http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6914834.stm''Britain is to get a "unified border force" to boost the fight against terrorism, the prime minister has said. A "highly visible" uniformed force would bring together immigration and Customs officers, Gordon Brown said.
He also announced a review of allowing intercept evidence to be used in court, and doubling the 28 days police can question suspects before charging them.
The border force has been called for by the Conservatives for years, and had previously been rejected by ministers.''
And Nick Robinson, for once, is on to something I've been saying for quite a while.
''Today he tells the Sun what it wants to hear about deporting foreign prisoners (a reheat, I'm told, of an announcement made by officials some weeks before he became PM) and terror laws. What's more, there's an intriguing hint in The Sun about him announcing a border police force today. If true, that would presumably be the one proposed by Michael Howard and, er, David Cameron.
Brown has moved to occupy ground left free by Cameron's efforts to prove that the Tories have changed. He's done it in a way that maximises destabilising pressure from Tory MPs and what we used to call the Tory press to, you've guessed it, "lurch to the right". And he's made each of his announcements on the one day of the week when the Tory leader used to be able to count on setting the agenda - PMQs day.
The left meanwhile have been given very little to celebrate save for a man they trust replacing a man they'd come to loathe.''
I'll say it again; Gordon Brown is the most senior Thatcherite that remains in government today and was as Chancellor and is as PM, more so than his predecessor.
