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4 comments from readers

tombp
14 October 2008 at 14:14

Well said. It is on home affairs, and his persistence with 42 days (until last night) and ID cards, that Brown has been at his most abject.

sweety
15 October 2008 at 03:48

There is something self-flagellating peculiar about our politicians who destroy the world in order to save it, like in Nam! A lot of the EU. countries quietly ignore EU. statues, most of the usual suspects at the UN. ignore the very treaties they have put a signature to.

One Commonwealth country even has a British designed law from the last century on its books designed to eliminate Jungle Bunny, Communist Guerillas but it is now used against bloggers!

Our Ivory Tower crowd, from the wooded glades of Primrose Hill, like knights in shining armour might have found some way to circle the square here. Let us not be sqeamish, at some point the terrrorists are going to explode some sort of dirty device in London, it just a matter of time.

robertsharp
15 October 2008 at 12:32

Let's not forget that the 28 days rule is still in place.

Since the terrorism we have suffered has been designed precisely to stoke up fear, divisions, and to erode our civil liberties, I would say that the appropriate response to the terror threat is precisely the opposite of what Jacqui Smith et al suggest.

Sweety - I'm not sure that it is inevitable that terrorists will let off a dirty bomb. Its one of those unfalsifiable hypotheses - for every day that the terrorists don't attack, the fear-mongers can say "its only a matter of time" and continue to enact their illiberal legislation.

gnuneo
21 October 2008 at 15:05

sweety: 3 simple ways to reduce that risk - pull out of Iraq, put our troops in Afghanistan under co-control of Afghani senior command (ie stop bombing bloody wedding parties!), and forcibly open MI5 & MI6 to public scrutiny - and i mean PUBLIC scrutiny, not closed committees.

note the lack of any stuff about reducing our liberties in there? No need for RFID cards, no need to remove right to trial, no need for surveillance cameras and microphones on every corner, no need for the Govt to remove the little privacy we have left?

i tell you this, the threat to the general populace from the odd terrorist activity, is minuscule compared to the threat to the general public from a totalitarian Govt.

would you prefer to live in London during the days of the IRA, or in Moscow during the time of Stalin?

exactly.

robertsharp: indeed, there is still some way to go, this might be a temporary halt to the expansion of the Totalitarian State, or it might be the start of a reversal of that trend. I would say it is up to the Public to continue to make 'our' politicians aware that we are watching them, and we WILL hold them to account.

and it disgraceful that it is left to the Lords (just as in Thatcher's day) to squash this illiberal attempt at legislation.

martin: there is still the fight against this 'central database', and also the ID cards, that i notice with horror are slowly beginning to be introduced, first to children for 'reduced fares', and to immigrants, what is the next step? No bank accounts without one? No benefits? There can be little doubt it is on its way, just as there is no doubt that earphones as well as microphones will be added to street CCTV.

as you say, it would be great if Brown went back to the Chancellorship, and took his grubby mitts off our few remaining civil liberties. Its almost as though he is following orders...!??!