Downing Street Says » 2005

» Thursday, March 10, 2005

Anti Terror Legislation

Asked if control orders or any of the orders under the proposed legislation could be used against members of the Provisional IRA the PMOS said, as he had yesterday, that the Law Lords decision stated that it was wrong to discriminate between domestic and foreign nationals in terms of such legislation. He would not get drawn into hypotheticals in terms of whom it could apply to, but the reality was that it could apply to foreign and domestic nationals.

Briefing took place at 11:00 | Read whole briefing | Comment (1)

Northern Ireland

Asked why the Government was taking away Sinn Fein's allowances but not their offices at Westminster the PMOS said that Peter Hain would set out the position in the House. Again there was a balance to be struck here, on the one hand expressing extreme disapproval, as the Prime Minister had done in parliament yesterday and as he had repeatedly done including with the Irish Prime Minister and on the other hand not giving Sinn Fein the excuse that in some way you were denying them their electoral mandate. That was the balance that we had to strike. It was this Government and the Irish Governments view that nothing should be done to divert attention from the central issue of whether the IRA was going to stop activity or not. Of course it was right and proper that we had debates on these issues but nothing should divert away from that central issue and nothing should divert away from the position taken by the McCartney family, which was their demand for justice. They would speak for themselves and they must be allowed to do so.

Briefing took place at 11:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (2)

» Wednesday, March 9, 2005

Anti-Terror Legislation

Asked how the Prime Minister had made the oft repeated judgement at Prime Minister's Questions over the last few weeks that the threat from Islamic fundamentalist terrorists was a lot worse that any threat Britain had faced before and how he balanced that theoretical worst case scenario from Al Qaeda against the actual carnage of attacks carried out by IRA the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (PMOS) said it was a fair question and to address the point for the sake of clarity even though it was not implied the Prime Minister had not in any way underestimated either the carnage caused by the IRA, the threat from the IRA or the very real pain and suffering that the IRA had caused to actual victims and to their relatives. For the record he was in no way trying to downplay the nature and extent of the damage done by IRA terrorism in the past, or the very real threat it had posed to the stability of this country. What he was however trying to convey was that this was a different kind of terrorism. The IRA as completely unjustified and wrong as its terrorist activities were had not set out with the specific premise of causing as many deaths as possible. Al Qaeda on the other hand, when it attacked America, actually wanted to cause many more deaths than it had actually caused and god knows it had caused more than enough deaths. Equally in Madrid the same was true. It killed hundreds of people in Madrid but it was aiming to kill thousands. Therefore what the Prime Minister was trying to convey, based on information received from the police and security services, was the belief and the knowledge that what Al Qaeda was actually trying to cause was death and destruction on a scale we had not seen before. God forbid they ever will, but that was the nature of the threat, so as an argument this was an explanation of why the scale of this threat was so different from the one faced in the past.

Briefing took place at 15:45 | Read whole briefing | Comments (2)

Attorney General’s Legal Advice

Asked why the Attorney General's legal advice and the full supplementary papers had not been circulated to cabinet two days before the 17 March Cabinet meeting the PMOS said that as he had explained this morning and as the Prime Minister explained at PMQs, the Attorney General was himself present at the Cabinet meeting and he gave an oral presentation of his view and answered questions on that view. This was the right way to proceed in terms of Ministerial Code and an oral presentation did not need to be circulated to colleagues in advance. It was only cabinet papers that had to be accompanied by the full text.

Briefing took place at 15:45 | Read whole briefing | Comment (1)

Anti Terror Legislation

Asked to clarify the timescale under which the Home Secretary envisaged the Belmarsh people being released if the Bill was not passed, the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that as he had said all week, he was not going to get involved in individual cases. The point that the Home Secretary was making this morning during his interview was that if Part Four was simply renewed, as suggested, then it would be open to challenge by the courts. Therefore the decision for release would be one for the courts, and not one that would be taken by the Home Secretary with regards to national security, and that was the key point. The PMOS said that in terms of what happened this week, that depended on the legislation and its progress.

Briefing took place at 11:00 | Read whole briefing | Comment (1)

Legality of War

Asked if the Government had any response to the charge that there was a "clear breach" of the Ministerial Code under Section Two that a full explanation of any legal advice should be attached to a written answer given to a Cabinet Minister, the PMOS said that there was a misunderstanding about what actually happened. The Attorney General had briefed his Cabinet colleagues orally, and answered questions orally, and there was not a written memorandum sent round. Therefore the Ministerial Code did not apply in the way that was being suggested.

Briefing took place at 11:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (5)

Cannabis

Put to him that the Foreign Secretary "seemed to have said" that the Government was going to rethink the cannabis laws, the PMOS said the Foreign Office had made clear that what Jack Straw had meant was this kind of legislation was always under review, as we had said at the time.

Briefing took place at 11:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

» Tuesday, March 8, 2005

Anti Terror Legislation Bill

Asked if it was true that the Government would rather extend the current legislation, rather than have no laws at all if no agreement was reached by Friday, the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (PMOS) said, as he had said this morning, that the Government still believed that the current legislation would be passed. We believed that the balance of the bill was correct, but he advised people to wait and see what happened when the bill returned from the Lords.

Briefing took place at 15:45 | Read whole briefing | Comments (12)

Terror

Asked what the Government's approach to the Prevention of Terrorism legislation was, the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that the position hadn't changed since yesterday. We continued to believe that the bill, as passed by the Commons, struck the right balance between security and safeguarding individual liberties. The Commons would consider the Bill as returned by the Lords but let's wait and see what that was. Asked if there was no chance that the Government would consider a sunset clause, the PMOS said that as we had said last week, we had to be very careful about the signal we sent to terrorists. We also had to be very careful about the signal we sent to the Security Services and the Police about the seriousness with which we regarded the issue. Given the comments over the weekend, people were in a better position to understand why the Government did regard this issue with a serious mind. Asked if the Government felt that annual renewal weakened the previous prevention of terrorism act, the PMOS pointed out that annual renewal was built into control orders for those under house arrest. Equally the other control orders would be reviewed on a three-monthly basis. If you took out control orders which resulted in having to derogate, you had to annually re-pass that derogation through parliament. What would be sending the wrong signal was if we had to re-debate this issue again and again. There was a distinction between review and going back to the start again.

Briefing took place at 11:00 | Read whole briefing | Comment (1)

Artic Convoy

Asked about the decision to reward the achievements of the Arctic Convoy veterans with what amounted to a badge, the PMOS said that, to give a bit of colour, he was walking towards the Prime Minister's office last night in Downing Street when he heard cheers, shouts of "hurray" and shouts of "Good on you Tony!" The suggestion that the reception for the veterans' announcement was anything other than well received was one he did not recognise. The PMOS quoted Len Harrison, one of the three trustees and a senior office holder in the Russian Convoy club, who said: "It was a pleasure to be in Downing Street and I am delighted that my shipmates and convoy companions express their approval in such a positive manner." That said it all, and listening to those who were at the reception last night he was in doubt at all that the response was positive.

Briefing took place at 11:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (7)

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.

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» Thursday, March 10, 2005

Anti Terror Legislation

Northern Ireland

» Wednesday, March 9, 2005

Anti-Terror Legislation

Attorney General’s Legal Advice

Anti Terror Legislation

Legality of War

Cannabis

» Tuesday, March 8, 2005

Anti Terror Legislation Bill

Terror

Artic Convoy

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