Bob Quick´s blunder

Police in Manchester, Liverpool and other parts of the north west have, it appears, carried out a successful operation to arrest a group of people suspected of terrorist offences.

There were not going to do it today, of course, they were still gathering evidence, but then the accident prone Bob Quick decided to brief Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith on the investigation. Alas he did not keep all his documents in a file so walked down Downing street briefing the world.

It has to be said serious questions were already being asked about Bob Quick, and it does not help his cause that he has damaged a major anti terror raid by rank carelessness. We are all human, but that carelessness may still cost lives.

The BBC has this.

Government admits defeat on 42 days?

The government admits defeat on 42 days, but wants to keep a bill in its back pocket to bring out at a moments notice to blackmail parliament into passing it at a moments notice.

You just could not make it up.

As a previous Lord Chancellor, Lord Cheerful Charlie Falconer has pointed out, its not needed because if the prosecuting authorities have a reasonable belief that the evidence will become available, they can charge someone much earlier then gather the evidence. The bill as it now stands includes provisions for post charge questioning as well.

So where is the problem?

This is obviously just political posturing, and trying to look hard.

The BBC has this.

Police use terrorism acts to cover up their own criminality

Police in Portsmouth have tried to use the 2000 Terrorism act to cover up their own criminal breach of motoring laws.

A passer by noticed a police car illegally parked (Motoring offences are a criminal offence) so took a picture.

They then questioned the passer by, David Gates, under the terrorism act, citing security concerns.

We have to get seriously concerned when police cite "security concerns" when people are gathering evidence of specific criminal offences, even if they are only road traffic offences.

Let us be clear: If you can see it from a public place, you can photograph it, and if it is the police breaking the law you certainly can.

The local Portsmouth paper has this, whilst the BBC, appearing to have lost its bottle, had a brief news report at 6 but has dropped it since, showing such post Hutton courage, has nothing at all.

Gotcha! Bribes on the 42 day vote!

Gordon Brown has tried to insist that the government did not buy the 42 day vote. The problem is that no one believes him at all, not even a little bit.

David Cameron skewered him at prime ministers questions today after getting confirmation no bribes were offered. He read out extracts of a letter to Keith Vaz from Geoff Hoon saying he hoped that there would be an appropriate reward for his support which the Telegraph had been given.

The problem for Gordon Brown is this: No one believes a word he says anymore.

The Telegraph has this, Guido has this and the BBC has this.

Zimbabwe Judge cites Habeas Corpus

The deputy leader of the MDC, Tendai Biti was arrested at Harare airport on Thursday, and has been held without access to his lawyers since.

Now a high court judge in Harare has demanded that Tendai Biti be brought before him and that the police explain why he is being held.

This is the principle of Habeas Corpus that started with Magna Carta. Makes you proud to be British doesn't it? Bit of a shame that this government is trying to get rid of it though.

The BBC has this.

David Davis: A Man of serious courage!

David Davis has just resigned as an MP over the horrific erosion of our liberties that has gone on since this nasty Labour government got into power.

His aim is to force a by election in Haltemprice and Howden and return to the House of Commons with an increased mandate to fight against the 42 day detention without charge bill.

I must admit this came as a complete shock to me and many others in the Conservative party. David Davis is a man of serious courage.

Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats has said that they will not be fielding a candidate. Well done him.

The BBC has this, Iain Dale has this, PoliticalBetting has this.

DUP save Gordon Brown on 42 day terror vote!

The DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) saved Gordon Brown's skin today by backing the 42 day terror detention vote, which the government only won by 315 votes to 306. Had the DUP had any integrity and voted against the government would have lost by 9 votes. There were 37 Labour rebels.

I wonder why they did that? Do they seriously think Gordon Brown will be PM after the next General Election?

The BBC has this.

Update, Iain Dale has this, and is not that complimentary about the DUP.

42 Day Terror Vote close!

The vote on the terrorism part of the terrorism bill allowing detention without charge will be held tonight. Apparently it will be close. The governments latest wheeze to convince their own side is to offer compensation at the rate of £3,000 per day for any one held for over 28 days who is not charged. In total that could amount to £42,000.

How odd is that? 42 seems to be the governments answer to Life, The Universe and Everything.

What is worse however is the precedent sent. There is, as yet no compensation for anyone lawfully held, and neither should there be. People who have been unlawfully detained can get compensation but only for their losses which (shockingly in my view) have prison food and accommodation costs deducted. We are not only now bringing that concept in, but removing the loss part of the equation and instead bringing in a very high day rate.

You can just see many people up and down the land trying to figure out how long they could get locked up for, even if it is only in jest.

It seems this odd scheme has just about swung it for the government, though I hope not. In any case the measure is likely to get struck down in the Lords and then the ping pong will begin.

The BBC has this, whilst Iain Dale has this.

42 days: So who wants it?

Well, we heard the other day that Jacqui Smith admitted that MI5 had not asked for 42 days, and now several senior policemen have also come out and said they are against it, according to todays Guardian.

So, to recap, we have the former Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, the Director of Public prosecutions, the former Lord Chancellor, Cheerful Charlie Falconer and many other senior politicians who have actually dealt with a long term terror threat say this is a bad idea.

Yet Gordon ploughs on to the vote on Wednessday. Surely this is now holed below the water line, and crucially he seems to have made it an issue of confidence in private badgering.

Cool. Gordon to get another kicking!

How did they come up with 42 days?

You do have to wonder don't you. It used to be that people could only be held for 24 hours, then for terrorism it was extended to something like 2 days, then 7, 14 and then Tony Blair wanted 90. He got 28.

Now we have had Gordon Brown trying to look tough again, heavens knows why, we all know it is not true and extend it again.

Hints were dropped that 90 days was back on the agenda, despite there being no case that you could point to where 28 days was insufficient. Then 56 days was hinted at. Then Jacqui Smith, the Alleged Home Secretary, said she did not know how long it should be and did not want to get fixated with a number.

Now we have one. 42 days. Why? Why not 41 or 43? Well, OK 42 days is 6 weeks. But why 6 instead of 4? Or indeed 7,8,9 or 10?

The fact is they are just making this up. It is true that ACPO are officially in favour of it, but then ACPO gets its funding from the Home Office. However many have come out against it, for example the former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, and the current head of the DPP.

They say that in the future there may be a need. Well in the future they may be a need for all sorts of things, on the other hand there may not. Why do we want to hand our enemies propaganda that they can use to bend young minds? You can bet your bottom dollar they will sell this as anti Muslim. How are we supposed to criticise other countries for human rights violations when we would rather forget our own liberties at the first sign of trouble, rather than taking a more thoughtful approach.

In short, its bonkers. I do hope it gets canned in the Commons. If not its up to the House of Lords to throw out this hideous piece of legislation.

Jacqui Smith: Without a clue?

I listened with some shock and amusement to Jacqui Smith, alleged Home Secretary on BBC Radio 4's Today program talking about extending the time people can be held without charge from 28 days.

Despite repeated questioning she had no clue as to how long she would like them to be held, though did concede that no one had so far needed to be held longer.

Is it just me is is it worryingly bonkers that they do not seem to know how much of our civil liberties they want to take away?

Today's home page is here, whilst you can listen to the alleged Home Secretary dither here.

Is the news border control force just spin and gimmicks?

Gordon Brown announced that there would be a new border control force, which would have been the adoption of Conservative (and also Liberal Democrat) policy, that Labour have to date argued against.

It looks like a U turn, but in fact isn't really because the reality is that immigration, customs and visa staff will just hang out together in similar uniforms rather than a single coordinated force including police powers and coordinating with all agencies.

In short, looks good, probably won't achieve much.

The BBC has this.

Exclusive to all papers: Keystone Terrorists foil dastardly plot whilst keystone cops look on

The verdict in the case of the hapless 21st of July 2005 bombers came in today, and some reporting restrictions have been lifted. (The BBC has this)

We know that their story that this was just some kind of protest was not believed by the jury who were convinced beyond reasonable doubt they intended to kill. They would have but for their own incompetence.

What is of somewhat more concern is that the leader of the plotters, Muktar Ibrahim from East Africa had not only been on a trip to Pakistan but questioned by special branch about it and found in possession of a large amount of cash and a military first aid kit. This did not, it seems, raise alarm bells.

It gets worse. We have Interpol criticising us for not accessing the database of known terrorists, (well we could be using our own copy) not giving information back to it (also fair enough because there are 186 countries in Interpol and we may not want them all knowing) but shockingly not checking with Interpol about known to be stolen travel documents. That is daft. (See the Telegraph here for the original allegation and the BBC here for some government response).

The thing is this, the government keep asking for extra powers. They are of no use unless they are directed at the right people and that is not a matter of what the law is but how the executive direct the resource to tackle terrorism combined with the political will to use it.

Insidious infiltration

I regularly read Dizzy Thinks, who had this article linking to this article in the Daily Mail (well, it could have been the Mail on Sunday) about how there are 8 "Al Qaeda" "sleepers" or sympathisers on the police.

Well, it has to be said this is to be expected. They are not stupid and this sort of thing, or rather attempts at doing this sort of thing are to be expected. The shock is, it seems to me that there are not systems to vet applicants so that this does not happen.

What concerns me more, because it is less easy to spot and is not yet high on the agenda is the way state officials from some communities are playing a part in "honour" killings by looking people up on state databases or indeed bank and other systems to tell families where their "errant" offspring" are.

I heard that on an edition of BBC Radio 4's File on 4 program on honour killings. We all have unique identification numbers of one form or another whether it is a National Insurance number or bank account or credit card number. These are all stored in databases accessed by a variety of members of staff. All any community needs, and often in the case of honour killings many members of the community are in support of them, is someone on "the inside" and then if the said child uses their credit card, national Insurance number or notifies a change of address and then they know where they are.

Yet this government wants to ignore that problem but create an over arching database that will allow any criminal gang access to the data they need to track down anyone they want as long as they have someone one "the inside".

Scary isn't it?

Loose lips sink ships

So when you blog or pass on any information remember this. During the second World War there were campaigns to get people not to repeat important and vital information. After all you could be overheard and provide information which may give a German spy a clue on Allied shipping which they could pass on, resulting in ships being sunk.

In fact to give you an idea of how careful we were, Bletchley Park (who broke the Enigma codes) had worked out that Coventry was going to be bombed but as it was the only source of that information, doing anything about it would let the Germans know we had broken Enigma and would have cost far more lives.

In this day and age things are very different. When the Americans get a lead on Osama Bin Laden because they can trace his satellite phone the US press just loved publishing that, it sold a few more papers but ultimately he just turned his phone off so a valuable line of intelligence was lost.

Well, the press, presumably briefed by someone "close to the investigation" are keen to tell us exactly how the current terrorist operation was rolled up. They say that the two cars in London yielded vital intelligence to whit mobile phones ....

We have in essence told the enemy exactly what they did wrong. Do we seriously think they will not learn?

This is nothing short of treason, yet the same bunch of cretinous jerks have insisted we can't use intercept evidence because it would reveal vital information about how we do things whilst at the same time revealing vital information how we do things.

Shameful.

The end of the War on Terror?

I have often criticised the language used in the somewhat laughably named "War on Terror" and terms like Islamo fascist.

In this article I dealt with how you can't have a war on terror because terrorism is a defined act and you are not going to remove it from every dictionary, whilst also pointing out that it is a political war as well as a military one and we need to win the political one.

I have pointed out that terms like Islamo Fascist serve the enemy by driving people toward them rather than us. (See this article here).

It seems that some while ago David Cameron took that up and started to question the language. Well now in the face of the current threat the government, or more specifically Jacqui Smith have stopped using stupid language that appeals to our core vote whilst alienating the very people we need to bring on side.

Remember this, asymmetric wars are primarily political, and as such language is very important.

For more on the War on Terror see here.

Comment from Hassan Butt, an ex Jihadi extremist

There is an interesting piece in today's Observer written by Hassan Butt, and ex jihadi, here.

It makes interesting reading.

Tony Blair apologises to David Cameron over Gordon Brown's behaviour!

It seems that most of the ideas (apart from the change to detention without charge) that Gordon Brown came up with when he made his great pronouncement to the Sundays last week were in fact ideas given to this government on Privy council terms and those sort of discussions are secret.

Brown should no have leaked them, or claimed them as his own! That said Gordon Brown does seem to be claiming he came up with these ideas all on his own.

Oh dear.

The Observer has this. The funniest line in the article is the last one though:

"There will also be questions about whether Cameron's cordial relations with No 10 will be maintained once Brown takes over."

Do you really think so?

Hat tip to Alex on politicalbetting.com for the article link which also has this.

John Reid's dig at Peter "the tan" Hain the vain!

You have to laugh. Many will remember the controversy over the proposed stop and question powers leaked to the Sunday papers and indeed the furore over it, including Peter Hain's objections. (See here)

Well, John Reid did make a statement on anti terror measures in parliament and it seems to have been built mostly out of cross party cooperation. What is funny is what John Reid said about the proposed stop and question powers:

I want to make it absolutely plain that discussion on the stop-and-question powers is going on inside Government. I did not raise the matter, and neither did the police in mainland Britain. It derived from one source. However, it is also evident that at least one source has major misgivings about it. The problem is that the source is the same in both cases. [Laughter.] We will carry on with the consultation on these matters.

Very funny!

You can read more here.

Hat tip to Iain Dale here.

While Gordon Spins like a top, will John Reid announce the consensus?

I wrote this article on Gordon's Brown's comments on getting tough on terror on Sunday, in part based on information Iain Dale had put in the public domain in his paper review on News 24, particularly noting the use of Conservative and Liberal Democrat proposals which had been rebuffed in the past, and the intent to try and get more than 28 days detention without charge which is not going to happen.

The long and short of the position is that Tony Blair and John Reid have been talking quietly and behind the scenes to their opposite numbers in the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties looking for a consensus. It seems they have come a long way.

Gordon Brown has not only stuck his oar in but seems to be looking to play political games with this, especially if you take into account this article by Iain Dale on the subject.

So the big question is this: Has Gordon Brown upset the apple cart and derailed the consensus that seemed to be building?

We will find out tomorrow, if John Reid makes his statement to the house of commons.