Blair loses vote on Terror legislation

[Michael Z]

Looks like Blair picked one fight too many with his own party. As for the 90 day limit, it was patently excessive in my view, especially coming from a government which can't be trusted to implement these laws responsibly (IMO).

[Michael Z]

All law-abiding citizens, who abhor terrorism, should be appalled

The question is not about abhorring or condoning terrorism. It is about whether any person should be condemned for terrorist activities after a fair and impartial trial, or at the whim and pleasure of the government.

The view that the government may label anyone a "terrorist" and proceed to deprive him of all liberties and protections without a trial is an extremely dangerous one. If Parliament accepts this position, it might as well burn the Magna Carta and the Petition of Right.

Agreed. Plus who's to say that every future government will treat such a law responsibly? Lest we forget, Hitler was able to ostracise many of his political opponents through laws which existed long before he came to power. Laws like this make it very easy for somebody to stand up and label anyone they don't like as a terrorist and lock them up for 90 days - and then perhaps indefinitely? After all, the terrorist threat might be so great we should just lock them up for as long as we like with absolutely no trial or evidence whatsoever, just suspicion or hearsay. It's easy to see how you can get the ball rolling here and slowly but surely rid people of more and more of their civil liberties.

Besides, who's to say these laws will be implemented responsibly (witness what happened to the old fella at the Labour conference), or that the police really know for sure they know a terrorist when they see one, given what happened to Jean de Menezes?

In a way I can't help but feel that the government simply wants to be seen as doing something about the terrorist threat, so they try to implement a bunch of hasty policies which aren't thought through in the slightest, and only serve to create impressive newspaper headlines.

The bottom line is, I am yet to hear a convincing argument for the 90-day period, as opposed to the given alternative of 28 days. Charles Clarke stumbled over his words everytime he tried to draw out the "compelling case" for it, and all Tony Blair was able to do was resort to black-and-white portrayals of anyone who disagrees with the law as somehow being a soft touch on national security. I'm glad the majority of MPs were able to see through this attempt at insulting their intelligence.