And another thing…

THERE’S obviously a lot more to come out about this story, but at this stage, I would take issue with how the BBC website is reporting it:

Ten men have been arrested in the North West of England after Britain’s most senior counter terrorism police officer sparked a security alert.

Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick said he “deeply regretted” revealing a secret document to photographers when he arrived for a briefing at No 10.

Of course Quick should have been more careful. But whichever news organisation photographed and then reported the documents (if that is indeed what happened) should shoulder at least some of the blame.

Surely news of an imminent police raid against terror suspects is something that no news organisation would have even hinted at in its coverage? It’s fair game to photograph and subsequently publicise a minister’s politically-sensitive papers as she walks into Downing Street. But did anyone even threaten to publicise an undercover anti-terrorist operation?

Or was the very fact that the documents had been photographed enough to force the police’s arm?

I don’t know if the government still uses D-Notices, but I would have thought that today’s events would have more than warranted one.

SO, at last the Law Lords have seen fit to get rid of the loathsome entity which goes by the name of Abu Qatada.

He could have been removed earlier but a court decided that would hurt his feelings and therefore was against his human rights or something.

But here’s the bit that still perplexes me:

Last year the Court of Appeal blocked Qatada’s removal after accepting his argument that he had not faced a fair trial in his absence. He was released on bail – but then re-arrested and returned to prison because security officials said they had intelligence that he was considering fleeing the UK.

“Security officials said they had intelligence that he was considering fleeing the UK”? And we couldn’t tolerate that, could we? After all, if he had left the country of his own accord, then we wouldn’t have been able to bring him back to court to force him to leave the- …Oh, hang on…

Alas, the deal has not yet been done on getting rid of Qatada. The European Court of Human Rights is still to hear an appeal, so expect lots of excuses about how mean the authorities in Jordan will be to him if he returns to face a jail term for terrorism.

THE LATEST developments in the bare knuckle fight between Harry’s Place and academic Jenna Delich continues, with the latest twist focusing on 9/11 “conspiracies”.

Conspiracy theories and the strange individuals who waste their time reading about them can be easily dispensed with. What is more dangerous are those who seek to use their status, position and skills to justify or excuse acts of terrorism.

A few years back I was greatly offended by an article in The New Statesman by John Pilger. No surprise there, you might say – isn’t everyone? Pilger had written a piece about 9/11 and had come out with all the usual nonsense about how America wasn’t really the victim. What incensed me was his use of the word “terrorists” to describe Muhammad Atta and his fellow murderers. Let me make this clear: Pilger inserted inverted commas round the word “terrorist” within his article.

Now, my understanding of journalistic rules is that there are two reasons for using double inverted commas: when quoting someone, and to indicate irony. Pilger was not quoting anyone, so he was using “terrorist” as an ironic description of the… er, terrorists.

The implication Pilger intended was that Atta and his henchmen were unfairly labelled as terrorists by the mainstream media, but that he wasn’t going to make the same mistake, oh no. After all, anyone who hated the United States that much can’t be all bad, surely?

I found myself writing a letter of complaint, which was published and, surprisingly, responded to by Pilger himself. Can’t remember now what names he called me; they probably weren’t any worse than some of the things left as comments on this blog.

We should be very careful indeed of those in the mainstream media using language that seeks, even in a subtle way, to excuse or justify acts of random murder. Explain, yes; excuse, never.

THE NEW National Risk Register says a flu pandemic is the greatest risk to national security the UK is facing.

So how long, do you think, before the cry goes up: “We’re wasting time on all this anti-terrorist legislation – prepare for flu instead!” (followed, depressingly and inevitably, by claims that there would be no terrorist threat at all if British foreign policy were different).

Makes about as much sense as one previous commenter on this blog who said that terrorism wasn’t as big a threat to our citizens as the private car, since the number of people killed on our roads was so much higher than the number killed on 7/7.

Before 7/7, the terrorism deniers claimed there was nothing to worry about. After 7/7 they said it was all the government’s fault. The National Risk Register is a useful document, but I hope we will take no notice of those who use it to justify their own refusal to face up to the truth about Islamist terrorism.

My old class mate (college class, that is, not social class) George Pascoe-Watson, the Sun’s political editor, just said something on Sky that’s taken me by surprise. Referring to Dave’s commitment to campaign for David Davis in the forthcoming self-inflicted by-election, George said this might mean that the Tories “might not stand a candidate against him”. What on earth does that mean? That DD has resigned as a member of the Conservative Party? That he won’t be the Tories’ official candidate?

Davis’s own claim that this by-election will give his electorate an opportunity to pass judgment is perhaps true, but what happens if and when he arrives back at the Commons with his new mandate? That the 70,000 voters in Haltemprice and Howden should have a veto over policy agreed by the House of Commons, a policy supported by an overwhelming majority of citizens (including, presumably, a similar proportion of Haltemprice and Howden’s voters)?

The rather magnificent Denis MacShane is on Sky at the moment, being gloriously patronising about DD’s “little by-election”. At least half of the Labour MPs I met in the tearoom in the past hour have told me they think Labour shouldn’t stand a candidate. Not sure yet; we should probably let the dust settle before that decision is taken.

I had lunch a few weeks ago with a good friend of DD’s who said DD had given up any hope of leading his party. If rumours about an irreconcilable split between Dave and DD are true, could this be DD’s last throw of the dice, a chance to attract some attention after years in Dave’s shadow? He says he wants to take a stand against government infringements on civil liberties. Does that mean he feels that no-one else in his party (aka Dave) is willing to do so?

What is fascinating about Dave’s most recent pronouncement in this is his statement that “I wish him well” in his by-election campaign. He sounded like a disinterested commentator, not the leader of the Opposition and the Conservative Party.

We won. More importantly, our security services could soon have more powers with which to protect us.

About an hour ago I walked back to the Commons from a meeting outside the estate to be told by a friend/journalist that we were about to lose on 42 days. A Labour colleague shortly afterwards confirmed this gloomy news. So when we finally saw how the whips were standing – our tellers were standing on the Speaker’s left – we knew before the figures had been read out that we had won.

Lots of unhappy faces among the Tories. The LibDems are being bitchy to those fine men and women of the DUP and UUP. The media pack are trying their best to put a negative spin on an unexpected government victory. And I’m off to have dinner.

Anyone keen to learn more about the Islamist mindset could do a lot worse than read Ed Husain’s book, The Islamist. The author makes it clear that the extremist and dangerous views of organisations such as Hizb ut Tahrir pose a threat, not just to western white people, but to Asians and Muslims throughout the world and in the UK.

At the launch two years ago of Muslim Friends of Labour in Glasgow, I found myself talking to a young Scottish woman of Pakistani origin sitting beside me. I apologised for the fact that I would have to leave early to go to BBC Scotland to be interviewed by Kirsty Wark on Newsnight.
“On what subject?” she asked.
Admittedly defensively, I replied: “I’m defending 90 days detention.”
“Quite right,” she said. “Remind her that Muslims died on 7/7 too.”

A poll in today’s Telegraph suggests 65 per cent of the electorate supports an extension of pre-trial detention for terrorist suspects to 42 days. The only surprising thing about that figure is how low it is.

I spoke to a Tory frontbencher last week, who effectively admitted that in government his party would be far more likely to support this kind of measure, on the basis that a government’s first duty is protection of the country’s citizens, whereas the duty of the opposition… isn’t, really. Pretty shameful attitude. Labour, in the years BT*, voted regularly against the annual renewal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Only under Tony did we come to our senses and realise that only parties which take security seriously in opposition can be trusted with government.

The same is true today. The 42 days clause should be supported, not because it’s popular (though it is) but because it will help protect people. If the Tories understand this but oppose it for party political reasons, then they are not fit to govern.

* Before Tony

Compare and contrast: this week, former prime minister Tony Blair appeared in front of a House of Commons select committee to report on his work as the Middle East envoy of the so-called “quartet” countries. He put in an impressive performance. And outside the committee room he offered only solid support to his successor as prime minister.

In today’s Times, former premier John Major is having another go at the government, this time over plans to extend pre-charge detention for suspected terrorists to 42 days. He says the measures “go beyond anything contemplated when Britain faced far more regular – and no less violent – assaults from the IRA. The justification of these has sometimes come close to scaremongering.”

Scaremongering. Hmm. I seem to remember the same accusation being made against those of us who, in the wake of 9/11, warned that a suicide attack on the London Underground was possible, or even likely. Scaremongering.

But whatever his utter failure to grasp the seriousness of the threat (he was probably too busy to notice that the 7/7 attacks on London claimed more lives than any single IRA act of terrorism in its history), the most disappointing aspect of Major’s post-No 10 life is how ungracious he has been. Somehow I expect former prime ministers to conduct themselves with some measure of dignity. Thatcher has done this, as did Jim Callagan. Ted Heath, not so much, but I like to think he was the exception to the rule.

So, okay, Major doesn’t like Blair or Brown. Blair gave him an electoral hiding in 1997, and I suppose that must be hard to forgive. But the only time we ever hear from him these days is when he wants to gripe about his successors in a nasty, partisan way. Not even remotely statesmanlike.

It would be impossible to imagine Major giving the kind of performance that Blair did in the committee room. And just as unlikely that he would have anything to say anyway, except, perhaps, more bitter criticisms of his political nemesis. Frankly, it’s pathetic.

You lost, John. Just accept it and get over it.

Someone recently asked me why I supported government plans to introduce a new upper limit of 42 days detention without charge. “Because we couldn’t get 90 days through,” I replied.