Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Charles Clarke's Astonishing 'U' Turn

Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary who argued tooth and nail for extending the period of detention without charge to 90 days for terror suspects seems to have a dramatic change of heart. He has today asked the Prime Minister to drop the current 42 days proposal and bow to the will of the House of Commons. It really makes you wonder how he could argue for 90 days in the first place. Some might say that David Davis has been altogether too polite in his response.

Mr Clarke was the Home Secretary who brought proposals for 90-days detention without charge to Parliament. He will know every argument put by the security services and the police and, perhaps more importantly, know the weaknesses in those arguments. If he is willing to accept the judgement of the House of Commons, so should the current Home Secretary and Prime Minister.

The Labour Party appears to be falling apart at the seams.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nonsense! All is well. I am in control. Charles Clarke has a weight problem - I do not.

Brian said...

Or Charles "2 Pizzas" clarke is splitting its seams.

Paul Linford said...

Charles is rapidly proving himself to be a less-than-serious political figure, or to use more everyday language, a prize pillock!

His guiding principle in any political intervention at the moment seems to be: what will cause the maximum trouble for Gordon Brown?

He is clearly an extremely embittered man and I really don't know why he just doesn't announce he's standing for the leadership here and now. He would have nothing to lose and it would give us all a good laugh.

Anonymous said...

It seems perfectly obvious to me:

Clarke was loyal to Blair and will do anything to undermine Brown.

Seems a little strange to be playing politics with an issue like this however...

asquith said...

What a despicable little man. Blunkett is even worse. With this government, the Home Secretaries are the biggest t***s they've got. Though the other ministers give them a run for their money.

Anonymous said...

Is there anybody, apart from Brown and Jacqui Smith, who now argues for 42 days? The thing has become a farce; an sordid objective pursued solely for party political advantage.

And the joke is, it will do the government nothing but harm. They are head butting the self-destruct button.

John Trenchard said...

all on top of wee wendy in scotland going ahead with the scottish referendum call - without telling Gordon... (see the telegraph website)

ferrets and bags spring to mind.

i have one word for it Iain - "meltdown"...

Chris Paul said...

What is astonishing about this Iain? Really!

I think you may mean that Charles Clarke is falling apart at the seams Iain? Again.

How many times to we have to instruct you on cabinet collective responsibility?

And how many times on plans changing, as they do from time to time whoever is in charge.

I don't support this measure but I do feel that philosophically most of the Tory Party do support it. So yet again we have Tory hypocrisy at work.

And you're trying too hard. It's Comical iain all over again.

Chris Paul said...

PS By and large Home Secretaries of whatever government do wear a hat that makes them a T**T. Just imagine comrades, sisters and brothers the brave new world that Michael Howard would be trying to foist on the land if her were Home Secretary in this time of bomb plots.

BrianSJ said...

Your 'falling apart at the seams' remark isright; I think we are in completely uncharted territory. This is way beyond John Major and "the B**tards".
Get the 42 days vote made a vote of confidence cf. last PMQs and get them out fast. It would be a kindness.

Anonymous said...

Clarke does not stand a hope standing against Gordon. His comments do seem to be getting more and more bizarre. Is there a new stock of wine in the Westminster Palace bars?

However if other cabinet ministers stood that would be different matter and would seal Bean's fate.

Anonymous said...

Iain - I fear you have dwelt on the wrong thing in Clarke's new pitch... More important than this is the insubordination in his article for "Progress":

[restoring confidence] can only be done by conducting our politics differently, establishing our long-term strategy and eliminating short-term errors. So, first, we have to change the conduct of our politics. We should discard the techniques of ‘triangulation', and ‘dividing lines' with the Conservatives, which lead to the not entirely unjustified charge that we simply follow proposals from the Conservatives or the right-wing media, to minimise differences and remove lines of attack against us. We should finish with ‘dog whistle' language, such as ‘British jobs for British workers', which flatter some of the most chauvinistic and backward-looking parts of British society. We should suspend the black arts of divisive inner-party briefing and bullying which penalise and inhibit debate and discussion about the future.

And 'instead' (the word is surely deliberate)...

Instead we need to be authentic, frank and direct as we answer questions and explain what we are doing; we should respect politics and elected politicians with proper transparent funding arrangements and accountability for what we do...

And he appears to lay down the gauntlet to Brown over a leadership challenge... part of which is to show that Brown isn't listening or learning anything if he goes on with the 42 day thing.

I think this is better seen as the first sign of a move to oust Brown.

More on Brown-out Blog...

Anonymous said...

£ngland should just go the whole hog and convert completely over to the way that our EUSSR masters do it.

* Indeffinite detention without trial.

* No right to trial by jury

* Scrap Habeus corpis and switch to the Napoleonic code of Corpis Juris (Guilty until proven innocent).

Because you can be sure of one thing, thats what this is ALL about anyway, converting £ngland for foreign rule.

http://tinyurl.com/3xcgpl

ENGLAND's Unique Heritage of Law Threatened by an EU Police State

Scipio said...

He is positioning himself to challenge Brown.

Anonymous said...

Mr Paul - I'm a Tory, as an activist I meet and work with a lot of Tories, hard, soft, mushy round the edges, and I've yet to meet any who are in favour of extensive detention without trial.

Obviously, as a die-hard Labour man, you know better.

asquith said...

Judith, perhaps you can explain the authoritarian, warmongering stance the Tory Party took until very recently. Where were all the libertarians then? Just embarking on the road to Damascus? Don't make me laugh.

Anonymous said...

Chris Paul's mind is clearly imploding in parallel with the New Liebour project.
His arguments are as weak as his spelling and grammar, which are now so bad as to render his posts almost completely incomprehensible.

Anonymous said...

Charles Clarke's illiberal views are very well known and documented. There can be no doubt that this new stance is all about preparing the ground for a tilt at Gorgon .... let's sit back and enjoy the show.
Naturally we want to see him fail, as the current leadership is the best recruitment team for the Tories.

Anonymous said...

I have my doubts about this guy who calls himself 'Chris Paul'. Any one sure that this is not 'sexing up' fame ( or notoriety)Campbell? His verbage carries as much credibility.

That aside, Charles Clarke, the old boy of Highgate private school belonging to Blair bunch who send
their children to private and selective grammar schools and deny that choice to the bulk of us, is a man of forked tongue, who was a total failure. Hence his 'U' and 'S' turns do not surprise me.
He like his New Labour buddy the CND activist of yore Milburn believes in the second coming of the messiah. I suggest him training for the New York and London Marathons to focus his mind on the remaining days as backbencher.