By Jonathan Isaby
The headline on the right is on the front page of today's Daily Telegraph and suggests that the Government is definitely going to scrap control orders - house arrest by another name - for terror suspects.
It quotes the Prime Minister as saying:
"The control order system is imperfect. Everybody knows that. There have been people who've absconded from control orders. It hasn't been a success. We need a proper replacement and I'm confident we'll agree one."
(Click here for a video clip of the Prime Minister from yesterday)
A review of control orders is currently underway - but what will replace them?
Civil libertarians will be delighted at at the prospect of the abolition of a measure which restricts the liberty of people who have never stood trial, let alone been convicted of an offence.
But the populist Right-wing press this morning appears to suggest that they will be disappointed if they were expecting the whole concept of control orders (not just that terminology) to be abolished.
The Sun today writes up the story as Cameron "crushing Nick Clegg's hopes that tough restrictions on terror suspects will be axed", whilst the Daily Mail explains:
The orders, introduced under 2005 anti-terror legislation, effectively allow a suspect’s freedom to be reduced without charge, and involve curfews, electronic tags and bans on where they can go and who they can meet. Mrs May wants any replacement to involve tough rules that retain many of these features.
Preliminary results (1,004 responses) from this month's ConHome grassroots survey - which went live yesterday - suggest that only 28% of members agree that control orders should be abolished. 48% disagreed with their abolition, with 24% undecided.
By Tim Montgomerie
Behind the News of the World's paywall is an article by David Cameron that pays handsome tribute to Britain's security services in the wake of the foiled cargo plane bombing. "We have some of the finest intelligence and counter-terrorism services in the world," he writes. He continues: "My position on this is clear: we will take whatever steps are necessary to keep the people of this country safe". And, just in case readers missed the message the first time, he concludes his article with almost exactly the same words:
"Whatever it takes, we will defeat terrorism... We will do everything possible to keep our country safe."
Does "whatever it takes" include keeping control orders?
I ask because, apparently, there is a big row within the Coalition about the future of these orders. Cameron is being asked to choose between Home Secretary Theresa May and the security services on the one hand - who want to keep the orders - and Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats, plus Dominic Grieve and Ken Clarke, on the other, who want them repealed.
Control orders have been described by the Centre for Social Cohesion as "imperfect" but as a necessary instrument of national security. A recent CSC report listed the individuals detained by COs including "Faraj Hassan al-Saadi, convicted in Italy for membership of a terrorist group and described as the ‘European envoy’ of Musab al-Zarqawi, the former head of al-Qaeda in Iraq". Andrew Rawnsley reports that "the head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, wants to keep control orders";
"He used a speech last month to lobby publicly for the governing parties to break their promises to the voters. One senior figure with a ringside seat for this battle remarks: 'This is what they always do. When Jonathan Evans eyeballs the prime minister and says, 'I can't guarantee that the public will be safe from terrorism if you don't give me this', it is hard for the prime minister to stand up to that."
The Liberal Democrats remain staunchly in favour of repeal, however, and Chris Huhne - formerly his party's home affairs spokesman - reiterated his own position on BBC1's Politics Show earlier:
“I very firmly believe that the values that we have in this country of a fair trial, that you should know what you’re accused of, you shouldn’t be locked up without knowing what you’re accused of, put under house arrest, is not the sort of thing that we have traditionally done in this country.”
Faced with the tension between the two sides David Cameron, according to Mr Rawnsley, forecast a "f**king car crash". James Forsyth concludes that the Coalition will probably end up abolishing COs. He's probably right but what will the "spooks" want in return? They've already got MORE resources from the government - despite the austerity across the rest of Whitehall. It is likely that they may get less distracting examination of the kind that Benedict Brogan details on his blog:
"[MI5 and MI6] are having to allocate ever growing resources to answering the various legal processes launched against them, from police investigations to civil cases. Senior officers, who should be devoted to doing what they do best – wrongfooting the bad guys – are being sent off to spend months or years on a pointless judicial treadmill. Surely what we have learned from Yemen is that the threat is as grave as ever. David Cameron has tried to cut through the mess by effectviely paving the way for complainants to be paid off. Surely though now is the time to say enough and invoke the national interest to call off the judicial jihadists."
By Paul Goodman
As Tim and I wrote recently, the Coalition's "summer of scrutiny" of Labour didn't happen (see here and here). And the Coalition still doesn't seem to have united on a message to give voters. But this morning, Conservative Ministers and MPs are making waves. Indeed, they're fighting back against their critics and Labour like scrappers in one of those old-fashioned episodes of "Batman" -
Zap! 177 quangos are to go. Ministers have either listened to our advice, taken someone else's or hit on the idea themselves. The Daily Telegraph leads on the story. I'd like to see the details, but it's a promising start.
Bash! As Harry Phibbs reports today in our Local Government section, Eric Pickles, newly appointed to the Star Chamber to help concentrate the minds of erring spending Ministers, presses his steamroller progress on by cancelling Labour’s plans for a council tax revaluation in England, saving families up to £320 a year, and launching a review into intrusive snooping by council tax inspectors. He was pressing the fairness angle during a joshing Today interview earlier this morning. Again, let's wait to see what the review comes up with, but it's a sound initiative.
Whack! As Tim reports in LeftWatch, Matt Hancock is up and at Labour again, pinning the Milibands to the Labour spending scaleback they supported in Government, highlighting their campaigning spending commitments during the last few months...and their opposition to just about every saving the Government's announced. First of all, they're committed to savings, says Hancock - but won't say how they'd make them. Next, they're committed to spending - but won't say how they'd fund them. Labour's sums don't add up! This is classic Treasury/Shadow Treasury Ju-Jitso of the type that Hancock (and Balls on the other side of the aisle) excel at.
It's heartening to see the Government fighting back. Oh, and one point from today's push that may be the shape of things to come - namely, that the Liberal Democrats don't seem to have played a part in the assault. I suspect that the main reason isn't unwillingness or incapacity. Rather, it's that it's less easy for the two parties, with their different centres of political and ideological gravity, to agree on a line of fire. When it comes to Labour to account, expect Conservative Ministers to take the lead - as well as when it comes to cutting household bills and shredding red tape.
By Tim Montgomerie
Theresa May has today given a speech setting out some very specific measures to tackle Britain's booze culture and, more ambiguously, "to move beyond ASBOs" with with simpler sanctions that are "rehabilitating and restorative rather than criminalising and coercive". The full text is here but I highlight two key passages below:
The cost to taxpayers of alcohol abuse: "Nearly 7 million attendances at hospital accident and emergency services are estimated to be alcohol-related, at a cost of around 650 million pounds per year to the taxpayer. More than a million ambulance call outs each year are estimated to be alcohol-related, at a cost of around 370 million pounds per year. Overall, the total costs of alcohol-related crime and disorder to the taxpayer are estimated to be between 8 and 13 billion pounds per year."
Co-ordinated action against 'boozy Britain':I was a fan of Theresa May's performance during the General Election (see bottom of this post) and she has made a very good start as Home Secretary:
Her record is not perfect. I share the disappointment of Bill Cash, John Redwood and Lee Rotherham that the European Investigations Order is being accepted without more scrutiny and safeguards. I also wish Ken Clarke wasn't rolling back Michael Howard's prisons policy but, short of resigning, I don't suppose she can stop the cigar-smoking Justice Secretary. Chris Grayling is one of the few who would have tried.
The Home Office is regarded as a ministerial graveyard and things may yet turn south for the Coalition's most senior woman but three cheers for her first three months in the job.
By Paul Goodman
Chris Heaton-Harris, the new MP for Daventry, suggested at yesterday's Prime Minister's Questions that Facebook should take down a horrible page extolling the murderer Raoul Moat. David Cameron agreed, saying that his colleague had made a "very good point". This morning, a great deal's being written about issues arising from the exchange, but not much about how it came to happen.
I expect that the question didn't catch the Prime Minister off his guard. In Opposition, "the usual channels" would have questions to suggest, each week, to those who had a question down on the order paper for PMQs, but hadn't decided what to ask. Needless to say, they also took an interest in questions that MPs had decided to ask: Whips like to be well-informed. It would be surprising if Government has changed their habits.
Heaton-Harris, a football-playing Euro-sceptic, knows own mind, and wouldn't put a view he didn't believe, but the question clearly gave Cameron a chance to do something he's done before - namely, to nudge. He was nudging when he attacked British Home Stores for allowing the sale of padded bras for children. He was nudging again when he assailed W.H.Smith for giving away chocolate oranges rather than real ones.
Continue reading "Cameron's attack on Facebook was part of his nudge strategy" »
By Jonathan Isaby
Above is a video update from the Deputy Prime Minister on the Your Freedom consultation in which members of the public are suggesting which laws should be repealed.
But for anyone who thought that amending the smoking ban could form part of the Great Repeal Bill, there is bad news from Mr Clegg.
Whilst he says that the Government will be considering some ideas "very actively straight away" - such as looking at the vetting and barring scheme, the DNA database and the use of CCTV - he adds:
"Of course there are other suggestions which aren't going to be taken up by this government... the introduction of the death penalty or changing the smoking ban; but at least the debate is now really alive."
I imagine there will be considerable disappointment in many quarters that the idea of amending the smoking ban is lumped together with restoration of the death penalty in the mind of the Deputy Prime Minister when it comes to ideas that he rejects out of hand.
One reader, Peter Thurgood, has emailed me expressing his anger:
"What sort of hypocritical double-talk is this? The amendment of the smoking ban has been one of the most popular ideas to have been put forward on the Your Freedom website. The general consensus has been not to overturn the ban completely, but to amend it, allowing separate venues for smoking as well as non-smoking.
"A significant 25% of the population smoke, and feel quite rightly that their rights have been taken away from them by this very unpopular law. They have the backing of many MPs and with the Your Freedom website promising to look at their views, thought that here they had the voice of fairness at least willing to look at what they were asking for. But now Nick Clegg has taken away, in one minute sentence, any hope they had of fairness.
"The Your Freedom website is therefore nothing more than a complete falsehood. It allows people to believe that their views on the smoking ban were to be read and possibly looked into. The website even has a section clearly marked “Smoking”. Why is this section there if Mr Clegg has no intentions of even looking at it?"
By Tim Montgomerie
A Home Office press release lists the powers that will be subject to either amendment of complete roll back:
"I want a counter-terrorism regime that is proportionate, focused and transparent. We must ensure that in protecting public safety, the powers we need to deal with terrorism are in keeping with Britain’s traditions of freedom and fairness."
The review will be overseen by Liberal Democrat peer, Lord Ken Macdonald QC.
Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty, welcomed the review:
"Liberty welcomes this once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform counter-terror measures and bring them within the rule of the law."
"I remember, I remember", a Philip Larkin poem title runs. I remember parts of 7/7, but have forgotten far more. I've forgotten exactly when and where I was when rumours of gas explosions on the underground hardened into confirmation of bomb attacks. I've forgotten how I came to be in the Shadow Home Secretary's Office later that morning - was I summoned, or there anyway? - or when I was asked to help with his response to the Home Secretary's emergency Commons statement (or why). I've forgotten where I wrestled with his draft or sat in the Chamber.
And my memories of the day are blurred, disconnected images: seeing David Davis at the Westminster Tube entrance near Portcullis House, before the news broke, with Rachel Sylvester and Alice Thomson (then of the Telegraph, now of the Times); walking down the Embankment to find my wife, who works in an office off Fleet Street; exchanging a few grim words near the Chamber with Patrick Mercer. What comes back most clearly is the sense, almost the smell, of confusion - the mobile connections went down - and, yes, the fear: it wasn't clear (how could it have been?) that there were four bombs only. There could and there might have been more.
Davis was judged at the time to have spoken briefly, cogently and with dignity in the Commons. 7/7 was followed by a frantic Blair policy upheaval. Does it appear, in retrospect, to have be an over-reaction, and the Islamist threat to have been over-hyped? Today, the London murders can seem more like an end than a beginning. After all, there've been, to date, no more terror transport killings in the capital. (Mercifully, the 21/7 attacks claimed no casualties.) Indeed, there's been no large-scale mainland terror attack since the assault on Glasgow airport in the summer of 2007.
I tend to hear two views. The first is that the threat was and remains very serious, and that the Security Services deserve our thanks for forestalling it to date. The second is that it was indeed over-inflated, and was used as cover for draconian measures by a Labour Government contemptuous of our freedoms - as yesterday's announcement over the treatment of detainees indictates. As I write, the latter take seems to fit the public mood. Under the Coalition Government, there's a new stress on civil liberties. Even if Labour hadn't lost, the public mood in relation to Afghanistan is one of war-weariness (which today's announcement of the withdrawal of British forces from Sangin will do nothing to dispel). It can be argued that the threat from Irish republicans is greater than that from Al Qaeda.
I wonder if the two views are completely incompatible. Yes, the threat was clearly very grave. If the 21/7 bombers had mixed their explosives properly, there'd have been further Underground deaths. If there hadn't been bollards outside the terminal entrance, there could have been scores of deaths in Glasgow. If Nicky Reilly had known what he was about, he could have brought murder and mayhem to an Exeter restaurant two years ago. The Bluewater mall murder plot and airplane liquid explosives conspiracy were thwarted. We should be grateful today for the work of the Security Services, who toil for our safety and security with little public recognition and reward. And if the threat was urgent then, there's no reason to believe it isn't now.
None the less, no convincing case has been made for 28 days detention without charge. I had constituents who were held for that period in relation to the liquid explosives plot, but then released. Labour, remember, tried to push that total up to 90 days. Pauline Neville-Jones, the Security Minister, gave a TV interview recently stressing Ministers' willingness to re-examine 28 days, to review the present operation of stop and search and control orders, and to re-examine the "Prevent" counter-terror programme that they've inherited. There's been, she said, a "loss of trust" between voters - not just Muslim ones - and government over our freedoms. The paucity of UK terror attacks since 7/7 sits uncomfortably with claims of over two thousand Al Qaeda activists in Britain.
So it's possible for the threat both to have been very serious and yet have been exploited ruthlessly by Labour Ministers. Andrew Gilligan recently wrote a persuasive article in the Spectator arguing that the new Government has an opportunity to get policy right by clamping down on extremism while easing up on civil liberties. And if the number of terror operatives in Britain is less than is sometimes alleged - my impression is that Britain's big anti-Al Qaeda Muslim majority has slowly got its act together since 2005 - it's still worth bearing in mind that only a few people are required to cause terror on a colossal scale, with dire consequences. Remember the words of Gerry Adams on the IRA, an organisation to which he was no stranger: "They haven't gone away, you know."
Paul Goodman
Is the Conservative-Lib Dem Coalition as civil libertarian as might have been expected?
Home Secretary Theresa May has announced this morning that she is extending for another six months the power to detain terrorist suspects without trial for 28 days.
Reuters reports that she has said in a written statement:
"The government has today laid an order to renew the existing 28-day maximum period of pre-charge detention for a time-limited period of six months... It is vital that we support the police and other agencies in their work to keep us safe from terrorism... At the same time... we are also committed to safeguarding the rights and liberties of the public... Both parties in the coalition are clear that the 28-day maximum period should be a temporary measure and one that we will be looking to reduce over time."
She said pre-charge detention would be included in a review of counter-terrorism legislation, which would report in the autumn.
Former shadow home secretary Davis Davis - who famously quit that post to fight a by-election on civil liberties issues - has been swift to challenge her decision:
"Whilst it is welcome that she is having this review of Labour’s heavy-handed legislation, and whilst it is at least welcome that this is a six month rather than one year review, it is wholly unnecessary to extend further. There have been no cases in the last four years where it has been necessary to go beyond 21 days. Even the Heathrow plot, where innocent people were held for 28 days, it has now been proven that those that were charged after this lengthy period could have been charged in less than 14 days.
“This extension is therefore unnecessary and regrettable. It is to be hoped that after the 6 months review we will see an end not just to this unnecessarily authoritarian law, but also to control orders and their regime of house arrest, internal exile, and secret courts, all of which are an anathema of British standards of justice.”
Jonathan Isaby
Over the weekend, a senior Tory ran into Nick Clegg. "What do the Conservatives really think about 14 days?" the Deputy Prime Minister asked, with just a touch of anxiety. The Coalition Agreement doesn't seem to pronounce on the issue. There's nothing in its Civil Liberties or National Security sections about it.
Clegg was enquiring because a decision will apparently be taken very soon. During the last Parliament, Dominic Grieve, when Shadow Home Secretary, said here that 28 days was "much longer" than it needed to be, and pointed out when Shadow Justice Secretary (here) that since 2006 no terror suspect has been held for longer than 14 days.
In 2006, five of my former constituents were held in relation to the liquid explosives airline plot. Three were charged and convicted. Two were released without charge. At least one of the latter was held for 28 days. It emerged that they weren't suspected of being integral to the plot. In short, the police had enough evidence to charge the serious suspects within 14 days.
I'm all for a tough security policy. But the case for 28 days is unproven, like the case for 42 days and, let's remember, 90 days - both pushed by the Blair/Brown Government. The Party's view in opposition was that moving towards 14 days wouldn't compromise security, and that intercept evidence should be made available in court.
Sayeeda Warsi recently once again drew attention to the lack of suspects held for 28 days here (£). I recommend Andrew Gilligan's recent Spectator piece, in which he advocated what he called a bargain with Muslim Middle England. Too often, innocent people are stopped and searched while extremists are feted and - sometimes - even funded.
Paul Goodman