Michael Henderson suggests

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Letters

Wednesday, 11th June 2008

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

42 days
Sir: Thank goodness for Matthew d’Ancona’s clarity of mind on 42-day detention (‘Jacqui Smith’s vote of confidence’, 7 June). People who want to be provoked will always find an excuse. If they are subtle, they will manufacture a grievance based on an issue about which their sworn enemies disagree — and then exploit the difference. Critics who claim that increasing pre-charge detention will be a ‘recruiting sergeant’ for terrorism have fallen into this terrorist trap.

Such critics acquired their views in the age of Trotskyism, when the Trots were trying to provoke the establishment into violence in the belief that it would speed up the revolution by exposing the ‘mailed fist behind the velvet glove’ of capitalism. Islamist terrorists do not think that way. They want to destroy us and if they can trick us into making their task easier by deterring us from taking the necessary precautions, so much the better.

Changing the charging threshold to ‘reasonable suspicion’ combined with the reintroduction of grand juries to eliminate malicious or feeble prosecutions would be a better way. But there are enough safeguards in the 42-day proposal for it to be a useful second-best.

David Green
Director, Civitas, London SW1

Sir: Matthew d’Ancona writes as though the current government proposals regarding the locking up of suspects without trial are its first. But he knows full well that they are not and many concessions have been wrung painfully out of an executive whose instincts are unpleasantly authoritarian. Then he has the gall to tell those of us opposed to this horrid piece of legislation that we are looking at the issue through the ‘wrong end of the telescope’ and that we can no longer see the ‘big picture’ that was so clearly visible post 9/11. Well, my first instincts after 9/11 were that a government of a brave, liberal democracy, confident of its values, should set an example by tearing down the gates at the end of Downing Street and challenging those that would destroy us to do their worst.

At the risk of adding to d’Ancona’s clichés, it is the nature of democracy that it must fight its enemies with one hand tied behind its back. That may lead to frustration and even loss of life and injury from time to time. But it is an approach that will shorten the war and preserve the nature of our society. The current policies will achieve nothing other than the polar opposite of these objectives.

James Cooper
Kingston Blount, Oxfordshire

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Haldane

June 12th, 2008 12:09pm

How strange. All the comments that managed to get posted concerning d'Ancona's interview were negative.Yet here, given pride of place, is a letter praising his clarity of mind. I should say so!

Once again

June 12th, 2008 2:45pm

Dalrymple brutish? What rubbish. Put brutishness in its correct context here. If young scantily clad, drunken women dress like sluts, then so be it - they will be brutally regarded, brutally treated and brutally described as sluts. There is no "nice" word for scantily clad, drunks in public places.