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I’m worried. I’m losing faith and hope. I’m no longer even sure Gordon`s thinking is close enough to mine to reverse our fortunes. More Gordon. Less Blair. Please.
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Civil liberties have never been a front line issue for me. Bread and butter are my forte. But I should oppose 42 day detention if only because it’s daft. I can’t see why we’re doing it.
There’s no obvious need, no obvious emergency, no present danger. No one’s escaped because 28 days is too short. So why bother?
It will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to get the Bill through both the Commons and the Lords. So why run the risk?
They’ve already got the 2004 Civil Contingencies Act which gives them all the powers they need.
The concessions made to get it through are largely meaningless: what can Parliament discuss when it’s trundled in? Nowt. What can the courts do? Nowt. So why complicate it?
This could be mucked up because foreign security authorities request the arrest of contacts or relatives here. That’s not a grave emergency.
The only explanation is either that Gordon can prove himself tougher than Tories. Or that the Security Services think it’s essential. Neither can be said publicly.
Better to vote against it than to trust a collection of Chief Constables, the DPP, the security services and Ministers whose only definition of a grave exceptional threat is the loss of their jobs. I’m not in Parliament to vote for virility displays, myths and lies, or incomprehensible obtuseness. Time to draw the line on Gordon.
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Time too, to distinguish Good Gordon from Weak Gordon. Weak Gordon tries to be Barite long after its dead, does things to dish the Tories, wants tax cuts, acts tougher than Tories and loses the next election. No one can tell Tone talk from Tory Mutter.
Good Gordon builds social houses, pumps spending to the people, helps those faced with repossession, increases taxes on the wealthy and borrows more to pay for higher public spending and weathers the storm because he serves the purposes of the people. The “multitude who labour” are hard hit now. Call them core vote or “aspirational”. We’re all workers now.
Gordon`s got two months to choose one role or the other. My support and the nation`s depend on that choice.
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Stilts say Iraq is a $3 trillion war. Britain’s is a £22 billion bill for Iraq and Afghanistan, neither of which are our business. I’m asking the National Audit Office to do its estimate of the costs of war. |
