Abracadabrah<br><br><i> I create as I speak</i>: Whither Britain?

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Whither Britain?

UPDATE: Stephen Pollard discusses how Blair's loss on this vote signals the end of the period of New Labour - and with it the end of the term in which Tony Blair can accomplish anything. He thinks the Labour party in Britain is now reverting to its old instincts.

Melanie Phillips on the voting down in Britian of the initiative to keep suspected terrorists in prison for 90 days, at police urging.

We now have the astonishing political situation in Britain where a Labour Prime Minister represents the country’s overwhelming desire for appropriate laws to protect itself, and as a result loses his authority in Parliament as a result of an alliance between the left of the Labour party and the Conservatives on the grounds that measures to prevent atrocities amount to a 'police state'. What on earth are the Conservatives for if they can’t even defend the country’s security because they now line up with the left in assuming that the police are a conspiracy against personal freedom, and refuse to acknowledge the implications of the changed nature of the terrorist threat? The Tories have now lined up with those claiming fatuously that the 90-day provision would have introduced ‘internment’ or a ‘police state’. Thus does Britain now describe sensible provisions to defend itself.

And Carol Gould, writing in Frontpage, says,

During the debate today in the Commons, a member of the Loyal Opposition shouted at the Prime Minister, "Are we to live in a police state?" Blair was nonplussed and visibly shaken. His anger could barely be controlled. There we were: a member of the House repeating the refrain of every media outlet in Britain that – despite July 7th – Britain risks becoming a ‘police state’ or a ‘fascist state like the USA’ if we crack down on home-grown terrorists. Instead, we must wheel out every permutation of Islamic spokesperson to tell us how evil our culture is and how Britain has become a lapdog to Washington Zionist neocons. We must, they shout, not listen to the police and security services but let terrorists go back out onto the streets after twenty-eight days in custody.