Independent UK: This Govt. has lost touch with reality over foreign policy, terror and human rights

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Bruce Anderson: This Government has lost touch with reality over foreign policy, terror and human rights
Darfur is the topic for any politician who wants to make cheap sentiment sound high-minded

Monday, 14 April 2008


A friend of mine who often addresses political audiences always builds up to a catchphrase which never fails to win vigorous applause. "In Britain today", he will say, "nothing works." One can understand the clapping. After Terminal 5, it seemed as if the whole country had slipped back 30 years. To judge by other recent events, every day is April Fool's Day. Our administrative and legal machinery has lost contact with reality on a scale for which there is only one precedent: the final years of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

Our ministers' normal response to any problem is to pass new laws, as if we did not have a lot of laws already. Last week, we also learned how some of these new Labour laws are working. Intended to facilitate the surveillance of terrorists, they are being used by local councils to spy on parents who want their offspring to go to a decent school, and on dog owners.

The head of the Secret Intelligence Service is traditionally known as "C". That now seems to stand for catchment area. In view of these additional legal powers, it may be that C should be reinforced by "D", dealing with dog mess. If a script along these lines was offered to a television company, the author would be told to take it away. Even peak-hour comedy for the brain-dead needs some verisimilitude. But this is not a comedy programme. In a difficult, dangerous world, this is how we are governed and there is no one to insist on realism.

The allegations in the latest London terror trial should have reminded everyone of the threats we face. Yet last week, judges prevented the Government from deporting a foreign terror suspect. After that ruling, the Government has a clear task. David Blunkett once said that the Human Rights Act was the biggest mistake of Labour's first term. He was right. That Act must be modified or repealed, so that the Government can perform its most basic duty: protecting the public. Salus populi suprema lex.

Gordon Brown would claim to be legislating along those lines in his Bill to allow terror suspects to be detained for 42 days. There is only one difficulty; an absolute absence of expert testimony in favour of this measure. No serious figure has supported it. Even Admiral Lord West, the Terrorism minister, said 28 days was enough, until he had breakfast with Gordon Brown, changed his mind (if that is the word) and ceased to be a serious figure. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/bruce-anderson/bruce-anderson-this-government-has-lost-touch-with-reality-over-foreign-policy-terror-and-human-rights-808653.html