Getting personal

It looks like the David Davis story has opened up a bit of a split in the tory party. Guardian online reports an attempted smear:

A Conservative source said that Davis had had only three hours' sleep on Tuesday night and was going through some kind of personal crisis.

Faint praise indeed

According to the Indy,

Gordon Brown's plans to hold terror suspects for 42 days without charge received a late boost yesterday when some of Britain's top police and security officers said the controversial proposals were "workable".

But the securocrats apparently "stopped short of offering support", not wanting to be seen to be getting involved in politics, even if that is what they are doing.

The Indy again falls into the classic trap of reporting, without objective knowledge, that "Government whips are confident they will win on Wednesday".

Meanwhile Brown has denied that the 42 day plans are a breach of human rights:

"we have done everything in our power to protect the civil liberties of the individual ... because in Britain liberty is and remains at the centre of our constitutional settlement," he told his MPs.

That settles it then

Catch 42

Both the BBC and the Telegraph have stories on the 42 day detention issue that report that ministers "sense" that they are heading for victory on next week's vote. It is a bit alarming that they use the same word but in any case, both are pure spin, asserting that someone holds a belief that they cannot objectively test. It may be true that the vote is moving the government's way but it is also obvious that ministers would say that, wouldn't they?

Meanwhile, the Times says that Gordon Brown is backing away from a threat to resign if he loses (I must have missed that) but at least puts the 42 day issue objectively:

Ms [Jacqui] Smith said after the meeting that she had detected clear movement among MPs towards accepting the proposals.

Off message

Sir Ken Macdonald, the director of public prosecutions has again questioned the need for the period for which suspected terrorists can be held without charge to 42 days. According to the Guardian, he said:

that it was "a question for parliament whether this is directed against a real problem or not".

Or maybe a political stunt?

Splitting Straws

The Guardian story that the Cabinet is "split" over the proposal for 42 days detention without charge appears to be based on attempts by Jack Straw to distance himself from the move.

Straw had his chance to oppose the Iraq war but went along with it. He has since hinted that he was against. But his sole purpose in being in the government seems to be to stay in the government.

The national security card is a joker

The government's attempts to play the national security card are now so blatant that surely no-one takes them seriously any more. Struggling to get a majority for her (Brown's) pointless and entirely political plans to extend detention without trial to 42 days, Home Secretry Jacqui Smith has claimed that the threat from terrorism is "growing".

Meanwhile, former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith has criticised the judges who overturned the government's decision to stop the BAE/Saudi corruption inquiry. Strange really as the decision was supposedly taken by the head of the Serious Fraud Office. Anyway, Goldsmith has accused the judges of "not living in the real world". Or are the government's claims that the UK would have lost out on vital Saudi intelligence just a fantasy, as Robert Baer suggests in today's Independent on Sunday.