42 days fails in the Lords, government to drop measure from counter-terrorism bill 

Chuck Unsworth

The appalling Smith has clearly decided that this is all the fault of the Conservatives, yet she was assailed from all sides - including her own backbenches - when making her statement to the House. Quite incredibly she seemed to completely ignore the abstentions and votes against of Labour peers. It's almost as if she believes that the upper house doesn't exist.

Interestingly she chose to avoid responding to Grieve's question about the timing of the draft bill which she now is placing in the Library. Clearly she knew some time ago that 42 days was a non-runner and decided to attempt to brazen it out. But the scale of the defeat is extraordinary - and welcome.

geoffDC

I suspect we are still gonna be hit with this in the manifesto.

God help us if there is a real crisis - a terrorist attack or the like.

EyeSee

The Bill was crassly worded, as all NL Bills have been because they are careless, literally care less. It was about the removal of freedoms and getting us used to their withdrawal much more than the detail of what it said anyway.

David

"God help us if there is a real crisis - a terrorist attack or the like."

Indeed, but this would have nothing to do with these measures. The government is now going to no doubt try to sell the same specious reasoning; that those who voted against this will somehow be responsible for a future undetected terror attack. It's all nonsense of course, but how like Gordon and his cronies to play politics with this issue.

TrevorsDen

Chuck -- you are right. But what really really annoyed me was the sweeping assumption by Smith in her speech that if you were opposed to 42 days you were soft on Terrorists.

A sickening disgrace of a statement from a woman who has no shame. And she should note that I for one take personal affront at her assumption.

It is utterly utterly disgusting to see a government minister spout lie after lie after lie at the dispatch box.

AndyLeeds

Thank God for the House of Lords.

mac

geoffDC: Invoking God's help may be spiritually comforting, but wide-ranging and methodical Intelligence-gathering is a more immediate preventative measure against terror plotting.

And given your train of logic, presumably you'd feel safer still were ministers able to suspend habeas corpus indefinitely whenever they deem it necessary "for security reasons"? In favour of Internment at the executive's pleasure, are you?

Travis Bickle

So we can only lock up Icelandic Bankers without charge for 28 days after all.

Shame on the nasty Toreez, for everything that has ever happened in the world is clearly their fault.

geoffDC

In reply to MAC. No i am not in favour of internment or 42 days for that matter.

I just expect this to now be an election issue and one which we will lose on in the event of anxiety about terrorist attacks

mac

geoffDC - Got it. I misunderstood where you were coming from in the second para of your 9.58.

Mike, Brighton

This never had anything to do with terrorism. It was all about politics.
You don't need a long memory to remember Brown and the awful Smith pretending that the sky would fall in and the UK would be destroyed by terrorists without the 42 day bill. NuLab supporting chief constable after chief constable was wheeled out in support along with the security establishment, Lord Carlisle and uncle Tom Cobley.
The real agenda was political - we NuLab are STRONG on law n' order and terrorism. These lily-livered opponents the Tories are WEAK on law n' order and terrorism. Only NuLab can protect you...vote NuLab.

Now Labour's focus groups tell them a large majority is against it plus it has been taken from the front pages by the economic crisis. So it can be dropped as quietly as possible. But NuLab will keep it in their pocket to beat up their opponents when the next opportune time arises.

If it really was critical to our national security, they why isn't Brown ramming it though under the Parliament act?

More disgrace for a disgraceful government.

mac

Smith's discomfort under Naughtie's gentle questioning this morning was instructive. One could picture the desperate thought bubbles above her head as she floundered when JN suggested that the brush with which she had tarred the Tories in the Commons presumably extended to the raft of peers and security professionals who viewed the bill as a dog's breakfast. She's a ponderous journeywoman politician, petulant and seriously over-promoted. How very New Labour.

Travis Bickle

"God help us if there is a real crisis - a terrorist attack or the like."

Well unless such attack were perpetrated by someone who was previously held in custody and then had to be released on day 29 then this clause is completely irrelevant, and a politically motivated red herring.

Since any future attacks will probably be again conducted by "respectable home loving boys who nobody ever suspected" then 24, 42, 84, 168 days would not have made an iota of difference.

Meanwhile when the government uses terrorist legislation against the Icelandic government it proves that any increase in detention without trial is 100% wrong, as a future government expands this laxity on what constitutes a terrorist offence.

David Lindsay

Now that the House of Lords has thrown out the scheme to bang people up for six weeks without even so much as charging them with anything, let the bonfire be lit, and let it burn, burn, burn.

Let the fire of liberty consume identity cards, control orders, the admission of anonymous evidence other than from undercover Police Officers, the provision for conviction on anonymous evidence alone, the existing erosions of trial by jury and of the right to silence, the existing reversals of the burden of proof, the provision for majority verdicts (which, by definition, provide for conviction even where there is reasonable doubt), the provision for Police confiscation of assets without a conviction, stipendiary magistrates, Thatcher’s Police and Criminal Evidence Act, the Civil Contingencies Act, the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act, and the Official Secrets Acts.

And once the fire has done its work, let us rebuild Britain. Where the minimum age for jurors is at least 21. Where the pre-1968 committal powers of the magistracy, and the pre-1985 prosecution powers of the Police, have been restored. Where we have preventative policing based on foot patrols, with budgetary sanctions against recalcitrant Chief Constables who failed to implement this.

Where Police Forces are at least no larger than at present, and subject to local democratic accountability, most obviously though Police Authorities, but if appropriate by means of elected sheriffs.

Where each offence carries a minimum sentence of one third of its maximum sentence, or of 15 years’ imprisonment where that maximum sentence is life imprisonment.

Where cannabis is a Class A drug, with a crackdown on the possession of drugs, including a mandatory sentence of three months for a second offence, six months for a third offence, one year for a fourth offence, and so on.

And where a Bill which runs out of parliamentary time is lost at the end of that session.