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Terrorism Bill

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21:28 / 10.11.05

Vannesa Feltz listening rather than opening her big gob? That's news!

21:31 / 10.11.05

Oh yeah, I'm a Londoner, I'm pissed that the MPs didn't keep it down at 14 days as I've yet to see any evidence that even that would have stopped the 7th July bombings. Plus all the other crap that has also got in with this bill, if it makes it to law that is.

Regrettable Juvenilia

21:56 / 10.11.05

Anyone else watching This Week?

Tony Parsons really is the lowest form of life on the planet, isn't he?

22:10 / 10.11.05

Parsons strutting his macho stuff over Hampstead Heath was pathetic and risible, but also incredibly annoying. Such a punchable face with that smug, self-important little sneer.

I keep thinking that nobody could take a man who married Julie Burchill seriously, surely, but I am concerned that opinion polls seem to show that ugly, asinine little Tone may be representing the voice of the people. But then the great British public would come out of Europe and would restore public hangings, according to the polls, so why am I surprised?

I am just surprised that the argument is aired so many times that, if there is another 7/7, Westminster will have blood on its hands! How in Hell's name would banging people up for ninety days without a charge have prevented 7/7? Show me how, Charles Clarke. You obviously failed to show your Westminster colleagues or I'm sure they would have voted for your bill. The Tories have voted for dafter, more ineffective things in the past, en masse.

06:53 / 11.11.05

Being as how so far the security services have been pretty ineffectual as to actually having a clue (apart from all these none specified plots they've foiled, no you can't have details, why? ummm, security), unless we have a case where a suspect is held and then released and goes on to commit an act of terrorism I fail to see how Westminster will have "blood on its hands".
I too am finding it increasingly worrying that the public seem to be in favour of the 90 day limit, but as Xoc says the Great British Public isn't generally known for its sensible, liberal approach

08:48 / 11.11.05

I'd be interested in hearing what the question was.

12:16 / 11.11.05

I think the question asked would be the crucial thing, fridge.

Are you in favour of locking up terrorists and throwing away the key, before they kill you on your way to work?

I can understand the 90% plus YES vote.

But,

Are you in favour of allowing the police to come round to your house and lock you up for three months because they've got a hunch you're a bad 'un but they haven't any proof of any wrongdoing?

Not so many voting YES to that.

We had Habeas Corpus as a fundamental of our legal system for centuries until just a few short reactionary years ago. So much for not giving in to terrorism.

12:20 / 11.11.05

Tony Parsons really is the lowest form of life on the planet, isn't he?

Hence I didn't watch this week. Is there a thread dedicated to bashing Parsons, and Burchill? (this a rhetorical question and I will check and if not maybe we can start one in the appropriate place?)

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:48 / 11.11.05

Burchill has come up rather a lot.

Tabitha Tickletooth

19:07 / 11.11.05

I'm really irritated by the accusation that this was a purely *political* vote. That no-one had real concerns about the implications or prolonged detention, but that they were driven by a desire to do down our Tone. Watching Question Time last night it seemed to revert almost endlessly to the idea that people saw this as an opportunity to *strike a blow*.

I believe that many MPs, from all parties for various reasons, genuinely opposed 90 days detention. I don't discount that there may have been some who saw this as an opporunity to undermine Blair, but it feels like rather than celebrating the strength and, for lack of a better term to hand, moral fortitude, of those who opposed this we've been sidetracked into arguing about whether those who did the unpopular (apparently) thing of standing up for civil liberties were just playing political games or not.

I say sod em all - this was bad policy. It was defeated. John Q Sun Reader can be appalled but I'm really fucking pleased. And a tiny piece of my belief in politicians has just been clawed back from an increasingly cynical hell.

Tom Paine's Bones

20:36 / 11.11.05

If this blog is accurate on it's reporting of the poll, it looks like a combination of biased questions and skewed reporting has muddied the waters.

10:16 / 13.11.05

As everybody seems to be ignoring, most of the press too who it will hit if it becomes law, and the reason I started this thread is Clause 1, which seems to have gone through without anyone being too fussed. That is the "encouragement of terrorism" bit with all its subjectiveity and it's dilution of the concept of what constitutes "terrorism" to cover anyone who uses violence however justified and those who support them. Or maybe everyone's suddenly become pacifists?

Am I the only person who's worried by this? That I'll be open to prosecution just because I say I'm sympathetic to the Shan people in Burma or G8 protests?

10:26 / 13.11.05

Here's a article from the Guardian about some academics' concerns about the impact of this Clause 1 - Guardian - if having it in context helps understand what it might mean.

10:42 / 13.11.05

%No, clearly you are the first person to notice any potential problems with this. It's never been mentioned in the press or by civil liberties groups, and no MPs have ever said anything about it, listing other MPs and respected public figures who could have been prosecuted under such a law. I've certainly never thought about it, but it seems fine to me, they wouldn't use it unless somebody'd done something wrong would they?%

I'm not sure what sort of point you're trying to make here. Is it just "this is a bad thing"? I have this weird feeling that there might be a fair amount of consensus on that issue on Barbelith.

(To be precise here, Clause 1 is control orders in general. It's specifically section (8) of that clause which is concerned with the definition of "terrorism-related activity". There are certainly wider problematic issues with Clause 1, particularly the basic idea of politicians imposing restrictions on the liberty of people in an extra-judicial fashion.)

12:19 / 13.11.05

You've sorta hit the nail on the head in that it is section 8 of Clause one which is the problem. Rather than reiterate, see the Liberty briefing that I linked to above. As such, I wouldn't claim to be the only person to notice it, just no one is making too much of a fuss about it dispite the fact that it could impact on the media in general in negative ways by strangling discussion and breathe of opinion.

My objection and point is to raise awareness of the dangers of this Clause, especially to a site like this. Also as is pointed out eslsewhere is the way it segues with the new Asylum bill.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

19:15 / 13.11.05

Look on the bright side. they could have sent Oliver to Gitmo under this.

Apologies for the off-topic piss-poor joke, but it's about the only bright side I could find.

(NB- this post may also briefly appear in the Immigration Act thread- I posted it there by mistake. It should vanish soon.)

Our Lady Has Left the Building

14:16 / 15.11.05

Aaaaargh! This article makes me want to kill. Kitty Ussher, MP for Burnley, appeals to authority to say why MPs should have voted for the terrorism bill, but dismisses the authority argument as invalid when it comes to reasons for voting against it:

Some people argued that, because they were lawyers in a previous life, they couldn't tolerate such a change to the way our legal system worked. I'm sorry, but you're not working as lawyers any more. You're leaders. And you need to exercise that leadership in the security interests of the country as a whole.

Then claims that she was fully informed and so voted for the Bill, whereas everyone who voted against it was obviously ignorant of the issues involved.

Some said that it was bad for Muslims; all I can say to that is that there's a strong vocal Muslim population in my constituency of Burnley and not one of them felt strongly enough about this to bother contacting me on the subject. In fact, overall, we've only had one email before the vote from anyone at all.

That means that no-one wrote to you saying it was a good idea either!

I very much hope that we will never have another terrorist atrocity in Britain. But if we do, and if it happens because the police have not had sufficient time to accumulate enough evidence to charge the perpetrators, then the Tories, the Lib Dems and our own rebels will have blood on their hands.

Oh fuck RIGHT off!

14:53 / 15.11.05

Yeah, it's the usual crap, isn't it? Goes on about the police needing time to do all their forensics and investigation work - fair enough - but doesn't address the point of why they need to do this before bringing charges. You don't need to have fully gathered all evidence, otherwise no forensics would ever get used in any case.

This is just a new MP trying to get themselves a profile as a loyal NewLabourite by a bit of public line-toeing, though, really, and the Guardian trying to demonstrate its "balance" by giving Mr Tony's talking points an extra bit of prominence in the comment section rather than just the news section.

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