Simon Carr: The Sketch
A Bill that would make Beria pretty comfortable
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Internal links
Have you been following David Blunkett's Bill? It's a bit of a new development in Britain.
It allows for people to be locked up without trial. If tried, the court proceedings would be secret. So secret that prisoners wouldn't be allowed to hear the evidence against them. Prisoners wouldn't be allowed to hire a lawyer. Their legal representation would be hired by the court and responsible to the court. The lawyer wouldn't have the right to see the accused. The decision of the court would be absolute. No appeal. Not even in secret.
It's possible things improved last night. If the Government accepted Lord Donaldson of Lymington's amendment, those convicted by the secret court will be allowed to appeal, by going back to the secret court that had convicted them in secret, to ask them to secretly overturn their decision.
It's a system that Beria would have felt really pretty comfortable with.
On the good side, only Johnny Foreigner will be subject to this regime. Not our terrorists. No, our terrorists will be punished differently, when they eventually find their way into their own private hell in the House of Commons.
This Bill is the product of the dark, choleric presence of the Home Secretary. "He bears grudges, he's bad tempered and there's a nasty undertow to much of what he does," as one of his colleagues put it so succinctly yesterday. It's true that if we're depending so completely on the discretion of a home secretary, Mr Blunkett would be the last Home Secretary you'd choose.
The Bill is the response to the events of 11 September. The measures are to aid the fight against terrorism. To that end, Mr Blunkett has signed us out of the Declaration of Human Rights, feeling as he does that the survival of the British state is threatened (if the doctors had got to him in time, a course of psychiatric medication might have been cheaper and easier).
Mr Blunkett responds badly to the proposition that his anti-terror Bill should confine itself to anti-terrorism; he wants to pack in measures to attack ordinary crime, and to create an entirely new crime of "incitement to religious hatred".
The Lib Dems want an amendment confining the new powers to what "directly or indirectly relates to a risk to national security or to a terrorist". The Government won't have a bar of it. As they said in the Lords, the Bill extends the right of state surveillance in an unprecedented way.
There are some bizarre anomalies in the body politic. Lord Rooker told the Lords of a man who had written his occupation on his tax return as Heroin Dealer: the Inland Revenue was not allowed to tell the police. There was no particular reason to believe this, other than that Lord Rooker said so. And there was something about his reasoning that was very unconvincing:
"A heroin dealer! And where does the vast majority of heroin come from? Afghanistan! Surely the amendment we proposed would allow exactly that?"
Surely it would. "I've been advised exactly the opposite," Lord Rooker said. By David Blunkett, of course.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments