DROPPING GLORIFICATION

by RAY FLEMING
SLOWLY, the British government is seeing sense over its anti-terrorism legislation. Several of the proposals listed by Tony Blair at his hectic press conference on the eve of his summer vacation have already been withdrawn and one of the more foolish of them was modified and scaled down in an announcement by Home Secretary Charles Clarke yesterday. This was the provision for arrest on the grounds of “glorifying terrorism”. No one seemed to know quite what this meant and recourse to the dictionary was not a great help: “glorify: describe or represent as admirable, especially unjustifiably or undeservedly” says the Concise OED. Critics of the provision, including this one, asked whether “representing as admirable” the campaign of Nelson Mandela's African National Congress against South Africa's apartheid regime in the 1950s and 60s would have qualified. There is also the problem that there is still no internationally accepted definition of terrorism and, whatever Mr Bush and Mr Blair may say, there will always come a time in some circumstances when oppressed people fell they have no alternative but to turn to direct action. In the change proposed by Mr Clarke somebody will be guilty of glorifying terrorism only if it is proved that they also intended to incite further acts of terror. Although a complete removal of the “glorifying” clause would have been preferable the change has at least brought to an end the ludicrous attempt to draw up a list of past events and identify which qualified as being terrorist attacks. The House of Commons returns next week and it will be interesting to see whether the government is still in the mood to consult the other two parties on terrorist legislation and whether the Conservatives in particular, buoyed by a successful conference, will want to distant themselves from some of the more questionable of the government's intentions. What is abundantly clear from the prolonged summer recess is that a resumption of the cut-and-thrust of parliamentary debate is long overdue.