Robin Wilton's esoterica

I still don't think Max Mosley, President of the FIA, gets it. Over the weekend, he lashed out at Edouard Michelin, the head of the eponymous tyre manufacturer, for criticising plans to adopt a single-supplier strategy for Grand Prix racing in the future. "Mr Michelin should try to understand that no governing body, competitor or member of the paying public could be happy with a supplier which turned up with the wrong equipment and wrecked a major world championship event." BBC Sport website By golly, Mr Mosley. And do you think that the competitors and paying public are any more impressed with a governing body which has no contingency plans in the event that a critical component of their race weekend fails? Oh, I see... you've put a contingency plan in place now, and it is to switch from two tyre suppliers to one. That ought to do it. I know, I know, I said I'd abstain from F1 because I was so angry about the Indy fiasco. I was expecting the FIA to be 'sentencing' the offenders around now, so I've been trying to find out what they have in mind for the last act of the farce.

Carolyn Quinn's interviews on BBC radio's evening news programme ("PM") flushed out a couple of classic comments this evening. The first came from Ken Jones, Chief Constable of the Sussex Police Force. He said the new anti-terrorist measures, including the extension from 2 to 12 weeks for detention without charge, were needed because "existing measures were designed to cope with Serious and Organised Crime, and are not adequate to deal with the terrorist threat we face today". Perhaps he should talk to the Charlie Cunningham of the FBI, DCS Ken Farrow of the City of London Police, Jeffery Robinson, Ken Rijock and others with extensive experience of serious and organised crime. I have heard all of them describe it as a networked international enterprise, well camouflaged and well-funded, with no regard for borders, jurisdictions or law enforcers. Sounds familiar. Indeed, of course, we have all also recently been told that organised crime is closely interlinked with global terrorism, not least as a way of raising and laundering funds. The second was from Gwyn Prosser, MP, member of the Home Affairs Select Committee. He said, also in justification of the new legislative proposals, that the threat we face is "exceptional and unique". I'm not sure what's more worrying: - the idea that he's sees legislation as the appropriate way to address an "exceptional and unique" threat, or
- the idea that he doesn't see why that's a logically absurd thing to say.

Several media channels today (including BBC News Online, the FT, the Guardia and the Times) carry the story of seven alleged terrorist suspects who have just been detained and whose deportation is being sought. Over the past months, a lot of concern has been expressed about the ways in which the Government's proposals for new anti-terror legislation would curtail and infringe human rights. The head of MI5, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, recently openly warned that civil liberties would have to be sacrificed in order to protect against the threats which now face our society. So it's interesting to analyse the reports of today's wave of arrests and pick out some of the practicalities of anti-terror enforcement. Let's look at some specifics: - The BBC reports that today's detainees include individuals who have already been arrested, tried and acquitted earlier this year on charges of plotting to mount a ricin poison attack. At trial, four men were found not guilty, and four were acquitted when the prosecution offered no evidence against them.
- The Home Secretary says that the current deportation warrants 'are not based on any specific threat assessment'.(FT)
- The arrests and deportations make use, not of any new legislation, but of the Immigration Act of 1971, under which deportation can be sought for those "whose presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good for reasons of national security" (The Times, The Guardian) Note that this wording doesn't imply that the suspects have done anything; only that their presence alone is enough to justify arrest and deportation.
- The Home Secretary can currently also apply to detain/deport someone on grounds of "unacceptable behaviour"; So UK legislation already appears to allow the summary detention and deportation of individuals the Home Office doesn't want in the country. What do the new proposals add? - The current limit on detention without charge is 14 days; law enforcers are pressing for that to be increased to 3 months, on the basis that reviewing digital evidence such as CCTV footage is very time consuming (by comparison with whatever they previously used to do in 14 days...);
- Deportation can take place even to countries known to have a poor Human Rights record (though a cynic might observe that the Government is actively taking steps to ensure that our own Human Rights profile approaches theirs as briskly as possible!);
- As well as "presence not conducive to the public good", "national security" and "unacceptable behaviour", which are already provided for, current proposals will add specific offences of "incitement to terrorism" and "acts preparatory to terrorism". It is very hard to see what these contribute which cannot already be achieved by the measures used in the recent arrests. Then there's the question of whether the new proposals will actually achieve a reduction in the terrorist threat. Again, it's hard to see how, given that they seem to add little or nothing new to the law enforcement kit-bag. In particular, I still don't understand how deportation prevents the offence of 'incitement to terrorism', deters it, or makes it any easier to mitigate. Indeed, it takes someone who the authorities clearly view as a 'clear and present' threat, and puts them beyond the reach of domestic intelligence and enforcement agencies, while giving them, presumably, another reason to despise the UK. Inspired. There must be a better way...