Brown’s 42 days: just a cynical pose on terror

What has happened for the Government to abandon this legislation upon which supposedly hung the safety of the nation?

Andy Hayman, the Met's former head of counter-terrorism, has been a critic of the 42-day provision but not, of course, because he believes it to be a bad thing for potentially innocent men and women to be banged up for six weeks without charge, oh no. What he objects to are all the provisos intended to place 42-day detainees under judicial scrutiny. It's these that make the measure — in his tedious formulation — "not fit for purpose".

But Gordon Brown isn't going to respond to these criticisms of the Bill by pushing for a more robust version, nor is he belatedly listening to those Tories who've consistently campaigned against the measure, let alone the more credible civil libertarians on his own side of the House. No, the explanation for the Prime Minister's sudden lack of interest in a measure he promised us time and again was "essential" for national security is that it was never anything of the sort — and he knows it.

Forty-two days was always just posturing, a ghastly ramping-up of the endless War on Terror, intended to make us cleave to the arms of Big Brother for fear of the evil assassins sent by Eurasia. Now that Mr Brown has the global financial crisis to make him look magisterial, he has no need of 42 days any more.

This hypocrisy would be bad enough but it's compounded by the way headline issues such as 42 days distract public attention from the Kafkaesque situation of existing detainees. There was a UN commission in town last week; they took a long hard look at conditions for terrorist suspects at Paddington Green police station and they didn't like what they saw.

As things stand, detainees have their court appearances regularly orchestrated by video-link, and are also blocked from access to their lawyers. The commission recommended that such suspects should be moved, as soon as possible, to prison — but the justice ministry doesn't want this, because the whole set-up is a de facto form of intimidation rather than a sound basis for facilitating police enquiries.

It would all be easier to stomach if Labour had a good record on the promotion of democracy — but it doesn't. The Lords, who at least have the balls to throw out this nonsense, are otherwise more emasculated than ever before, courtesy of Mr Brown's government. Meanwhile, we, the people, are expected to cheer as Peter Mandelson is ennobled so that he can save the Prime Minister's electoral skin Oops, silly me, I mean "save the country from economic ruin".

Sir Ian got totally Wired

FOR those deluded enough to believe Boris Johnson's putsch against Sir Ian Blair was a victory for democracy, the last series of The Wire is essential viewing. We true Wire-heads have had the joy of watching events unfold in this lightly fictionalised version of Baltimore that were eerily similar to those transpiring in London. "Duking the stats", or faking crime clear-up rates to impress the voters, is the essence of the collusion between the police commissioner in The Wire and the mayor. Sir Ian should have gone over any one of a number of cock-ups, from the de Menezes shooting to the current brouhaha over racism, but his biggest problem was that however much he told Londoners crime was falling, we still believed he was duking the stats. It remains to be seen if his — inevitably more political — successor can convince us otherwise.

Tat may be all we can afford

Dame Judith Mayhew-Jonas has got a nerve. In yesterday's Standard the woman charged with cleaning up Oxford Street looks soigné in her Selfridges suit, and talks all the usual biz-speak about retail "footprints" and "holistic" development — but why should we pay any attention to someone whose claims to fame are sitting on the main board of Merrill Lynch (doh!), while from her position at the Corporation of London she heavily promoted the Square Mile to the global financial services industry?

Take it from me, as the recession starts to bite it'll be Dame Judith's plans that go "crunch". She may not like the tacky shops at the eastern end of Oxford Street but they'll probably be the only places the rest of us will be able to afford to shop.