Brown Begins To Slip

Well, I suppose expecting Brown and his gang to keep up the good news of decent policies for a whole month was a little much to expect. However, the announcement today of the construction of the two largest aircraft carriers Britain has ever owned and the extension of the right to detain people without charge from 28 days (which was iniquitous anyway) to 56 days, reveals that he is no different from his predecessors and cannot shake off the obsessions with war and authoritarian control of the state. If you cannot find sufficient evidence to charge someone within a week of holding them prisoner let alone a month or two months, what is the point in holding them. This policy smacks of the kind of 'protective custody' the Nazis use, i.e. putting people in concentration camps. I could tolerate arms expenditure on the grounds that it has created secure employment for a few thousand people in Portsmouth until 2016 but authoritarian detention policies which have no impact on crime or terrorism are simply unnecessary and show that, unfortunately, Brown shares much of Blair's perverse view of how we should be ruled.