Alasdair Palmer

Life, liberty and terrorists

Charles Clarke tells Alasdair Palmer that the most important freedom of all is the freedom to walk the streets without being blown up

issue 17 December 2005

‘When it comes to the British courts,’ Charles Clarke insists, ‘I am a perpetual optimist.’ Which is fortunate, because he needs to be. We met on the day the Law Lords proclaimed that the government was not permitted to detain terrorist suspects on the basis of evidence which might have been extracted under torture.

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