Government misjudgement
So the Blairs' request for a 90-day detention limit was rejected, and rejected clearly by 322 to 291.The size of the defeat makes one wonder why the government went to the effort of having Gordon Brown flown back from Israel, and Jack Straw leaving Moscow talks early. Did they so misjudge their support, or was it merely to encourage the others?
Parliament has passed a vote on an extension to 28-days; I have no idea whether that means that will become law or not.
In the old days when governments lost votes in the House of Commons the survival of the government was questioned. At the least they usually went for a confidence vote. No-one is talking about that, I guess being due to the General Election being just five months ago and this being the first defeat.
The question now then for the Blairs is does this mean they believe the Police are fatally weakened in the fight against global terror? If they really do then they need to outline alternative steps to take. Given how much personally he staked on this one one wonders whether the Met Chief Commissioner feels unable to do his job now.
Many commentators are positioning themselves in the event of another attack to be able to say they had their reservations, but they also warned MPs of the consequences of not listening to the authorities. It is wise to say this about everything, of course, and most of them do. The same people also talk on an attack in France, which has in some ways a tougher regime, as being inevitable.
Update: Loony comment watch. "Juan" on HP, ""Interesting how the bloody BBC is playing up the "defeat for Blair" angle despite his having said he was willing
to go through the defeat in order to lay down his marker. The bloody
beeb is acting more and more like a political party and less and less
like a news organisation."
Good point Juan. What Blair said would be a defeat isn't actually a defeat, it's a marker. Why can't the BBC (and the Times, Guardian, Telegraph, Indepednent, Reuters, etc) lead their stories with "Victory for Blair"?
posted by Matthew @ 11/09/2005 05:41:00 PM
Comments: 0
