Talking tough but not following it through

The Home Office, well you know how this one is going to go just from those three words. Has there ever been such a badly run Government department? Now which aspect of this department shall we look at now? How about preventing terrorism.

Shortly after 9/11, the then Home Secretary, David Blunkett, introduced emergency laws which allowed the UK government to detain indefinitely without charge or trial those foreign nationals suspected of being international terrorists. These laws were declared illegal by the House of Lords in 2004.

In March 2005, Charles Clarke (David Blunkett's replacement following his first resignation) introduced terror suspect Control Orders. These Orders usually placed suspects under a curfew and required them to report regularly to police, creating a kind of house arrest, rather than actual prison. The problems followed thick and fast:
In April 2006 the first British citizen to have an order imposed on him won a high court declaration he had been placed under an order without a fair hearing, infringing Article 6 of the European convention on human rights.
Charles Clarke was replaced by John Reid in May 2006
In June 2006 a judge quashed control orders against six men, saying they were 'incompatible' with Article 5 of the convention, which prevents indefinite detention without trial; the government appealed.
In October 2006 it was revealed that two suspected international terrorists subject to them were on the run.
In January 2007 John Reid, the home secretary, revealed a third suspect on an order had absconded earlier in the month. In fact a total of six have absconded.

Today you can read that John Reid admitted that the "Police are prevented by law from taking fingerprints and DNA from terrorist suspects on control orders". This Government just cannot "walk the walk".

The new "plan" is to put anyone found guilty of a terrorist act or a terrorist-related offence - such as providing money or belonging to a banned group - on a "register". My how this Government loves a good register. I am sure being on a Register will really prevent further terrorist acts!


As a footnote, you will notice that I have not preceded John Reid with his preferred designation "Dr". John Reid thinks that being called Dr makes him seem serious and trustworthy. In fact John Reid can call himself a doctor because he has a Ph.D in economic history, earned by writing a thesis on the 19th-century West African slave trade written from a Marxist perspective - source and source. John Reid studied for this doctorate at Stirling University during the early 1970s. From the Guardian article we read "The campus was dominated by a swirling vortex of various Trotskyite groups from the IS (International Socialists) to the IMG (International Marxist Group). Reid led the right wing counterattack from the bastion of the Communist party - his first party affiliation."
A future article here will cover further how being an ex-Communist is no bar to political power in this country whereas any right-wing past is.