Time for a U Turn

The events of the last few days demonstrate very clearly that two of Gordon Brown's most cherished policies ought to be dead in the water.

The first is ID cards. The more information you put on a system, the more attractive it is to criminals to hack into it, and the more disastrous it will be if they succeed. If the government cannot prevent a data security fiaso like the missing HM Revenue fiasco with the existing systems, how can they guarantee that criminals or terrorists will not get hold of the ID card sytem data, potentialy with even more serious results.

The second is the idea of extending the limit for detaining terrorist suspects without charge.

Sir Ken Macdonald, the current Director of Public Prosecutions, and Lord Goldsmith, who was Blair's Attorney General, both gave evidence that there is no evidence of a need to extend the current 28 day limit. This follows the Admiral West fiasco, when the minister who was brought in by Gordon Brown to take charge of anti-terrorism said the same thing first thing in the morning, until he was called in to see the Prime minister and persuaded to a few hours later to change his mind.

Fighting terrorism is important, but doing so at too great a cost in civil liberties does not just lose one of the things we are fighting to defend, it is counter-productive. Taking a tough line against the I.R.A. seemed like a good idea to the government and many people thirty years ago when they introduced internment. But in fact the result was that a lot of innocent people were locked up, and the anger this generated acted as a recuiting sergeant for the I.R.A. and made the problem worse.

Making it easier to lock up people who may well be innocent should only be considered when there is strong evidence that this is necessary, and it is inconceivable that such evidence could exist without the DPP being aware of it.

Unfortunately it cannot be taken for granted that the government will do the obvious thing and drop these two policies. But if that at leas thirty Labour MPs have the independence of mind which God gave the average supermarket trolley, there must be a good chance that the House of Commons will vote them down.

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