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Pickled Politics: Are We Recalling Internment?
Pickled Politics has some good riffs this morning on proposals for 56 days without charge.
Although this may be seen as the not so thin end of a wedge I find the comparisons with internment in Ireland a bit of a stretch and comment:
Being opposed to 56 days (and those pesky iD cards), but also possibly more aware of internment and the erstwhile struggle in the six counties, I must say I find the hyperbole of comparing this unwelcome proposal with the internment introduced 36 years ago is baffling.
It is surely a sign of our progress over the last 40 years that we have not got anything like that internment?
(Mother’s cousin gunned down by soldiers, uncle and cousin hospitalised with baton rounds, little brother barred from NI)
I'm not sure where David Davis would be up to on this stuff by now if he were Home Secretary and unfettered by the "new consensus" but whatever he and his kind may say about this, internment it ain't.
What does the recanted Islamist Ed Husain say? It's not exactly in this link but Mohamm(Ed) is for enforced re-education AND/OR imprisonment.
My view is that the government is now proposing a number of measures all at once - belt, braces and adjustable waistband - when perming one or two in three ought to be the next step in a balanced liberal democracy. Stick with 28 days, allow intercept, continue making cases after charges.
11 comments:
I think that 28 days internment is too long.
There is too much hyperbole in political debate at the moment. I blame the Daily Mail.
John: 28 days may be too long or not ... but it isn't going to be reduced. Stopping it being increased is the only game in town.
Stephen: The Mail are blaming their rhyming couplet Iain Dale.
By the way the little brother was thereby turned from the road to ruin and onto the road to righteousness for its own sake. But that's another story. We had to send "the dad" from the mainland to get him out with promises of safe conduct and never to return.
According to the Torygraph: "As expected, Mr Brown is pressing for an increase in the time that the police can hold suspected terrorists. This is now 28 days. Only four years ago, it was seven. The Government now believes it should be anything up to 56 days, though Mr Brown could not come up with a compelling argument why this should be so".
This all seems to me Kafkaesque. First they get the body, then they try to build a case to fit. There is the case from Australia where a doctor is charged with aiding terrorism simply by giving someone a Sim card from his mobile phone.
I suspect that if someone now farted loudly either on a train or a bus that person could be accused of trying to blow it up in an act of terrorism...
Brown is getting away with stuff Blair would have been excoriated for.He's the Daily Mal and Sun's Number 1 columnist. The Govt has just signed up to Star Wars with NO consultation witb Parliament.So much for collective Govt.A deeply depressing end to the Westminster year
Agree to a point Susan. He hasn't got his 56 days. He may yet u-turn on star wars. Blair would have got 40 days we're told but went for broke ... we'll have to wait and see.
Why did the doctor give the ? suspected terrorist ? his sim card?
Shame it isn't an internable offence to wear sandals these days.
anonymous: I have a spare sim card and I wouldn't have thought twice about giving it to someone. He didn't give it to a suspected terrorist, he gave it to someone who wasn't suspected of anything at the time.
Do you have a link to the sim case John?
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