In My View
Posted by Robert Walter, MP for North Dorset, at 13:51, Wed 21 November 2007:
Last week I met up with Martin Baker, Dorset’s Chief Constable. The subject of our meeting was no surprise – money. In my last column I lamented the poor deal Dorset schoolchildren got when it comes to Government money; about a third less than their city brethren. Well the police in Dorset do no better; or should I say you and I are less well protected. Dorset police do a very good job, but before you challenge me by telling me you haven’t seen a police officer on the beat for while remember it’s a cash problem. Not only are we almost the lowest funded police authority in Britain, but the share we council tax payers have to cough up has risen in ten years from around a quarter of the total bill to nearly a half. This week I am taking a delegation from North Dorset District Council to see the local government minister, John Healey. The subject, of course is money. As we read in this paper only two weeks ago the men in Whitehall think they are doing a good job and marked them up to the rank of “Good”, and the best district council in Dorset. But with one of the lowest council tax rates in England they are struggling to supply the services we all expect of them. I hope the minister has some answers. I don’t believe there is any evidence whatsoever to support the Government’s new plans to allow detention without charge for up to 56 days. In fact I believe the Government's security agenda to be in chaos and now motivated by politics, not national security. Anyway that’s my conclusion after the contradictory statements from Lord West last week.
The Government's security minister initially said that he had "to be fully convinced that we absolutely need more than 28 days", before changing his position following a meeting with the Prime Minister. In Parliament we have been bending over backwards for the last several months to try to get a practical outcome the Government can live with; get them off the hook they have impaled themselves on. The raw truth is they have been unwilling to accept the most reasonable and sensible proposals. Their plans to extend detention without trial would undermine our freedoms without making us safer. The existing 28 day limit has proved sufficient for the police, meaning there was no need to extend it to 56 days or 90 days.
I think this is a rejection of the tradition of liberty in this country. The government would be better to start by banning Hezbollah’s activities in Britain, ensuring charities are not used to finance terrorist groups and reviewing their confused approach to banning extremist organisations that preach violence against this country. I don’t wish to rant against the Government, but forgive me a little concern about the Chancellor Alistair Darling and his weak leadership over the Northern Rock crisis. It appears to me that the fallout from the crisis gets worse each week. With the Government having advanced about £24 billion of taxpayers' money to save the bank, let us hope that when the final reckoning comes, the taxpayer has not paid a heavy price for incompetence. And let us hope that the Chancellor can be honest today about the risks to the taxpayer.
Sadly we have a Chancellor who has made guarantees to the taxpayer he cannot be sure of honouring.
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Posted by Andy Newton, 16:39, Thu 13 December 2007: (Is this post abusive?) #
I said in an earlier post that we are living under the most right wing government of my lifetime, and this detention without trial business is just another manifestation of this.
What is the point of "defending our British values and way of life" if the values and way of life are destroyed in the process?