Control orders are essential for security, warns peer

The government would not be forgiven if control orders on terror suspects were scrapped and there was another 7 July-style attack, Lord Carlile has warned.

The Liberal Democrat peer, the independent reviewer of UK counter-terrorism laws, told the Sun control orders were essential for security.

Lord Carlile said he agreed the orders needed to be reformed.

It had been reported that a deal had been reached to scrap them but the Home Office said no decisions had been made.
'At our peril'

Lord Carlile, who is stepping down as the government's independent reviewer of anti-terrorism legislation, has long argued there is no alternative to control orders, which can include curfews, electronic tags, and travel and mobile phone curbs.

He said that while he did not like the idea of the controversial orders, they were necessary.

"Security and police chiefs have made clear the necessity for the orders. We ignore their advice literally at our peril," he said.

"The courage to protect public safety surely will be recognised. The failure to do so will not be forgiven if some terrible terrorism event happens."

A review of counter-terrorism legislation was due to be published before Christmas, but has been delayed until early 2011 because of ongoing negotiations between ministers.

The issue has divided the coalition because the Lib Dems promised during the general election campaign to abolish control orders.
'Balance'

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Simon Hughes said no decision had been made.

"We have a commitment as a party in our manifesto to scrap control orders, but there is absolutely no way that we would scrap control orders and leave the country less safe," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"We will do nothing that will compromise or prejudice the security of the UK, but we do need to balance again the civil liberties of the citizen against the state."

Introduced under the former Labour government in 2005, they have been strongly criticised by civil liberties campaigners.

The review, which is also looking at the 28-day limit on holding terrorism suspects before they are charged, was announced by Home Secretary Theresa May in July.

It is being overseen by former director of public prosecutions and Lib Dem peer Lord Macdonald.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12106359

At this rate, there won't be a 'natural' Lib Dem voter left...

Is it just me, or is this the new "won't someone think of the children?"

I tell you what mate, I'll take the extremely small risk of being blown up by some looney against the freedom to not have my life and goings on observed, invaded, coralled and kettled by a government and police force I neither voted for nor trust. How about that?

Jon

Where do I sign up to take the risk?

Control orders are an abomination to everything our "free" democracy is supposed to stand for.

I agree. The odds of actually being involved in a terrorist incident are slim, but we should never hand over our rights just to give lazy and incompetent politicians and police an excuse. I will take my chances.

Like the no-rise in student fees?

What really grated me about that was a clip of Clegg (pre-election) not only talking about not increasing fees but how he's sick of Governments going back on their promises and he's going to stamp that out [not word for word but close enough].

Tosser.

Well the Lib Dems are paying very dearly for that opportunism. They are now down to 11% of the vote. So the Tories might not feel so inclined to allow the Lib Dems some safety of a Tory challenger, preferring to take their chances and gain seats at the Lib Dems expense and aim for an outright majority.

Nick Clegg: coalition will replace control order regime

Nick Clegg today signalled the introduction of a significantly reformed control order regime in which virtual house arrest will be abolished, but some form of restrictions will be allowed.

Clegg admitted that an agreement across Whitehall had not yet been reached but vowed the settlement would be shaped according to the needs of national security, and not through a political prism.

The deputy prime minister said the controversial restrictions would not be removed altogether, because a "small number" of dangerous terror suspects could not be dealt with by the traditional justice system.

He said: "We need to deal with an inescapable reality that there are a small number of people who we know – and, by the way, the judges who have been overseeing the process know – want to cause immense damage to us, and for some reason or other, good or bad, we are not able to get them into courts."

He said there was a dilemma and a need for balance. "I do not think it is justifiable to impose what is virtual house arrest without having being able to charge or convict someone first. That I think is very clear. That is one of the flaws of the current system that we are seeking to address."

Reflecting the unresolved discussions in the coalition, Clegg was reluctant to say whether the abolition of virtual house arrest would involve the end of all curfews. At present such curfews can last up to 16 hours, and the former government adviser on terror Lord Carlile has insisted curfews must remain. Some senior Liberal Democrats said they could live with night-time curfews, possibly of eight hours in length.

The security services are opposed to allowing high-risk suspects free and then monitoring them through intense surveillance, partly on grounds of cost and partly due to the dangers of absconding. A solution might be to tag the suspects electronically.

Denying there had been an almighty row in government, Clegg said: "I can predict very safely [that] the people who think control orders are perfect will be disappointed and the people who think all we have to do is just scrap them and do nothing else will be disappointed as well. We are dealing with a difficult set of dilemmas."

He said he did not approve of the way suspects were told little of the nature of the charges against them. He said it was "nonsense" to suggest that decisions on anti-terror measures were being taken through a "party political prism".

The government's first duty was "to keep the British people safe" and the threat from terrorists was "very, very real". Clegg said he was sure the government would not be letting its guard down, but said the "control order regime departs very significantly from very basic principles of British justice and has not proved to be very effective".

He went on: "It's clear that there are some very hard measures in the existing control orders. I am going to change it. What I am not prepared now to say is what aspect of the regime is going to change. That is very complex The principle that virtual house arrest being applied to people who are not convicted of crimes in the courts is a principle that I am deeply, deeply uncomfortable with."

He defended the time the government was taking to reach its conclusions. "The government has not been consumed by some sort of almighty row between peaceniks on the one hand and securocrats on the other. We are determining, together, with painstaking care, how to keep people safe in a way that upholds our values and traditions.

"And I believe the British people would prefer we do that properly. They have had enough of bad decisions, made in the heat of the moment, by the New Labour soap opera. This government makes its decision through open and careful debate."

In the speech, Clegg also outlined previously trailed plans to reform libel laws and to strengthen the freedom of information regime.

He launched a damning assault on the previous government's record on civil liberties, saying there had been nothing casual about the way in which the government had handled the issue over a decade.

He said: "They made Britain a place where you could be put under virtual house arrest when there was not enough evidence to charge you with a crime, and with barely an explanation of the charges against you.

"They turned Britain into a place where schools can fingerprint your children without their parents' consent. Where councils use surveillance powers designed to tackle crime to check if you're cleaning up after your dog. Where thousands of new criminal offences have amassed on to the statute book. Where you are seven times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police if you are black or Asian. Where, in one year, we saw over 100,000 terror-related stop-and-searches, none of which yielded a single terror arrest."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011 ... rol-orders

And if you can't trust Nick Clegg, who can you trust?

We should find out the impact of being in a coalition with the Tories will cost them. The by-election on Thursday will probably see them soundly kicked into third place. So from being a close second to Labour they could end up in distant third even with the Tories barely campaigning to help the Liberals as much as possible overtaking them. If that happens then the Liberals are in serious trouble.

Not likely. The key input from the Liberals in this parliament is as a stick with which to keep insanely embarrassing right wing of the Tories at bay. As the parliament progresses, we will likely see these characters become the main threat to coalition stability.

Cameron now needs to throw the Liberals a bone to repay the kicking they took on his behalf for student fees, but his hang-em-high tea party 5th columnists will go mental when he does that. Worse though, if he calls an election and forms a new government with a slender majority (which is surely the most he possibly get right now), he would be at the mercy of those rabid nutters, and without the counterbalancing benefit of the Lib lefties with whom he has probably more sympathy.

Cameron's fortunes are thus no less tied up with this coalition than Clegg's, and only unbearable external forces could force them to consider an election before they have a strong economic recovery to claim credit for.

I do not see there being a snap election. Both Cameron and Clegg are struck with this coalition till 2015 by which they are both desperately hoping things will have improved. Which they probably will not have, because they are still following neo-classical economic policies and the economy will be struggling. Though a lot depends on if they change direction policy wise. As you say they will not consider an election before they think that they can win it and even by 2015 that will be iffy. I suspect that things might still be stagnating by then and winning an election on the economy might be chancing it.