Jenkins Final Plea On Liberty

Journalist and author, Simon Jenkins, was one of the first voices of reason to question the unwinnable war in Afghanistan. Many of his views have been welcomed by the Orange Party. Now he's standing down from the Sunday Times. He'll be sorely missed. 

Recently Jenkins delivered a call to trim the fat off the London 2012 Olympics - though that was in the Guardian to which he's been closely associated for a number of years. 

Now apparently he's leaving for pastures new and the National Trust but not before delivering a final plea on liberty. 

The Sunday Times has had a New Labour makeover. It is now all style and no substance. Hard edged news reporting has been sacrificed for articles more suited to a magazine than a newspaper. 

Time and again the "Insight" page, of which Jenkins was one-time editor, is back-referenced in a nostalgic throwback to the halcyon days. 

Maybe Jenkins didn't fit in with that New Look? But who will replace him? Alistair Campbell is back at Downing Street and making a big splash in today's Sunday Times Review. Now that would be too much.

Jenkin's final missive is a brilliant piece condemning both the surveillance society and Big Brother tactics of a decade of New Labour, in which he makes a farewell pleas to MPs - defend liberty. 

Home secretary, Jacqui Smith, is firmly in his sights as the article catalogues recent GCHQ moves to tap into all mobile phone conversations, through ID cards, NHS computer records and 42 days detention.

The closing remarks of Jenkins are worth recording in full. He states they are a lesson for MPs. The Orange Party would contend they are a lesson for us all. 

"The war on terror has been a wretched blind alley in British political history. It has revealed all that is worst in British government – its authoritarianism, its sloppiness and its unaccountability. Yet restoring the status quo ante will be phenomenally hard.

"In all my years of writing this column, from which I am standing down, I have been amazed at the spinelessness of Britain’s elected representatives in defending liberty and protesting against state arrogance. They appear as parties to the conspiracy of power. There have been outspoken judges, outspoken peers, even outspoken journalists. There have been few outspoken MPs. Those supposedly defending freedom are whipped into obedience. I find this ominous."

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Quick, Slip In Another Climb-Down

42 days, secret inquests and Sats. The climb-downs are coming thick and fast along with soaring inflation. With ministers thinking they're on a roll after Brown bankrolled the banks, it's a good time to bury bad news for the government but good news for schoolkids and civil liberties.

After the Lords booted out 42 days detention, Brown couldn't risk sticking to his guns nor could he lose face and throw in the towel. So up popped home secretary, Jacqui Smith, with the odd 'bill but no bill' solution. Totally bizarre - but Brown fudge won the day. 

Then the government dropped plans, in the same counter-terrorism bill, to order inquests to be held in private using the old chestnut of "on the grounds of national security."

The Oxfordshire coroner was clearly getting up the nose of the government as time and again he publicly blasted the MoD and ministers for equipment failures during inquests into Iraq and Afghanistan troop deaths. 

The solution was simple - just keep them all secret then no one would be any the wiser. 

42 days and the secret inquests have bitten the dust for now. But neither will go away for good. Popping the champagne is too early. It should be put on ice, which is what's happening with these deeply unpopular measures.

42 days will return in some form or other when the government feels there is a politically less risky climate. Another bill is already in the pipeline. There are plans to include those secret inquests in a bill on coroners reforms.

Now, instead of scrapping himself, schools minister, Ed Balls, is to scrap Sats tests for 14 year-olds in England, following this summer's marking shambles.

All this on a day where, back in the real economy, inflation today hit home above the 5% mark, even using the government's own manipulated CPI figures.

What next to get buried in the dust?  How about ID cards? 

The government was playing politics with people's civil liberties the first time round and is just doing it again. Burdening children with a testing culture was playing with young people's minds. Masking the true rise in inflation, is playing with the effect on the real economy 

As has been observed elsewhere, it's all leaving a nasty taste. 

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42 Days Later, The Fudge?

The Lords have flexed their muscles and come down on the side of civil liberties, throwing out the government's much derided 42 day detention bill. Does Brown stick to his guns and risk the wrath of back-benchers, throw in the towel or fudge the whole issue? 

Brown got his way with the 42 day bill with some neat footwork and hefty bribes. It scrapped through the commons by just nine DUP votes in June, with 36 Labour MPs rebelling. This time round he won't be so lucky. 

The government can use the Parliament Act to steam-roll through the legislation. But Brown and the government's position is too precarious to play ping-pong. When the dust settles and the spin of the obscene bank bail-outs are seen as for what they are, there's nowhere left to hide. 

Few but government ministers want this draconian law. Brown staked his political reputation on getting the bill through the commons, sacrificing civil liberties for political power.

Whatever way ministers tried to spin it, this was 42 Days Detention Without Charge or Trial. The most serious threat to our traditions of civil liberties since before the signing of the Magna Carta.

The proposal had been criticised by not only Conservatives, LibDems and backbench Labour MPs, but also the director of public prosecutions, the former attorney general and the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner. It didn't stand a chance of getting through the Lords. 

Times have changed and so has the mood of the country. Most of the alleged terrorists have either been rounded up or gone into hiding. 

Brown cannot risk a suicide note, unless ministers have become so smug and arrogant they think they can ride rough shod over people's basic rights once again. But he cannot risk what will be seen as a climb-down and leave him open to attack. 

Brown's answer maybe to do what he has always done in these circumstances. Hide in the bunker and hope it all goes away. 

42 days could be just put on the back-burner or more likely spun away with an almighty fudge. Unless of course, the government ministers are so buoyed up with a false sense of security after the bail-outs, they think they can get now away with anything.

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Political Cracker Explodes At Westminster

It's a case of here today, gong gone tomorrow for Labour MP, Keith Vaz. Minutes before PMQs, the Telegraph dropped a bombshell on its front page news website, which discloses a private letter from Labour chief whip Geoff Hoon to Vaz who he hopes will be “appropriately rewarded” for supporting the 42 days detention bill.

The contents of the letter were clearly held back from the morning newspaper to deliberately wrong foot Brown and give Cameron a chance to put him on the spot in the commons.

Once again the Speaker saved Brown's skin when he cut Cameron off and called on one of the New Labour plants to speak from the back-benches.

In the handwritten letter sent on June 12, 2008 – the day after the knife-edge vote on 42 day detention, the Telegraph reports at 11.51am that Hoon writes:

“Dear Keith…Just a quick note to thank you for all your help during the period leading up to last Wednesday’s vote. I wanted you to know how much I appreciated all your help.

“I trust that it will be appropriately rewarded!...With thanks and best wishes, Geoff.”

Vaz, the Labour chairman of the home affairs select committee, was previously opposed to the plans, but later offered his full backing which was only won when Northern Ireland's DUP voted with the government.

With rumours circulating in Westminster of a peerage or knighthood, Vaz was asked in Parliament, during the debate the day before the vote, whether he had been offered an honour for his support. He said: “No, it was certainly not offered- but I do not know; there is still time.” Not now there's isn't.

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DUP Saves Brown's Skin

The government has won the 42 days detention vote but Brown and New Labour have lost miserably, scraping through by just nine votes - exactly the number of MPs from Northern Ireland's DUP who voted for these draconian measures.

This was never about 42 days and everything about Brown's failing leadership and the death throes of the New Labour Project.

The New Labour spin doctors did their sums. With the fudges and bribes, it looked like it could scrape through. So what should have been a vote on principles was a vote of confidence in Brown.

The DUP had the financial interests of Northern Ireland and the local economy in mind when they voted. 

But Brown and his cronies gambled that enough Labour MPs would want to avoid causing further destruction of the Party to vote with him. They didn't. But Brown needed to win big, just to show that he is in charge. He didn't and he isn't. This result will be one more nail in Brown's coffin.

A vote for the Bill will not to save the skin of the prime minister bent on self-destruction.

And he played it all out in the media - most notably in Murdoch's Times last week and any other media outlet that would listen to the empty arguments.

Whatever way he tried to spin it, this was 42 days Detention Without Charge or Trial. The most serious threat to our traditions of civil liberties since before the signing of the Magna Carta.

The proposal has been criticised by not only Conservatives, LibDems and backbench Labour MPs, but also the director of public prosecutions, the former attorney general and the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner. 

It doesn't stand a chance of getting through the House of Lords but Brown make it clear he would not back down.

Echoing Blair and his justification for talking this country to war in Iraq, Brown is on record as saying: "I will stick to the principles I have set out and do the right thing." 

Because he thinks it's right, doesn't make it right.

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