What Did the Home Office Brief on Birmingham Terror Arrests?

I missed the first twenty minutes of Question Time last night and after reading a few of the comments in the last thread I have just downloaded it and WATCHED it. I'd recommend others do so too. Ken Clarke has accused Home Office Special Advisers of briefing the press immediately following the Birmingham terror arrests. He essentially said that they were the ones behind the 'beheading of soldiers' stories. I have no idea what basis there is for these allegations apart from 'form', but if it turns out that there is any substance to them there may be very serious repurcussions indeed. I gather the Sundays are sniffing round the story. It rather fits in with the allegation I made HERE, doesn't it?

The Sun, the BBC and a 'Police State'

There are many reasons to attack the BBC, but The Sun this morning has got it wrong. It takes the BBC to task in its EDITORIAL for reporting the remark of a freed terrorist suspect that Britain is a "police state".

It sometimes seems the BBC would prefer terrorists to succeed than for an
innocent man to be briefly held without charge.In their politically correct
bubble, intelligence is always flawed and anti-terror action is inevitably
heavy-handed.So the release of two suspects held over the alleged plot to behead
a British Muslim soldier was a gift from heaven.For 24 hours, BBC bulletins
repeated the ludicrous claim by one of them that, for Muslims, Britain is a
police state.The truth is that these suspects were swept up in a legitimate raid
by police who had reasonable grounds for suspicion — and freed after
questioning.That is not the action of a police state. Far from being too harsh,
our police may have been too soft.

I didn't see the TV reports of this man, but I did hear an extended interview with him on Radio 5 Live conducted by Peter Allen on the Drive programme. Allen gave him a real grilling and certainly didn't pander to him. But let's not forget, the man had been held for seven days without charge before being freed. If you were innocent and had the same thing happen to you I suspect you'd be angry too. The man, Abu Bakr, was extremely eloquent and while his remarks were over the top and extreme, you can understand his state of mind. That is not to say the Police weren't right to hold him and question him. If they suspected him of a potential crime, what on earth were they to do? In this environment, there will always be people arrested on suspicion of a crime who turn out to be completely innocent. They have a right to be angry. But the people have a right to be protected. The age old argument between civil libertarians and authoritarians rages on. And it always will. It's only when the arguing stops that we will have lost our freedoms.