Protecting Blair's Arse

Oh dear. If Al Quaeda doesn't get us, Bird Flu will.
Think I might as well have another cigarette.
If you'd told me 30 years ago that in my lifetime we'd have detention without trial on the orders of a politician I would have assumed that Britain was going to have a totalitarian government of the right. This has always been more likely to happen than an authoritarian government of the left, given the British people's conservative instincts. But this 'Labour' Government is now laying down a framework that could be embraced joyously by any future government of the right. By which I mean even further right than this lot.

Blair was saying again yesterday that people would blame him if a terrorist attack occurred and they thought he hadn't done enough to prevent it. So it all boils down to sacrificing fundamental liberties and the rule of law in order to protect Blair's back.
Although I don't have unqualified belief in the good sense of the public I think most people understand that no amount of legislation can ever protect you against people who don't mind being caught or dying for their cause. That's the big difference with the IRA terrorists of an earlier period. I think they would only blame the Government if - as happened in America before 9/11 - they found they had turned a blind eye to something like suspects taking flying lessons.
And, as someone says in a letter to The Guardian today, if despite these measures we still have a terrorist attack, what further measures will the Government resort to then?