intelligence intercepts in court - perfectly adequate for the purpose without gratuitously undermining Habeas Corpus even further?
And if the hard-line Right, in whichever party, are still not satisfied, maybe they should take a lesson from Winston Churchill who said in 1943 at the height of the Second World War: "The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law...is in the highest degree odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian government".
And while we're on our quotes from Conservative grandees, this (surprising) one deserves to be noted: "The failure of Messrs Bush and Blair and tghe neo-cons to understand Arab grievances has been translated into a 'clash of civilizations' and a threat to Western values 'by people determined to destroy our way of life', as the Prime Minister put it. But there is no clash of civilizations unless we are determined to create one. We are not going to live under a universal caliphate. Osama bin Laden and his gangsters have not the faintest chance of destroying our way of life, unless we do so ourselves....The misconceived 'war on terror' has made the world a much more dangerous place...America and Britain should leave Iraq as soon as possible. There are no other options...it is the American occupation of Iraq, like the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, that hs become the magnet for the international jihadis". Who said that? No other than Norman Lamont, former Tory Chancellor, in the Daily Telegraph on 10 November 2006. Gordon Brown, please note.