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THIS week, we witnessed the hopefully permanent collapse of not one but two discredited philosophies based on excess, unaccountability and greed. On the very same day that a once-rampant financial establishment found itself on state welfare, the rampant British security establishment suffered its own, equally deserved humiliation.
As the Government surveys the wreckage of its long struggle to imprison people for 42 days without charge, the defeat should bring a re-think on security every bit as profound and as necessary as the one about finance a few ministries to the east.
The bankers took risks with our economy out of corporate and personal greed for profits, bonuses and sports cars. But the securocrats risked something even more important, our very freedom as a society, out of political and bureaucratic greed for power, results and the imprimatur of toughness.
The bankers blindsided us with incomprehensible financial instruments. The securocrats traded in off-the-record mumblings about unspecified dastardly threats. Whenever the alleged threats were scrutinised in court, or by a judicial inquiry such as Lord Butler's, they always turned out somewhat less dastardly than claimed.
It all started with the security industry's own, only too horribly literal Big Bang September 11, 2001. Exactly as al Qaeda planned, 9/11 led the Government down a slippery slope, gradually dismantling ever more of the liberal, democratic state the terrorists so loathed.
So they gave us control orders where first foreign, and then British, nationals could be locked up indefinitely without even knowing the evidence against them. They gave us extraordinary rendition; the CIA snatch planes, taking suspects to be tortured, used British soil, despite repeated ministerial denials.
They gave us no-proof-required asset confiscation orders, which ended up being used against Icelandic banks; no-evidence-needed extradition treaties which ended up being used against people in the City; and detention powers which ended up being used against peaceful demonstrators, such as a pensioner who shouted "Shame" during the Labour conference.
Above all, they kept trying to give us extended detention-without-charge, the everlasting Duracell bunny of anti-terror legislation, the one based not on the European Convention on Human Rights but on the Wile E Coyote Law of Cartoon Physics (every time it was flattened in a head-on collision with Parliament, it would simply pop straight back to life).
The power was first demanded, as 90 days, in August 2005. It was excessive; no other democracy asked for anything like it. The struggle has consumed more than three years of ministerial and official time. And at no point over that period has any minister or official ever been able convincingly to explain why.
It has damaged two prime ministers, three home secretaries and a Metropolitan Police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, whose decision to send his officers into the Commons to lobby for 90 days marked the beginning of the end for him.
Just as the financial crisis is raising Gordon Brown's stock, at least for now, so the 7/7 bombings briefly restored Tony Blair's authority. But within weeks the then PM had squandered the mood of national unity, and his own revival, by playing politics over 90 days.
It has caused more important damage to the entire system, alienating the law enforcement authorities from the people whose co-operation they need, and undermining their credibility. Because the police spent too much of their time campaigning for harsher powers, it made necessary and justified arrests look like part of the campaign, even if they weren't.
At least the banks made a few people rich. By the Government's own admission, its anti-terror measures have made no difference at all to the terrorist threat level, which remains "severe", meaning that an attack is "highly likely". There has also, according to MI5, been a "significant growth in the number of people involved in Islamist extremism".
Nor is extended detention the only part of the state's security philosophy to collapse. All the other measures I mentioned are gradually being unravelled, too, by the courts, by media exposés and by their sheer impracticality. Control orders have been downgraded to house arrest. It has become harder to lay out the welcome mat for torture flights.
Detention without charge, a policy designed almost entirely to make politicians look tough, has ended up instead making them look stupid. It is the third rail of British politics; anyone who touches it ends up hurt. It exemplifies how anti-terror policy has come to rest on the totally mistaken focus of demanding ever more powers and passing ever more laws: not just wrong in principle but at best a distraction, at worst an impediment, to the real struggle.
The battle against terrorism must be fought in hearts and minds, schools, mosques and prisons, and the best weapon against its manifestations is the ordinary criminal law. Terrorism thrives on a sense of persecution; we must deny it that dignity. The new philosophy must focus not on grand, divisive attempts to seize blanket powers, treating everyone as a suspect, but on boring, proportionate street-level policing and intelligence-gathering.
But does the security establishment realise that its old approach is bankrupt, and it's time to stop? I'm not sure it does. Even as the Home Secretary conceded defeat over 42 days, she said another attack could bring it back out for yet another run around the course. And even as they licked their wounds, the securocrats unveiled their grandest Big Brother project yet, a £12 billion database of everyone's calls and emails.
Quite apart from the privacy invasion, it is surely mad to search for a few dozen terrorists by swamping yourself with billions of messages sent by the innocent. The Government is about to add an enormous haystack to its collection of needles.
It may, in the end, be the excesses of the bankers that save us from the excesses of the police state. Buying RBS and HBOS won't leave much over for email databases, ID cards and the other horrors on the Home Office wish-list. And now Gordon has a real economic crisis to be Churchillian about, he won't need a security blanket to make him look tough.
Reader views (15)
If this sad sorry, useless Government wanted to get tough on terror then they could start by deporting some of the people who they tell us are a danger to the country yet cannot jail or deport. This has nothing to do with anti terror legislation and all about control of you and I. You only have to look at how supposed anti terror laws are already being used by local authorities to prosecute people for minor offenses. We are already the most monitored people in the world and they want to ave more control. The frightening thing for me is ALL the parties want this power. I havent heard the Tories saying they will repeal all or any of the vast anti terror laws ??
- Duncan Walker, Ex Peckham now Samui Thailand
I totally and utterly agree. In fact I have watched documentaries and read both books and articles making the same valid point. What we need is a rallying point so that the majority of people who rightly disagree with this government can be heard. Will it be you Andrew? Or can you spur somebody in public life to become that lightning rod?
- Mark, London
This is a War *OF* Terror, not a war on terror. The terror is inflicted on the people of this country, and it is not by accident. We are all being herded into the corral spurred on by a whipping up of fear from the government. And all manufactured by them. Detention-without-charge of 42 days bill failed. Magically within hours the Security Minister Lord West of Spithead claimed that the authorities were monitoring "another great plot" by terrorists.
For goodness sake pull the other one it's got bells on!
We need to see the reality for what it is, British people are not usually so easily fooled, think long and hard and we will come to know that the government's only aim is to instill fear in us, whereby manipulating us to happily accept a police state.
- Kelly, Muscat Oman
Andrew, you were right about the dodgy dossier, you were right about Ken Livingston, you are right about the horrid plans for turning Greenwich Park into a rodeo stable and you are spot on with your protest against the sacrifice of liberal institutions for the sake of inefficacious, expensive and counter-productive security measures. Are you the only crusading journalist left in the United Kingdom? Are you a one-man opposition party? I hope not. I hope readers are taking note (and politicians).
- Bloke, London
Surely we should be addressing the cause of the problem! Terrorists,whether they be Islamic or not, are born out of despair, brought about by injustice, perceived, or, otherwise. One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. Until the Palestinian/Israeli situation is solved to the satisfaction of both sides,and, the West gets out of Iraq & Afghanistan (what purpose do they serve other than killing innocent civilians)we will have terrorism, and, the longer they are there, the greater the problem will become. The Islamic terrorist argument, (which I think has much logic)is, If you make my Country a battleground,I will bring that battle to your country. After all the damage we inflict on others, do we really think that they will all turn the other cheek! The injustice in Palestine precedes 9/11 by many decades, and, beggars the question, who lifted the lid on the Islamic pandora's box of terrorism?
- Kevin Sullivan, Roehampton, London.
I'd rather he extended his argument to include the desirable demise of 'elf 'n safety', of 'rights' for illegal immigrants, kid gloves for (real) pirates, all those suffering free meals in prisons, and those petty socialists who have converted to the 'Global Warming' Standard and aim to browbeat us all. When will the unelected authorities respect 'the man(/F) on the Clapham Omnibus'?.
- Steve, T Wells
It seems both us and the American public are totally fed up with 'Big Government' add that to the 'NO' vote from the French, Dutch and Irish voters to the EU big brother Lisbon Treaty and I see both Northern Europe and America are a long way down the road to giving self serving illiberal and intrusive government a bloody good kicking.
....and about time too.
- Dave Morris, Sunderland
Your sentiments are spot on. However we have those now in power that lust for even power just so they can stay in power and any day now you will hear the cry from all quarters in their domain saying “it’s for your own safety”
Not only is the database bad, but what about the retention of the DNA profile of innocent people?
- Ian, Reading, England
Terrorists?
Yes I worry but I worry more about the coming fight of the people versus government!
They are the real terrorists
- Minnie Ovens, USA
The proposed database has nothing to do with terrorism.
It's part of the Stasi state Labour wants for Britain where everyone 'has a file on them'.
- Mike Newland, London
Andrew. Exactly my sentiments. Nu Liebour re-education camps for us lot then eh?
- Ethan, UK once a free and proud nation ...sadly no more
I agree with most of what Andrew has written, but please, Andrew, get your facts right. Extraordinary rendition was enacted by President Clinton well before 9/11.
I know it is fashionable to blame Dubya for everything wrong in the world today, but the seeds of Wall Street excesses and the restrictions against terrorists were actually sown during Clinton's time as President, and the excesses of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were actually questioned by Bush in 2004 but all attempts at anyenquiries into their solvency were blocked by the Dems.
- Stephen Rothbart, Prague, Czech Republic
imprimatur.....?
Had to go to my desktop COD
It means
(noun) an oficial licence issued by the Roman Chatholic Church to print an ecclesiastical or religious book.
a person's authoritatvie approval.
Origin : from latin, 'let it be printed'
Seems about right as the BOE and the FED are doing just that with paper money to bail out the banks.
- Dave Morris, Sunderland
One of the standard insults of the intellectually-challenged Lefty is 'fascist', directed typically at any Conservative politician who suggests loosening the grip of the state and returning power to the citizen. Meanwhile, all the tools of a true fascist state - control over every aspect of its citizens' lives - are gradually being put into place - with too little comment - by a so-called Labour administration.
- R. Goodacre, London SW15
We've seen how Brown has abused so-called "terrorist" laws to freeze the assets of a friendly country (Iceland). What would he do with the ability to detain people for 42 days? You'd get banged up for posting negative comments about him on a website. Whoops, we'd better watch out, Andrew.
- Nobby Clark, Perth, Scotland
