Michael Howard, Dead and a Lefty?
11.07.2005
Just crossing the channels and happened across a report on Channel 4 News on Tony Blair's press conference this morning. The report implied at some point, or else Blair said it and I missed it, both likely, that by opposing the whole 90-day detention caluse they were now to the left of Labour.
The reported put this point to Michael Howard and the sofa he seems surgically attached to. Out come the hands which hover for a second like they are holding an imaginary basketball before he admits that yes he may be.
"Often in politics we have to do things we believe in" or something to that effect. I am officially thrust into a major bout of self-doubt by the prospect of being closer to Howard than to others in the political spectrum.
After that bout of self-doubt I decided the best comeback is to ridicule the man and his ridiculous thing that he does with his hands. All the time they are outstretched and trying to hold an invisible basketball. Doing this repeatedly probably transmits the point more clearly, trough telepathy perhaps.
So there you have it, Michael Howard is a lefty, so sayeth Channel 4 or Tony Blair. Implication being that being left of Labour is outside the loop, and the centre ground has failed to be moved anywhere toward the centre/centre-left, which as far as I can remember was the idea of the newLabour project.
RR
Categories: UK, Blair, Tories,
funny thing i find about the whole thing is that they need 90 days. Considering for 30 years they had more terroist attacks from the IRA then Al-queida have done anywhere and they didn't need 90 days then. Are they trying to insinuate that the Irish would break easier.
No, they - the police - are saying that because al-Qaeda spans so many countries (I heard a figure in the 90s), it takes them longer to find, corroberate and analysis the relevant information. Not saying I support it, maybe with the Sunset Clause, but the police do have valid reasons for asking for this long.
Its worrying the police are willng to become so politicised through all this, ninety days or not is not a matter for them, there responsibility lies elsewhere.
Their outspokenness on this issue shouldnt be interpreted simply as pragmatic calling etc. It should be treated as exceptional and questioned as such. Politicised policing cannot be another harmful legacy of the response to 7/7 IMHO.
the police do have valid reasons for asking for this long.
Certainly they do and parliament has valid reasons for deciding on an adequete balance between civil liberty and policing. If the police got everything they want then where would we be? Joined up thinking disappears when critical evaluation is out of bounds as in Blairs current tactic.
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