56/8 days dies a further death.
The government's trying to sell more than one kind of cold sick.Moving on from one abuse of power to a potential other, the plans to extend 28 days must lay even further in tatters following the evidence given to the home affairs select committee by both the director of public prosecutions, Ken Macdonald, and the former attorney general, Lord Goldsmith.
While yesterday saw the head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, fresh from predicting new doom to the press having to give evidence in private, believed to have said that it was not his role to comment on whether an extension was needed, which raises the question of why he needed to say such a thing behind closed doors, today's evidence was also expected but no less compulsive for it. Ken Macdonald, who previously made a principled and more than welcome call for the end to the war metaphor when tackling the terrorist threat, one that seems to have been accepted and put into practice, could perhaps have been expected to say that he saw no evidence for a further extension and that the CPS was happy with the current limit.
Lord Goldsmith, on the other hand, the man who rubber-stamped Blair's war through the swift modifying of his legal advice that had previously tied itself in knots, and also gave the OK to the dropping of the Serious Fraud Office inquiry into BAE's slush fund for the Saudis, would have been expected to stay loyal regardless of his departure from government. It's also astounding just because of what else Goldsmith got up to while attorney general, arguably tarnishing the post for good. Why be principled over detention without charge when he has had a hand in the enormous bloodshed in Iraq thanks to our unnecessary joining of the US invasion that his changing of his legal advice permitted? How could he have been prepared to put BAE above suspicion and make the rule of law a laughing stock yet resign over 90 days? Also, in general, to make your point about how you disagree with a government policy if you're a minister is to resign prior before it going before the House of Commons; can Goldsmith really be excused from doing this just because he was a peer? Was he perhaps motivated by the belief that if he did so, and the vote was lost, as everyone expected it would be, that he'd force Blair to resign with him?
It's impossible to know, but his intervention now is still welcome, if only because of the huge embarrassment it will cause Brown, especially at a time when the whole government is under pressure due to its startling incompetence. Revealing also was that he believed he was the only one in cabinet to feel so strongly; an indictment on the illiberal and supine nature of Blair's chosen few, especially those such as Patricia Hewitt and Peter Hain who had backgrounds in campaigning on civil liberties.
The only people now still calling for an extension seems to amount to Sir Ian Blair, a man responsible for the most heinous behaviour dolled out to a man shot dead in an anti-terrorist operation, some chief police officers who previously phoned up MPs' and so annoyed some that they felt they were being lobbied, and the government, with Brown sitting on anyone who betrays a moment's doubt, backed up by the Sun newspaper, the Times, the Express and probably the Mail. Everyone else is completely opposed, although where the public itself stands at large is unknown. In the current climate you can't quite believe that Brown would still attempt to force through the measure, but if all has died down again by next year all bets might once again be off.
Labels: 28 days, 56 days, 58 days, home affairs select committee, Ken Macdonald, Lord Goldsmith, terror, war against bullshit
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