Out comes Clarke again with the same old terror scares to try and get his badly fudged legal mess of a bill through. Look out for more dubious stories about foiled terror attacks in the next week, which will make the headlines, then disappear without trace after a day or two. I bet our Arts Editor, Simon Coggeshall, fifty quid that we'll see at least one such "story" before the end of next week. Easy money.
"Let no-one be in any doubt there are terrorists out there", Clarke warned a near empty House, "who wish to attack the UK and its interests". By the UK and its interests, of course, he means the Government, and by terrorists, he means the BBC, opposition parties, Labour back-benchers or indeed anybody else who might question government policy.
He then went on to say that any assumption there was no threat because the UK had not been attacked was "short-sighted, complacent, ignorant of the facts and cavalier." This is a classic bit of New Labour Bollock-Speak, used to try to justify his ridiculous new legal proposals, which are sure to be thrown out at the first reading in the Lords. Nobody is under any illusions about the threat of potential terrorist attacks. The problem is that his proposals, in particular the introduction of ID cards, are total bollocks which will have no real effect in preventing terrorist attacks. Furthermore, his argument simply doesn't add up, and his implication that anybody who opposes these draconian plans is somehow being complacent is not only a nonsense, it's also insulting as well as being a fucking cheek.
Just how his idea of "House Arrest" is going to work in practice, is anybody's guess. There's obviously been about as much serious thought given to this issue as all the other crackpot, hare-brained schemes that Blair's government has devised over the last few years. I for one, however will not be all that surprised to see Clarke dropped like a stone the minute Blair thinks he might be detrimental to his chances of re-election, taking all the blame, and leaving the Prime Minister to wriggle away, cleanly once again.