Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Brown's sole legacy...

... will be winning the vote to extend the maximum amount of time people can be held without charge to 42 days (see here). While Brown himself may never use the law for ill, it makes it so much easier for a future government, run by more authoritarian figures, to hold anyone they deem a threat without trial. As John McDonnell - one of the few Labour MPs with any backbone - put it, "There will be widespread consternation among our supporters in the country seeing a Labour government prepared to use every tactic available in its determination to crush essential civil liberties, which have been won by the labour movement over generations."

Since 1997 this Labour government has done more than any other to erode civil liberties in this country. Our way of life was changed in the wake of 9/11, so it seems safe to say that in one sense the terrorists did win.

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