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There’s a general assumption that a shoot to kill policy is acceptable in view of the terrorist threat and the need to deal quickly with suicide bombers. I don’t share it. Shoot to kill is a total change. It hasn’t been authorized by Parliament. There is no indication that it can stop suicide bombers but every indication that innocent lives will be lost. Indeed, in the case of the Brazilian plumber one already has.
Leave aside the problems of the evidence of whether he jumped the barrier, whether he was wearing a padded jacket, and whether he was shot in the head while pinned down and his arms held so that he could not possibly set off a bomb. All that will only emerge in the enquiry, which needs to be public.
The central facts already clear are that he was innocent but seemed guilty because he ran. Lots of people in today’s society have good reason to run from the police either because of their immigration status, because of criminality or for something else they want to hide. Or even because a posse of armed police coming charging towards you might frighten a lot of us.
The problem is clear. A suicide bomber might go off and I can see the weight of responsibility faced by the police. Yet shoot first and ask question later is wrong. It’s such a basic change in the relations between police and the community that nothing can excuse it and the errors are far more likely to be against the innocent than the other way round.
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I’m amazed that after forcing Charles Clark to postpone his family holiday last week The whole of the Cobra committee leadership is scheduled to depart this coming week on holidays. They should be postponed. These problems have come at fortnightly intervals on Thursdays.
To go on holiday at this particular moment poses two real problems. It leaves the country in the control of Hazel Blears and John Prescott, the little and large of government. That worries me so much. I’ve decided to go on holiday myself .
Equally important it can only incite the press to the inevitable campaign to recall Parliament to pass urgent legislation to deal with terrorism. Disastrous! Rushed legislation is bad legislation. September recalls are always badly attended. Those opposed to what’s proposed just don’t bother to come. That means Parliament hasn’t really done its job of properly debating further restrictions on our liberty. So its just empty symbolism.
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Any legislation to ban preaching hate, death, or violence and murder or killing to achieve political ends will have to take into account the fact that this is exactly what the IRA has been doing for twenty years. Some of its breakaway organizations, like the Continuing IRA or the Irish Liberation Army, will continue to do it whether the IRA disarms or not. So will the legislation cover murder and hate for Irish unity? Were the IRA tipped off that this legislation was coming? or did they just foresee that it was inevitable so they’d better take evasive action?
We should be told. The issue which everyone has ignored in last week’s statement is that the IRA say they’re calling off their campaign, but that’s not the war. Campaigns are a limited part of a war not the whole of it. They can be lost, called off, or won, but meanwhile the war goes on. So what’s the solution in Ireland.
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I’m surprised that the Professional Teachers, traditionally called PATSIES, have called for the return of the Grammar schools. It’s certainly true that the Grammar schools turned out some of humanities finest flowerings, such as Harold Wilson and me. They were brilliant at siphoning working class talent upwards. Yet no one now mentions the fact that the existence of grammar schools, taking perhaps a third of the population, or in the case of Bradford or Leeds, perhaps a couple of percent, also implies the existence of secondary modern schools to which the rest - the great majority - are relegated.. Our modern spin doctors will find another name for them, like Super Schools or People’s Academies. Yet the fact will always remain that selection means that Grammar schools will cream off the best. The other schools will be for the rest, educated as second class citizens.
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As I went to Jim Callaghan’s memorial service last week a bad tempered Michael White of the Guardian for some reason I don’t understand picked a row over whether Jims days of no majority and frequent strikes were as good as today’s.
I replied that Jim’s days were more interesting. We had a principled party which actually believed in socialist basics, a leader dedicated to protecting the people and a determination to reject Tory policies. Things are very different today and Government is easier, but then it was more fun. Working to survive was far more satisfying. At which pint Michael announced that I was essentially an idiot, and strode off to chronicle the great names of yesteryear who were there to pay homage to a great Prime Minister.
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Henry Root who died a few weeks ago did a couple of books writing to Ministers and MPs, asking daft questions or sending money and chronicling their silly answers. Today a modern Root has only to try to get in touch with MPs in August and September. Fifty per cent of them not only don’t answer the phone or don’t have an answer phone, putting out little messages which say, “ if you want to talk to your MP about matters spiritual press one, matters temporal press two, how to get hold of a Polish plumber press three etc. etc. up to about 95, none of which will tell you that your MP is sprawled out on a beach in Benidorm checking up on global warming. |
