Downing Street Says

Asked if the Government was going to stick with the 90 days time limit for holding suspected terrorists, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that the position was as the Prime Minister had set out yesterday. We believed that the case the police had made for 90 days was compelling. The police had set out yesterday why they believed that case was right. They had made it clear that they were not involved in some bartering process but that 90 days was their professional assessment. We believed that anything less therefore would be second best for the security of the country. That was why we believed 90 days was the right answer. Ultimately though it will be for Parliament to decide.

Put to him that Charles Clarke had given the very clear impression that they might propose less then 90 days and asked what had changed the Home Secretary’s mind, the PMOS said that in terms of the Home Secretary, he had always said that he believed 90 days to be the right answer. We had to take it through Parliament. As a result of yesterday people had begun to address the issue and to assess the case based on the arguments of the police and not anything else. He thought that that had led people to believe that there was a growing acceptance of the case for 90 days. That said, this was a matter which had been and would continue to be very keenly debated. The Government took absolutely nothing for granted and we would continue to make the arguments from now until the vote because we believed that was the right thing to do.

Put to him that a lot of back bench MPs were saying that even if this measure squeezed through the Commons it would be a real battle in the Lords to get it passed so why not compromise in the elected chamber, the PMOS said that we did not believe that would be in the security interests of the country. If the professional advice of the police was that because of the complexity they now faced and because of the new nature of terrorism they now face, 90 days was the right answer, the logical consequence of that was that anything less than 90 days did put the security of the country in jeopardy. Asked how he responded to MPs that the Government was leading MPs up the garden path on this issue, the PMOS said that it was necessary to go back to basics on this. He reminded journalists that it was the police who had put the case to the Government, not the other way around. He stressed that this had been a police initiative not a Government initiative. He didn’t think that anyone had ever heard him make a case for anything other than 90 days. Once the Prime Minister became convinced that the police case was compelling, we had made the case for 90 days. At the same time the Prime Minister went back to the police and security services last week and told them that that if the Government were to make this case we needed to know that they absolutely believed that 90 days was necessary. As he had said after Cabinet last Thursday the answer was unequivocal. Therefore the argument we had made had been based on the assessment of the police and nothing else. As Andy Hayman had said yesterday, it was their professional analysis and their professional opinion.

Asked if 90 days had at any stage been up for negotiation, the PMOS said that as he had been saying for the past week, we had said to people that if there was some alternative to 90 days that met the requirements of the police, then they should put the argument on that basis. Nobody had done that. What people had said was that they didn’t find the 90 days acceptable, but they didn’t then say how they would meet the needs of the police.

Asked about comments by John Denham who had said that there didn’t appear to be sufficient documentary evidence behind the proposal, the PMOS pointed out that Andy Hayman had published the police argument on the 5th October. We had given it to journalists again yesterday at the Prime Minister’s press conference. If you looked at even some of the arguments that had been put forward in that document, arguments which had also been put forward elsewhere, it was a fact that in the relatively few cases we were talking about, if you had to download hard disks, if you had to deal with masses of evidence, if you had to deal with the problems of multiple languages and dialects and so on, it did take extra time. Therefore that was why the police had come to their professional assessment. It was for others to say if they didn’t find that case convincing, but they had to address that analysis rather than just simply dismiss it. Put to him that ordinarily bills came with hundreds of pages of research and analysis behind them whereas this very important legislation arrived with little more than a memo, the PMOS said that some people might be dismissive of the experience of the Chief of the Metropolitan police anti-terrorist unit, he was not. That was his professional judgement, that was the professional judgment of ACPO, that was the professional judgment of Chief Constable of Greater Manchester. People with real experience in the field. It was also the judgment of Lord Carlile. That struck him as a level of expertise which was pretty compelling. In terms of case as it had been put, that was the way it was.

Asked what the Government thought about 60 days, the PMOS said that as Andy Hayman had said yesterday, the police believed that 90 days was what was necessary. Therefore anything less than that didn’t meet the requirements of the police. As they Prime Minister said yesterday, Parliament would decide what Parliament decides but we should not kid ourselves, anything less than 90 days was going to be second best for the security of the country.

Asked what had changed since last week when it was believed that a sunset clause was against the national interest, the PMOS said that he wasn’t sure that anyone had been talking about a sunset clause last week. Put to him that he had, the PMOS said no. The BBC had asserted last night that he had spoken about sunset clauses but this had been in a briefing he had given last March on the topic of control orders, not about this legislation. He fully appreciated why people were confused. Put to him by the BBC that his point had been that a sunset clause would be seen by terrorists as a sign of weakness and would throw a pall of uncertainty over the future of the legislation, the PMOS asked the representative of the BBC to confirm the date of those comments. In response to the answer of 7 March, the PMOS asked if the BBC had said in their bulletin last night that he had said that in the last few days. In response to confirmation, the PMOS then put it to the journalist from the BBC that that report had been wrong. To clarify the position on sunset clauses PMOS said that in terms of control orders, they came in as a result of the judgement by the House of Lords. The concern was that control orders would be perceived as weaker than what they were replacing. Therefore the judgment had been that a sunset clause, which wouldn’t just allow people to review not just one aspect of the legislation but the central plank of it, would send the wrong signal. In terms of 90 days, the overall interpretation would be that if parliament agreed 90 days we were sending a very strong signal. However we also recognised that people had concerns about the operation. Therefore a review after a year would be seen as a sensible review of how it operated in practice. Not as a signal of weakness. That was the difference. He would have been happy to explain that difference without having gone over the BBC news item last night but unfortunately it was not easy to do so without having to clarify the confusion over whether he had said it this week which he hadn’t.

Asked how this was different from the internment act, the PMOS said that it was time limited and we had said that we were now prepared for there to be a high court judicial oversight. We had said that this would be targeted and only a very few people would be affected. Therefore in that way it was different from previous security measures, particularly interment. It was perfectly right that Parliament could have a look at how those safeguards were working and review that. If that gave re-assurance to people then that was something worth doing.

Asked if there was concerned that this wouldn’t be compatible with the Human Rights Act, the PMOS said that all legislation had to be compatible with the Human Rights Act. That went on the front of the bill.

Asked if Downing Street had spoken to Janet Anderson before she had tabled her 60 days amendment, the PMOS said that he didn’t get into private parliamentary discussions and that shouldn’t be taken one way or the other.

Asked why 80 days wouldn’t be acceptable, the PMOS said that the police had come up with a professional assessment. People could play numbers games with this or you could address the assessment, which said 90 days with 7 day judicial oversight. People shouldn’t forget that.

Asked about the effects of detaining someone for weeks and possibly months and then releasing them without compensation would have a detrimental affect on people, the PMOS said that the position was that every 7 days a high court judge would look at the case, consider whether it was reasonable for the police to continue to hold the person and continue to assess the case. That was a safeguard which was there. Asked what question the judges were supposed to be asking of a case, the PMOS said that it was to make the assessment as to whether it was reasonable, on the basis of the investigation, to continue to hold someone.

Asked if the Prime Minister would be meeting anyone today on this issue, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister would have discussions with whoever he whoever he would have discussions with, but people could take it that this was pretty high on his agenda.

17 Comments »

Strange how Blair is so attentive to what the police request, and so unimpressed by what citizens say. Many people, including myself, warned him that invading Iraq would make this country less safe. Instead of listening, Blair recklessly provoked terrorist reprisals by helping Bush launch an illegal war which has killed tens of thousands of people. Even now he refuses to address the underlying causes of the London bombings because he is in continuing denial about his own share of responsibility for them, and he compounds the offence by attacking fundamental civil liberties.

Britain should follow the Spanish example by withdrawing all troops from Iraq. It should also end its shameful and equally provocative complicity with Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians, and decisively distance this country from George Bush’s interventionist foreign policy. Then we might have rather less reason to fear terrorist attacks, and no reason at all to compromise our hard-won civil liberties.
Comment by Michael McCarthy — 8 Nov 2005 on 6:24 pm | Link
Amen to that!
Comment by Chuck Unsworth — 8 Nov 2005 on 7:29 pm | Link
Later on today we have learnt that Sir Ian as well as Tone has been lecturing MP’s about the need for 90 days internment, perhaps there is something in the name that indicates a propensity to tell porkies
Comment by Colonel Mad — 8 Nov 2005 on 11:36 pm | Link
Dear Louise Ellman MP,

I am writing to you at this late date to urge you to dismiss Tony Blair’s illconsidered and unjustified extension of the detension without charge for "terrorism" cases to 90 days when you vote in Parliament this afternoon.

I have read the published materials coming from the Metropolitan Police, and the letter 8 October letter from Andy Hayman (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/08_11_05_police_letter.pdf), and see nothing but propaganda not even worthy of the Socialist Worker Party.

A list of questionable case studies, followed by one fictional (‘theoretical’) study presented in this way without discussion, and without so much as a mention of a single potential drawback of enacting this measure, is beyond meaning of the word "flimsy".

To allow the Prime Minister to play politics this way is a serious denigration of your office. How much further are you going to continue to let this go?
Comment by Julian Todd — 9 Nov 2005 on 9:46 am | Link
"We believed that the case the police had made for 90 days was compelling."

…"and even though the police and their leader, "sir" Ian Bliar, have demonstrated a total and utter lack of competence, accountability and responsibility over the cold-blooded assassination of Jean Charles de Menezes, the 7/7 & 19/7 bombers and other things, we see no reason to question a single thing the police say. We are, after all, the servants of democracy…"
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 9 Nov 2005 on 10:35 am | Link
"They had made it clear that they were not involved in some bartering process but that 90 days was their professional assessment. We believed that anything less therefore would be second best for the security of the country."

"And we, as servants of democracy, feel it is emcumbent upon us to act when our institutions ask for something or express doubt about existing arrangements. That’s why we ignored every single bit of contrary advice in order to illegally invade Iraq. We believed then that anything less than full co-operation with the country would be detrimental to our security, but after due consideration, our Lord and Master, The Always Right and Very Honourable Mr. Tony Lying Bastard, decided what the hell, screw you lot, he’s been offered a job with the Carlyle Group which is dependant on showing public support for the Smirking Chimp, so bollocks to security, democracy and truth."
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 9 Nov 2005 on 10:43 am | Link
"If the professional advice of the police was that because of the complexity they now faced and because of the new nature of terrorism they now face, 90 days was the right answer, the logical consequence of that was that anything less than 90 days did put the security of the country in jeopardy."

Or in other words, 90 days is a decent length of time for the heat to die down and for us to mess about with video evidence in Tube Stations, and get our story straight with Mossad and the Israelis, after a "terrorist attack". We’ve started attacking our own, so we have no choice but to continue, and therefore we need the legislation in place to continue to trumpet to the people we’re killing how it’s not our fault.
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 9 Nov 2005 on 10:46 am | Link
"He reminded journalists that it was the police who had put the case to the Government, not the other way around. He stressed that this had been a police initiative not a Government initiative. He didn’t think that anyone had ever heard him make a case for anything other than 90 days. Once the Prime Minister became convinced that the police case was compelling, we had made the case for 90 days."

Because, as we all know, Tony Bliar is well known for his championing of unpopular causes, and the energy he has always put in to highlighting public concerns in the commons. As soon as he realised there was something missing from our daily life (the security of knowing people can be locked up without trial), he decided to battle tooth and nail to right that wrong. Next week he will be introducing the deeply unpopular measure of having every tree in the country topped, because so many old ladies have written in saying their cats have gotten stuck. And after that, he is thinking about abolishing income tax, because he knows how much we all hate it. He says he understands, and not to worry because he’s on the case.
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 9 Nov 2005 on 10:52 am | Link
"Asked about comments by John Denham who had said that there didn’t appear to be sufficient documentary evidence behind the proposal, the PMOS pointed out that Andy Hayman had published the police argument on the 5th October."

Asked how many contrary viewpoints the government had considered, the PMOS replied testily: "For f*cks sake, leave my Tony alone! It’s really not his idea, it’s the police’s, and anyone who doesn’t believe him can go and ask his police chief, clone & wife Mrs. Ian Bliar; she’ll tell you, if she knows anything about it…"
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 9 Nov 2005 on 10:56 am | Link
". Put to him that ordinarily bills came with hundreds of pages of research and analysis behind them whereas this very important legislation arrived with little more than a memo, the PMOS said that some people might be dismissive of the experience of the Chief of the Metropolitan police anti-terrorist unit, he was not."

Because even though he has so far lied in public and expressed a total lack of remorse at a public execution carried out on his orders, he’s perfect for our purposes because he’s pliant and does what he’s told. Even if it means having to nobble evidence; he doesn’t bat an eyelid.
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 9 Nov 2005 on 11:00 am | Link
"that was the professional judgment of Chief Constable of Greater Manchester. People with real experience in the field."

I thought this was a whole new ballgame, all this terrorism and police killing people in the street malarky. So how can they have "real experience" in it?
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 9 Nov 2005 on 11:04 am | Link
"As they Prime Minister said yesterday, Parliament would decide what Parliament decides but we should not kid ourselves, anything less than 90 days was going to be second best for the security of the country."

Don’t worry too much about that though, because the government’s own actions in ignoring the rest of us have supposedly put us all in greater danger than anything the police do or don’t do, according to many eminent sources since the invasion of Iraq. I say "supposedly", because I don’t believe for a second that the recent "terrorism" attacks in London were anything more than an inside job by the lying bastards who run our country and who will do anything (hear me? ANYTHING!) to protect themselves from the crimes they have committed thus far – including lying their way to war and continuing to lie about the aftermath.
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 9 Nov 2005 on 11:10 am | Link
"Asked if there was concerned that this wouldn’t be compatible with the Human Rights Act, the PMOS said that all legislation had to be compatible with the Human Rights Act. That went on the front of the bill."

Asked if there was concerned that this wouldn’t be compatible with the Human Rights Act, the PMOS said "Human Rights Act? F*ck the Human Rights Act! We’re the government, for Christs’ sake!"
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 9 Nov 2005 on 11:13 am | Link
"Asked if the Prime Minister would be meeting anyone today on this issue, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister would have discussions with whoever he whoever he would have discussions with, but people could take it that this was pretty high on his agenda"

…"because without these measures, it will be difficult for us to continue to ride roughshod over human rights and habeas corpus in any case where some pesky civilian gets too close to the truth about our supposed "war on terra". And this in turn will hamper our efforts to further the NeoCon agenda in Washington, which might jeopardise Tone’s job offer. And we don’t want that, because he’s SUCH a bitch while Cherie earns more than him…"
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 9 Nov 2005 on 11:20 am | Link
– Steady on, lad. You’ll being doing yourself an injury next. Just remember you’re better alive and kicking (arses) than dead and silent!

Mind you, I agree entirely. Michael Mansfield’s comments yesterday were pretty much to the point….
Comment by Chuck Unsworth — 9 Nov 2005 on 1:33 pm | Link
Did I just read
"that was the professional judgment of Chief Constable of Greater Manchester. People with real experience in the field."
Please please do not make me laugh this much. This senior officer has recently endorsed a view that a victim of crime cannot describe the alledged criminal as fat.
For F**cks sake – are we that far down the road of having our security decided by B Liar and his muppets, is the whole country blind to this crap?
Bollocks to it.
Of to retire in Spain, just decide which bank to hit first for the finance,
MMMM??? Stocking over the head or Dubya mask??
Comment by harry booth — 9 Nov 2005 on 11:12 pm | Link
Who wants to bet an "incident" will occur pretty soon which will force the whole issue back to the table? It’ll be serious enough that the government "will have no choice" but to look again at the 90-day internment plans.

There is plenty of recent historical precendent. On 1st November, John Howard needed the help of a supposed Al Qaeda threat whilst attempting to rush through an amendment to the anti-terrorism laws in Oz. Needless to say, nothing was done about the standing threat level at the time; even experts remarked on this strange inconsistency. On 21st July the 90-day detention plans were actually being debated when the second London false-flag attack happened. And pretty much every single piece of (mostly dodgy) legislation George Bush has touched in the past 5 years has been preceded by some non-specific "Al Qaeda" threat.
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 10 Nov 2005 on 1:42 am | Link

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» Tuesday, November 8, 2005

90 Days

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