TOO LONG

by RAY FLEMING “Tell me what you need and I'll give it to you.” Those were the words Tony Blair used at his media conference this week to describe his dealings with the police over the new anti-terrorism laws announced yesterday. The police had told him that they needed authority to hold suspects without charge for longer than the 14 days they are permitted at the moment; he asked them how long they needed; they said three months, and it is three months they will get if the new legislation is approved by Parliament. Whether the relationship between the police and prime minister should be as Mr Blair describes it is a matter than could be profitably debated on another occasion. For the moment it may be worth recalling Home Secretary Charles Clarke's comment, also this week, on the three-month period, that “it is not God-given”. Perhaps Mr Clarke is not aware of the special relationship which President Bush has with the Man upstairs and the inspired guidance he may pass on to Mr Blair. The police have argued that the investigation of terrorist cases is a highly complex business, involving laborious examination of documents which often require tranlation, CCTV surveillance and internet traffic, and that a period of fourteen days is inadequate. However the jump from two weeks to three months is exponential in terms of imprionment without charge and harks back to the ineffective and discredited use of internment against the IRA. Although Mr Blair has said that the police have made a “compelling” case, it appears that neither his attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, nor the independent reviewer of terrorist legislation, Lord Carlile, agrees with him. In a report released yesterday Lord Carlile expressed doubts that the new powers were lawful under the Human Rights Act. In a time of terrorism it is tempting to think that the police should be given what they want. But it is worth noting three things: that out of 895 people arrested in Britain under terrorist laws in the past five years, 500 were released without charge; that there are already 200 pieces of anti-terrorism legislation; and that if the police are granted their three months, Britain's curtailment of individual liberty would be the most draconian in Europe.