Day 2334: Out of Control; Out of Order

Wednesday:


So, these three blokes have gone missing…

It is not that the Home Office wants to introduce a police state by the back door… no, actually it IS that the Home Office wants to introduce a police state by the back door, but ALSO that they are totally incompetent to administer even this cack-handed, half-witted, numbskull way of getting around the whole inconvenient “innocent until proven guilty” thing.

There ARE only 17 people on Control Orders anyway – does MI5 not have 170-odd people (or 170 odd-people) to keep them under surveillance? If they ARE supposed to be SOOOOOO dangerous, wouldn’t KEEPING AN EYE ON THEM be a fairly OBVIOUS precaution? And if they AREN’T that dangerous, why are we tipping them off that we might be on to them by giving them a Control Order? Or rather a “We think you’re EEEEEEVIL but we can’t prove it, you just looked at us funny” Order.

If you WANT to be a police state and you don’t want them to leave the country, just MAKE UP AN ASBO and take their passports away.

Oh, I forgot, even an ASBO needs you to TELL THEM WHAT YOU THINK THEY’VE DONE.

You would think that this relatively basic human right would not be that difficult to live up to, but for some BONKERS IN THE NUT reason it is TOO DANGEROUS to let these people know what they are suspected of. Like they won’t figure out that it’s TERRORISM!

Meanwhile, the independent milk-monitor for the workings of the terrorism act, Lord Alex Carcrash, has said that there is “solid intelligence” that these people are “oooh scary”, sorry, I mean a genuine threat. But that’s just the problem – we haven’t got “solid intelligence” or we would be able to BANG THEM UP.

“Acts Preparatory to Terrorism” is now a crime; “Conspiracy” is a crime. Unfortunately for Lord Carcrash, “Maybe Thinking About Preparing to Conspire to Possibly Commit Acts That Might End Up Being Called Terrorism” is not YET carved into the statue books. We can’t just lock up EVERY aggrieved young idiot who mouths off.

Do not get me wrong: if these are very bad people like the Home Secretary says they are, then I would like them locked up for all of our safety. But in order to do that we need to watch them and see if they actually do any very bad things. Just telling them to please keep us informed of their whereabouts and any DASTARDLY PLOTS that they are planning on getting involved with does not seem to me to be likely to work.

And golly gosh it hasn’t.