42 Days R.I.P

Jacqui Smith has stood up in the Commons a little over a hour ago and announced that the 42 detention clause will now be dropped from the counter terrorism bill.

It followed the expected defeat of the bill in the Lords earlier tonight when peers voted 309-118 against the measure.

It seems though that the government will prepare a new bill including 42 day detention which will rest in abeyance and will be brought in the words of the Home Secretary "should the worst happen".

Dead in the water

It seems certain that the 42 day detention issue is now dead in the water.

This morning's piece in the Times claimed that

Ministers admit privately that there is not “a cat in Hell’s chance” of the legislation, which returns to the Lords this week, being passed into law.
The Government has decided against using the Parliament Act to force the measure through after peers reject it, The Times has learnt. That decision will effectively confine the controversial proposal — which the Prime Minister fought tooth and nail to get through a Commons vote in June — to the legislative dustbin.

Whether the government has decided that one more battle in the current turmoil is just too much remains to be seen.It is almost certain that the Lords will reject it and the introduction of the parliament act would necessitate another vote in the Commons

According to Nick Robinson,

the official line is that the prime minister still believes in 42-days and that ministers will try to persuade the Lords to back him.That line will last only until the Lords kick the idea out. It is possible that some form of extended detention without trial may be revised and revived for Labour's next election manifesto

However this finishes up the government must surely look at the words of Andy Hayman who calls the proposals

not fit for purpose: they are bureaucratic, convoluted and unworkable

No surprises at Haltemprice

I see that Politics Home is reporting that David Davis' campaign has been a flop as voting gets under way in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election

David Davis has failed in his ambition to ignite a national debate on civil liberty and he'll be lucky if turnout in the by-election is above thirty per cent. Those are the headline verdicts of the PHI100, Britain's most authoritative survey of expert and inside political opinion.
A majority of the politically balanced panel (sixty per cent) think he has not succeeded in his own terms by starting a nationwide debate about civil liberties. Only a tiny minority of the panel (six per cent) believe his decision to stage a by-election, especially on the issue of 42 day detention without charge, can be called an unqualified success.
Right-leaning and left-leaning panellists share broadly the same view about his by-election gambit. Liberal panellists are slightly more inclined to think he has succeeded a little.

Hardly surprising since no front line candidates decided to take him up on the offer,a warning that came almost immediately following his resignation.

Has it brought the attention of the public to civil liberties.Well one poll showed that 61% of people oppose detaining terrorist suspects for longer than 28 days. Four weeks ago 69% were said to support the government view on 42 days.

Not ideal comparison and may be put down to the debate in the Commons rather than Davis in particular.

It may be that the House of Lords may now be the ultimate arbiter of the debate

Why we should listen to the Law Lords

Do read Lord LLoyd of Berwick who writes at the Spectator over the Lord Lords recent ruling on evidence given by anonomyous witnesses.

There was a lot of knee jerk reaction to the ruling and the collapse of the trial last week and the government has predictably rushed into drafting new legislation to uphold the giving of anonomyous evidence

This is not the best way to legislate, as we have learnt from much recent experience.

says Lord Berwick adding

Can he have forgotten the 30 years of terrorism in Northern Ireland where witness intimidation was always a very real problem? It was suggested from time to time during those years that witnesses might give evidence from behind a screen. This was the ‘pragmatic’ solution to the problem. But it was always rejected as being inconsistent with a fundamental principle of the common law.

This is the real issue and not wishing to sound like David Davis,the fundemental principles of common law should not be tampered with.A defendent must be ablre to face his accuser and as the Lord Lords said

By a series of small steps, largely unobjectionable on their own facts, the courts have arrived at a position which is irreconcilable with long-standing principle.’

More embarrassment for Gordon over 42 days

The Telegraph has got hold of a letter sent by the cheap whip Geoff Hoon to Keith Vaz,

“Dear Keith…Just a quick note to thank you for all your help during the period leading up to last Wednesday’s vote. I wanted you to know how much I appreciated all your help.”
“I trust that it will be appropriately rewarded!...With thanks and best wishes, Geoff.”

You may recall that in the run up to the vote on the 42 days detention,Mr Vaz,an opponent, was courted by the party to change sides and it was rumoured that he had been promised a knighthood.....hence the reference to being appropriately rewarded

David Cameron asked the Prime Minister at Pmq's whether any deals had been done over the vote and when the PM answered no,brought up the letter much to the embarassment of the party.

A bad move for the Sun

I don’t trust this Government, the police or the State bureaucracy to discriminate between keeping an eye out for our well-being and spying on us.
Information is power. And the authorities — national and local — have far too much of the stuff already.

The best so far that the Sun can muster in support of David Davis,from Trevor Kavanagh's column this morning and perhaps that lack of support could be significant.

The paper after all have supported the 42 day bill and is firmly behind the idea of ID cards.
Most Sun readers will instinctively support 42 days’ detention without trial for terror suspects if it helps prevent an atrocity on the streets of Britain.
They would accept ID cards as a sensible way of co-ordinating swathes of information already in the public domain if it made life easier as well as more secure.

However the paper up to now has been quiet on the issue.It is now becoming increasingly unlikely that Kelvin MacKenzie will stand in the by election.

Writing in the Independent this morning Stephen Glover observes

it is possible that some other people are about to make a mistake that could surpass Mr Davis's............If they (the Sun)have any sense they will promptly lower it, and go back to what they are best at doing, and have spent their time on this earth doing – producing newspapers.
In democracies, governments do not own newspapers, though they try to manipulate them, and sometimes succeed. For their part, newspapers and their proprietors do not own governments,

Tory members in support of Davis according to Conservative Home

Conservative Home has been running a poll of 1291 party members and the consensus is that he has done the right thing.

This is an inspired move that will draw great attention to a vital issue:
Agree: 65%
Disagree: 25%

The Conservatives should repeal 42 days pre-charge detention when/ if we come into Government.
Agree: 87%
Disagree: 8%

A solution for the Tories on the next vote

The recriminations I am sure will continue for sometime over the DUP votes yesterday but over at Centre Right,Simon Chapman asks a poignent question of the Tory party

If the Conservative Party genuinely aspired to represent everybody, we would contest parliamentary seats in Northern Ireland. And if we had contested Ulster seats in 2005 and previous years, would there be as many as 9 DUP MP's? Or would the electoral arithemetic be rather different?

Meanwhile just how principled were the DUP? Jenny McCartney over at three line whip says

Willie McCrea, a senior DUP politician, proclaimed after the vote that the DUP "decided on an issue of principle on national security" and that "we could not in any way put our hands to something that would endanger the UK."

But she adds

All very high-minded, except that it doesn't explain why the DUP - despite having had ample time in which to consider the merits of the proposal - flatly refused to reveal its "principled" stance in the run-up to the vote. It also doesn't explain why the DUP leadership was reportedly holding meetings with the Prime Minister until late yesterday afternoon

Shallow,bribes and ashamed

A shallow victory? One won by bribes? The morality of DUP polititans? We haven't heard the end of it yet?

These seem to be the conclusions coming out of the voting yesterday.

Of all the parties it is the Democratic unionists who get the most criticism with claims that they were bribed with £1.2b.Iain Duncan Smith immediately after the vote asking the speaker

"We understand there has been internal agreement to an extra expenditure in Northern Ireland of some £1.2bn announced today. I wonder if you have had notice of an emergency budget statement concerning Northern Ireland?"

Iain Dale calls them the Depend upon promises party

Peter Robinson's leadership of the DUP has certainly got off to an inauspicious start. The phrase 'no surrender' is one which can never be applied to them again. Robinson cravely surrendered to a Gordon Brown bribe. We don't know what they asked for and we don't know what they got. But it must have been big.

Patrick Hennessey says

It’s the DUP what won it....Make no mistake, Gordon Brown has been saved from humiliation by a hair's breadth tonight. Only the nine votes of Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists - who marched into the Aye lobby at the last moment - rescued him, with 37 Labour MPs rebelling against the PM's 42-day detention plan for terrorist suspects.

The Government and the Unionists insist though that no deal has been done



Bucking the trend though is Philip Cowley at Open House who says

When the Government win by nine, and there’s nine DUP MPs in the lobby with them, it’s easy to draw the conclusion that it was the DUP wot won it. But take a closer look at the list of Labour MPs who voted against the government tonight, and it’s clear that the reason for their victory is more complicated than that.
The list of 36 rebels is noticeable for those who are missing. Of the 49 Labour backbenchers who voted against the Government in November 2005, when they went down to defeat on the Terrorism Bill, only 29 did so tonight. Note the absence from the rebel lobby of people like John Austin, David Hamilton, Chris McCafferty, George Mudie, Dennis Skinner, David Taylor, Jon Trickett, Ann Cryer, Mick Clapham. Some of these will have abstained, others will have backed the Government – but they didn’t vote against this time

Adam Boulton points out that

A win is a win.
Gordon Brown is moving on swiftly, holding his news conference tomorrow, when he will doubtless claim he has done the right thing on principle, backed by public opinion, and suggest that David Cameron's Conservatives are opportunistic and soft on terrorism.

However the last word to the Guardian's editorial which describes it as a shaming victory

The prime minister has squandered parliamentary time, goodwill and his reputation as a man of principle on a symbolic sacrifice of liberty. That sacrifice is gratuitous, a vote on a law that would not work, is not needed and which, quite possibly, will never come into force.

Gov wins with a small majority

So the government has won the vote but by a majority of 9.

They needed the support of the 18 Ulster Unionists and it suggests that around 37 Labour MP's voted with the opposition.

Final result 315 for the ayes,306 for the no's

The latest and Gordon is slapping backs

Turned over to watch the Portugal v Czech Republic game.

Over at three line whip Rosa Prince has

spotted Gordon Brown wandering the corridor between Portcullis House and New Palace Yard, slapping loyal Labour MPs on the back and stopping for chats with waverers.

but it looks at the moment as though the government has not got enough votes as it stands

Meanwhile Tom Harris MP says

It’s a brave MP who would venture unaccompanied today into Members’ Lobby (at the entrance to the Commons chamber itself). This is where journalists hang around waiting to speak to compliant MPs of all parties, hoping to pick up a bit of gossip here or there, perhaps even a lead for a story

The latest and Keith Vaz for a knighthood

David Cameron seemed clearly upset during PMQ's as the Prime Minister brought up the fact that Conservative Home had come out in favour of the 42 day legislation.

It is of course,an Independent site,but is seen as the unofficial/official blog of the party.

Meanwhile Miranda Richardson has the latest rumours from Westminster,including the Keith Vaz? has been offered a knighthood.

The debate.....

is at full swing and Chris Huhne is on the floor.

However his free flow is being constantly interupted ad forced to give way.

Meanwhile one of the Labour rebels Paul Flynn says on his blog that the rebels now number 20.

It not the just the arm twisting that may be reducing the Labour 42 days rebels. There is a highly suspicious enthusiasm from the Uber Blairphiliacs (UBs) to see a Gordon Brown defeat. The UBs are not loved on the left, the habitat of the 42 days rebels. Their motives are not pure.
Some minds have been changed because of Labour loyalties. Mostly women MPs are shifting because they do not want the party to suffer another kicking. There have been several summonses to 10 Downing Street for interviews with the leader. Some have been bribed, bullied or bamboozled into changing their minds. At least one will cast a David Taylor vote and vote for and against. That’s the only way to register an abstention.

Now bribing people to vote

If the report's this morning are true that the government in an attempot to get the 42 legislation through is proposing £3000 a day compensation,then in my opinion,Gordon Browm has lost it.

I have to agree with an excellent post made by John Redwood who says

as if that were sufficient compensation for the ignominy and frustration of being locked up for a month and a half, cut off from your job, your friends, your family. If you run your own business you would be bankrupt by the time the state had decided it had made a mistake. It shows how desperate the PM is to try to win over his own side. It illustrates that they do at last realise innocent people will be treated in this disgusting way by the government. It also shows a wider point – that Mr Brown now squanders and throws money at any problem, in the mistaken belief that money can buy him popularity.

The last crucial 24 hours-what this morning's papers are saying

As the final battle commences today over the 42 day detention,the Telegraph has a poll which shows that the majority of the public at least back the Prime Minister.

The YouGov survey found that almost three quarters of the public (69 per cent) support raising the detention limit from 28 days to 42 days "in exceptional circumstances". A quarter (24 per cent) oppose the plans

And others also come out in support.Former Met Police chief Lord Stevens whom reports the Times

is an adviser to both Gordon Brown and David Cameron, said that the police needed to have the power “in their back pocket” to hold someone for up to 42 days in “exceedingly exceptional circumstances”.
“It is the duty of those of us who have been on the front line – losing sleep, working through the night on these cases to thwart attacks – to put forward the argument for this extra power,” said Lord Stevens, who has also investigated police corruption in Northern Ireland.

Yet all indications are that tonight's vote is going to be close.More than 40 Labour backbenchers are still thought to be threatening tovote with the oppositiona and amid signs of desperation the Independent reports

The Prime Minister even risked a rift with George Bush on the eve of the US President's visit to London by promising Labour left-wingers he would back the lifting of EU sanctions against Cuba if they supported him on 42 days. Mr Bush wants the sanctions, which include a ban on high-level visits by Cuban officials, to be maintained but some EU countries, led by Spain, want them abolished to encourage the new leadership in Cuba.

Jacqui Smith on why? we need 42 day legislation

I am struggling to understand why the government is persisting with the 42 day legislation as has been mentioned on this blog before.

Simon Jenkins writing in yesterday's Guardian made a very good case for dumping the legisaltion

It is equalled in almost no other free country and backed by almost no one in Britain's judicial or security establishments. Opponents or known sceptics embrace the former lord chancellor, the former attorney general, the security minister, the director of public prosecution, numerous police chiefs including London's and, so it is said, the leadership of MI5. In an unguarded moment, the whips even murmured that Brown regards it as an inconvenience "inherited from Tony Blair".

Perhaps then the Home secretary can shed some light on the reasons why.Speaking to the Spectator which is out today Ms Smith sheds some light on the darkness but not a great deal

The whole point is that these powers are being sought before they are absolutely necessary but on the basis that they will soon become so

.

Whatever else it is, this is not ‘internment’, the shredding of Magna Carta or the end of habeas corpus.

The irony of the present parliamentary row over 42 days is that her opponents seem willing to accept almost any crackdown other than this particular measure

Smith charms the rebels

Has Jacqui Smith turned on the charm and persuaded the dissident back benchers to rally behind the 42 day legislation?

John Craig claims that was indeed the case at last night's meting of the Parliamentary party

when Jacqui Smith went to Committee Room 14 of the House of Commons to address the Parliamentary Labour Party later, by all accounts she played a blinder, speaking softly and in measured tones.
She spoke of safeguards and moving in the direction of those MPs with concerns about the 42-day proposal. And, I'm told, she managed to persuade some rebels to back the Government.
"I'll vote for this through gritted teeth," one potential rebel apparently declared.

Andrew Grice over at the Indy blog thinks so

The Labour rebellion against plans to allow police to detain suspected terrorists for 42 days without charge appears to be fading tonight. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith won plaudits after offering more concessions to Labour MPs when she addressed their weekly meeting just now. She also warned them of the grave political conferences of defeating the Government. Smith said: "We have gone a million miles. Meet us on the way. Make no mistake. Defeat will have a political message." Afterwards, some potential rebels seemed to have been won over. Even some critics predicted that ministers would now win next week's crucial vote

This morning's Telegraph meanwhile quotes the former assistant chief of the Met Peter Clarke who says

the row over extending the detention time limit has been distorted by politicians.
In the strongest defence yet of the Government's plans, Mr Clarke warns that the current 28-day limit will "undoubtedly" soon become insufficient to gather enough evidence to charge a suspect in increasingly complex terrorist investigations.

Another week,another battle begins

Gordon Brown is on the offensive this morning as MP's return to the Commons over the 42 day detention legislation.
Voting is due to take place next week and it may be a vote too far for the government.
All the indications are that this is going to set off another back bench battle.However it will surely be imposssible for Brwon to back down over this.

Instead he has gone on the attack.Writing in this morning's Times he says

“I will stick to the principles I have set out and do the right thing,” adding that even though he recognises that he is going against advice

But having considered all the arguments I conclude that it was the right way to protect national security.

Ed Balls being interviewed on today thismorning ostensibly about the new teenage drink legislation called the propoals

consistent with our parliamentary tradition.The important thing is to do the right thing by national security.

The Guardian brings another argument to the table reporting that

Europe's human rights commissioner is to write to Gordon Brown this week warning him that the proposal to detain terror suspects for up to 42 days without charge is an "excessive" measure that will put Britain "way out of line" with the rest of Europe and will prove counter-productive.

At the moment reports say that up to 50 MP's will vote against the government although there may well be some Tories who will go threw the division lobby with the government.