Letters | 28 June 2008

Hard-won liberties
Sir: In an otherwise well argued leading article (‘The old order changeth’, 21 June), you repeat the claim that ‘poll after poll has suggested strong popular support for the 42-day extension’.

Well, up to a point Lord Copper! Certainly, the public has been more than happy to support the idea that ‘suspected terrorists’ (a loaded phrase in and of itself) should be ‘held for questioning’, rather than released to wreak havoc on the innocent populace. Why would they not? After all, surely only the guilty have anything to fear from this and similar measures?

I wonder, however, whether many would take the same view if asked whether they would be happy to see their innocent father, son, brother, close friend or work colleague detained without charge for up to six weeks, with the almost certain loss of livelihood, social standing and quite possibly family cohesion and good health that would ensue.

This is the real question that needs to be asked of the public in connection with this measure, although neither the press nor the government has shown any interest in couching the issue in these terms. I hope that, whatever else it may or may not achieve, David Davis’s resignation will serve to remind people of the importance of those liberties which have been hard won over many centuries and of the extent of their erosion over the past decade.

Andrew Mitchell
London W4



Wrong response

Sir: When James Cooper criticises Matthew d’Ancona (‘Letters’, 14 June), and says that the British government should have responded to 9/11 by ‘tearing down the gates at the end of Downing Street and challenging those that would destroy us to do their worst’, he should recall the moment at 6.22 a.m. on Sunday 23 October 1983, when a Shia terrorist drove an 18-ton Mercedes truck loaded with explosives equivalent to 18,000 tons of TNT into the lobby of the headquarters of the Multi-National Force in Beirut, killing 242 Americans and 38 Frenchmen.