Politics is all about TIMING isn't it.
So, on one side of the Atlantic, the Monkey-in-Chief is soon to step down and is desperate to secure some kind of legacy (clue: it is BIGGEST LOSER EVER!)… hence the SURPRISE announcement that al Qaeda has lost the War On Terra.
Meanwhile, on THIS side of the Pond, Mr Frown is desperate NOT to be stepping down soon and so is announcing that terrorism is more terrifying than ever!
He wants to prove he's more of a MAN than Lord Blairimort; but he's really only showing what a COWARDY-CUSTARD he is.
Now I'm NOT talking about PHYSICAL bravery, facing death-defying danger and derring do… although I COULD…
Mr Frown lives in an armoured bunker with iron security gates and only leaves in a bullet-proof car surrounded by armed guards. (The lengths some people will go to to avoid the Parliamentary Labour Party!) It is just possible that this has exaggerated his already feeble connection to the state of the real world.
"I am under no illusion that today's threats are different in their scale and nature from anything we have faced before," writes Mr Frown.So why is he trying to sell US the illusion that terrorism is worse than ever?
Funnily enough, in the olden days of the IRA, then Mr Frown would GENUINELY have been in occasional danger of being exploded. That is why he is so surrounded by layers of security.
But – as he is so keen to try and make us all believe – today's modern terrorist is looking to do damage to basically anyone at random, ideally in headline-grabbingly large numbers.
(Though their success rate since July 2005 seems to have been a bit RUBBISH, unless you count setting THEMSELVES on fire and/or persuading vulnerable psychiatric patients to have a go at blowing their own faces off – although I would just add that blowing up Giraffes is VERY BAD!)
So if that's the threat then unless he's willing to give everyone in the country their own armoured car and bodyguards (and his track record of paying for armoured cars for our soldiers on the front line kind of suggests that he ISN'T) then he's basically asking all of US to face a danger that he thinks is really, really scary.
Though, you know, I really think that the people of Great Britain – more or less, some more, some less – actually ARE willing to face up to these terrorists, to stick up for living our lives the way we want to and NOT to let ourselves be bullied by some tiny faction of demented psychopaths just because they have a perverted idea of what believing in a religion allows them to get away with.
But actually I'm NOT going to go down that road.
I am talking about POLITICAL bravery.
Yes, I know that we've already pretty much ESTABLISHED that THAT is in short supply in Mr Frown's Labour.
I mean it's obviously too much to hope that the backbenchers might hold their nerve in the face of a DETERMINED TALKING TO by Minister for Reclassifying Class-C Kebabs, Ms Jacqui Spliff.
And who can expect them to remain untroubled by the need to change their underpants after an encounter with the Sinister Minister Mr Jack Man'O Straw, Secretary of State for Justifying the Unjustifiable.
And, by the way, as justifications go "terrorism is getting ever so much more complicated these days… if the police were to find themselves facing three attacks of the scale of September 11th while there was a major European War going on, then they might find themselves overstretched!" isn't even up there with "IT'S TOO HARD!"
It's more: "IT MIGHT ONE DAY BE TOO HARD!"
Here's a suggestion – if you think it's too difficult, go and do something more your level. There are probably a few openings for Lollipop Ladies. You'd probably like the lollipop with optional SPY CAMERA.
(And while I'm on the subject, Ms Spliff keeps citing the evidence of a senior policeperson who said "it is unquestionable that this may happen"… funnily enough, though, she keeps dropping that vital qualification "MAY". In fact in a QUANTUM MECHANICAL universe it is "unquestionable" that almost ANYTHING "MAY" happen – cows MAY fall from the sky; your underpants MAY jump three feet to the left; Ms Spliff MAY say something honest… doesn't mean it will happen. Leaving out the MAY, turning that "unquestionably" into a CERTAINTY rather than just a POSSIBILITY is not just deliberately and repeatedly misrepresenting the police but also deceiving the public.)
The Government's OTHER justification is the even more feeble: "you can trust us; we won't abuse these powers."
Well, (a) obviously no one in their right mind WOULD trust them, what with the whole proven record of deceit thing (do I HAVE to mention that Middle Eastern War again? Or the broken manifesto promises? Or Cash for Coronets?) and (b) you said that LAST TIME about the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and then promptly went and proved we couldn't trust you ALL OVER AGAIN by giving every jumped up little Town Hall clerk the power to spy on kids and families and quite probably lollipop ladies too.
But REAL political bravery, the bravery to do something DIFFERENT, is what is called for if Mr Frown is to save either his reputation or at least SOME of the Labour's seats at the next election.
Locking people up without telling them why does not make you BUTCH, it makes you pathetic. It's not like they won't GUESS that it's a terrorism offence after the first fourteen days. (Assuming you're not depriving them of sleep or messing with their heads by keeping the lights on and changing the clock at random.)
Other countries can manage. Somehow France and Germany and Spain – and it's not like Spain don't have any problems with terrorists – and Italy and Norway can all cope with the simple business of telling people what they're locked up for inside of THREE DAYS. Surely it's just common decency. Surely common decency is what we're supposed to be DEFENDING!
Trying to get detention without charge – or to give it its proper name: LOCKING PEOPLE UP ON NO EVIDENCE – trying to extend it to 42 days because Lord Blairimort LOST the vote to get it extended to 90 does not make you any better than he was. It just makes you THE SAME but MORE SO.
And being THE SAME but MORE SO is what got you into this situation in the first place, Mr Frown.
Today's UNBELIEVABLE coincidences…
#1: oooOOOooo scary terrorist in court!
#2: and in case the Government have upset the Muslim community by telling everyone they're all terrorists, how about twelve-and-a-half-million pounds?
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