For the UK-deficient among us: the Prime Minster and the Labour Party apparatus are trying to increase the amount of time that a suspect may be held without charge from 28 to 42 days. Police may not question a suspect once s/he is charged, so this additional time is meant to ensure that they have enough time to assemble a credible case against someone they’ve arrested. There are various “safeguards” around this, the latest of which being that any suspect who is released without charge aftwr 42 days detention will be entitled to a payout of
“… start thinking rationally again.”? That took me by surprise. Perhaps I missed it: when were they, or any political organization, thinking rationally.
When this terror game started, I predicted we would wind up where we are now. If we had taken the money this war has cost, or any large fraction of it, and simply given it to Iraq and Afghanistan instead of trying to blow them apart then the whole world would have benefited instead of starting to come apart at the seams. Hell, the cost of a single battleship or carrier would have aided their economies tremendously without destroying ours.
When I’ve stated this previously, I’ve been accused of thinking irrationally. I still think it would have been a completely rational act. We’ll never know.
I see that it went through …
what’s your take on (Tory shadow home secretary) David Davis’ “taking the chiltern hundreds” and resigning from the Commons so that he can re-contest his seat in a by-election, on exactly these [42 day detention] grounds? I notice that the LibDems have decided not to field a candidate against him.
Sounds like a bit of a grandstand, as the Lib Dems, UKIP, and BNP will not put a candidate up against him and Labour is considering ducking out by not putting up a candidate either. If no other candidate stands, he will be returned without a vote.
Your comment was the first I’d heard of it, as I’ve been otherwise engaged since noon (as you will see from my entry which I will make after dinner).