Public opinion against 42 days
As both Liberal Conspiracy and OurKingdom report today, a new poll by ICM shows that the public does not actually support extending pre-charge detention to 42 days from 28 days (which I think is too high anyway).
I think this is important because the government and its supporters (The Sun newspaper especially) used pushed their plans by saying the public was behind them. But that was based on this poll that had very slanted questioning. This poll and an earlier one by Liberty show the opposite. That poll also said 54% of the public believed the government’s proposals were merely meant to look “tough on terror”. The govt might take us for fools, but I’m glad at least the public isn’t buying it.
Meanwhile, a top Tory peer, Lady Manningham-Buller, director general of MI5 for five years until her retirement last April, said: “On a matter of principle I cannot support the 42 days pre-charge detention in this bill. I don’t see on a practical basis, as well as a principled one, that these proposals are in any way workable … because of the need for the suspect to be given the right to a fair trial.”
Aw shucks, Gordon Brown is looking a bit isolated isn’t he?
‘54% of the public believed the government’s proposals were merely meant to look “tough on terror”. The govt might take us for fools, but I’m glad at least the public isn’t buying it.’
One can only wonder what the other 46% think it is all about – of course it is to look tough on terror, it is baffling to think what else it could be about. However to dismiss as totally irrelevant the pressure that governments of any stripe to ‘do something’ is to badly confuse ‘politics’ and ‘government.’
I remain concerned that all the opposition to 42 days looks very wide but very thin. With all respect Sunny you are preaching to the converted on here – put this on the Sun’s talkboard and see how far you get. This is all well and good, but frankly the people that respond to Liberty polls are not the people you need to convince.
Honestly – do you think that opposition to 42 days could withstand a large scale terror attack? That is the acid test and sad to say the civil liberties campaign looks nowhere near that mark.
Sorry.
Looking a bit isolated is not enough to convince Gordon Brown to back down. I cannot wait to see what happens when the Lords reject 42-day detention and it comes back to the Commons, with everyone knowing that just five more Labour rebels are needed to throw out this legislation for good.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
Honestly – do you think that opposition to 42 days could withstand a large scale terror attack?
Lady Manningham-Buller obviously doesn’t. You obviously have your reasons why you think it would. Would your reasons be based on emperical evidence or real-world experience in terrorist surrveilance of a kind that would trump Manningham-Buller’s record?
Honestly – do you think that opposition to 42 days could withstand a large scale terror attack?
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If people genuinely believe in their civil liberties they will. Take a glance at Pakistan, over 3500 people died last year as the result of terrorist attacks. Some people would state the security situation to be “chaotic”.
Yet despite that the liberty and human rights movements are in full swing. One of the major issues of contention between the supreme court and the previous government was detention without charge of terror suspects, an issue that eventually led to the judicial crisis and political storm that still rages on today, more than a year on from the initial incident.
If people really care, these movements will survive, but in Britain i don’t think people really care, i think people see it as an “us and them” issue, the real long term victims they feel of any such law will only be Muslims.
Jerry Springer siad it the best on question time- you can’t play politics with civil liberties. Damn the Americans with their constitutional rights!
Sid (3) – ‘You obviously have your reasons why you think it would.’ No, just gut instinct. You may very well think that civil liberties could withstand a large scale terror attack – I disagree, there’s no need to get the hump.
I tend to agree with the last paragraph of platimum786’s comment (4). I don’t like it, very far from it, and I want to see the civil liberties argument try to change the terms set out by platinum786. This was the argument I was trying to make. That it is no good preaching to the converted on PP but that civil liberties needs to be seen as a ‘good’ to be believed in, rough and smooth.
Or I suppose we could try your approach of quippy sarcasm?
You tell me – how would you convince the Sun in the days after a terror attack that civil liberties are for the common good? I do not pretend that I have a good answer.
Or I suppose we could try your approach of quippy sarcasm?
If you see “quippy sarcasm” in my comment, that is your own reading, not mine. You’ve maintained an ambivalent if not supportive tone towards 42 days, but so far, you’re only defence of it has been to doubt or disparage the motivations of those who don’t support it. So I ask again, do you have real world evidence that out-trumps the real experience brought directly to the matter that Manningham-Buller has? I’m not interested in arguing with the Sun’s editorial policy makers or their readers for basic universal civil liberties, sorry.
Incidentally, platinum786’s point goes directly against yours, so I’m surprised as to how you see agreeing with him supports your point of view. in Pakistan, the use of measures such as detention without trial and even torture of terrorist suspects has done little in real terms to stop terrorism. As he correctly points out, 3500 victims of terrorism, in spite of these draconian measures.
So when Manningham-Buller says “I don’t see on a practical basis, as well as a principled one, that these proposals are in any way workable” I tend to believe her experience rather than your “gut instinct”.
Sid (8) – ‘Ambivalent’ about sums it it. I am neither for nor against in particular, I do not try to defend it. It just is not the defining feature of my political outlook. I certainly don’t think it will cause the sky to fall.
I think that if anything you actually make the point I was trying to get at. ‘I’m not interested in arguing with the Sun’s editorial policy makers or their readers.’ You are not interested because you do not have to be, a luxury not available to those that actually have to make decision.
I don’t disgree with much of what you say, I really don’t. All I was getting at it that the terms set out in the article seem short sighted.
There really is no need to take umbrage.
MaidMarian, so you would be supportive of Saudi Arabia’s decision to deny women to drive, or non-Saudi residents to receive equal pay or the continuation of Hudood laws which allow stoning of adulterers based on the fact that the vast majority of Saudis support them? And would your argument against (or should I say ambivalence towards) any reforms of these examples of the denial of human rights be based on how Saudi Sun readers would take it?
Basic human rights are universal whether Sun readers agree with them or not. The practice of Suttee was a popular and popularly adopted practise in India up until the early 20C, but was still a gross denial of women’s rights. It was correctly outlawed in spite of the mass of Indian Sun readers’ support of the barbaric practice.
Your use of a hypothetical terrorist attack and a popular reaction to such an event seems to be the only basis of your rather feeble and reactionary argument *for* 42 days in the UK.
I remain concerned that all the opposition to 42 days looks very wide but very thin. With all respect Sunny you are preaching to the converted on here – put this on the Sun’s talkboard and see how far you get. This is all well and good, but frankly the people that respond to Liberty polls are not the people you need to convince.
Not sure I agree with the reasoning here. Does every policy have to be put on the Sun’s talkboards (which, like any other board, will be dominated by angry males) for it to survive the test?
I don’t disagree that the Sun is for this, but every other newspaper is against this. And look at the response to David Davis’ resignation – it tried to paint him as a crazed nut and yet was forced to eathumble pie only a few days later when most people said he was right to take a stand. What more proof do you want?
The bottom line of this poll is that if Gordon Brown at the moment announced free beer and sandwiches, 83% of people polled would be against it.
Honestly – do you think that opposition to 42 days could withstand a large scale terror attack?
The problem is, when you get a terror attack with 42 days in place, the same cry of ’something must be done’ will come up.
It’s particularly bad because, no doubt, MI5 will have on their files someone connected to the plot, and technically they could have been arrested and detained beforehand, which would have disrupted the plot.
But if you get into a pattern of hassling and temporarily detaining mostly-innocent people for short periods as a preventative measure, that will clearly only make things worse: turn neutrals into radicals, turn radicals into activists, activists into bombers.
A measure that was actually effective in preventing terrorism might be worth some temporary loss of liberty, to prevent a worse one later. But one that doesn’t, definitely isn’t.
Soru (11) – ‘The problem is, when you get a terror attack with 42 days in place, the same cry of ’something must be done’ will come up.’
Correct, but worse than that the cry can very easily be, ’something should have been done.’
But most correct is soru’s last para.
If the government did not believe it had majority backing for the 42 day proposal from the British people then Mr. Brown would not have risked so much in political capital to push the legislation through, including possibly making a deal with the DUP.
ashik: that would be true, if Brown was a politician of average or better skill.
In reality, there probably _was_ majority support for the idea, up until Brown decided to back it.
You can’t chase popularity like a stalker chasing an actress: she will run away from you, and probably call the police.