Following on from this post on Adam’s weblog (incidently, sort out your line endings man!), where he quotes from Brian Sedgemore MP on the Terrorism Bill currently proposed by the Government:
It is a foul calumny that we do today. Not since the Act of Settlement 1701 has Parliament usurped the powers of the judiciary and allowed the Executive to lock up people without trial in times of peace. May the Government be damned for it.
I would like to also recommend that everyone reads the Hansard link Adam posted all the way through. A few pages in, you’ll come across another apposite observation from the personal experiences of yet another Labour MP (Barbara Follett) opposed to detention without trial:
My first husband was put under house arrest because the apartheid state believed that he was a threat to its security. He probably was; he was campaigning to give black people the right to vote and join trade unions. Given the structure of the South African state, he probably was threatening it because it believed that only whites could vote and join trade unions. House arrest hampered him, but did not stop him, which was probably why, just before his five-year order was due to expire, he was shot dead in front of our two young daughters in their bedroom. I tried to comfort them in the days that followed by telling them that we were going to go to Britain, where people were not detained without trial or put under house arrest. When one tries to tell a 13-year-old and a nine-year-old that not all parts of the world are as bad as others, one looks for examples, and we in Britain were that example. I am glad that I am here today so that my now 40-year-old and 36-year-old daughters can hear that we are still fighting to uphold that.
Now I personally didn’t vote for a dictatorial oppressive Government in the last election, but them I’m a often accused of being borderline fascist so I voted Conservative. Perhaps anyone who did vote in a constituency where Labour has a chance (I’m in Westminster, it’s ‘Tory heartland) should be re-examining their beliefs and priorities, unless they particularly like living in a Police State where citizens carry mandatory identity cards 24/7 and are subject to detention without trial.
To be honest, I don’t care who you vote for, my conscience is clean. Just don’t vote for the grinning idiot and his party again, please!