Civitas Blog

Is summer now the season for publications pushing increased government intrusion into private conduct? The warm air has been accompanied by the somewhat chillier sensation of the release of two reports with some joyously Orwellian titles: The Politics of Public Behaviour from Demos and Creatures of Habit? The Art of Behavioural Change from the Social Market Foundation. From the mechanisms discussed in both these titles, it seems that the aspiration to get the state more involved in people’s lives remains as strong as ever among many policymakers, but combined (perhaps dangerously) with fresh research into behavioural economics.

Crime in Middlesbrough is nearly twice the national average so it is surprising to see the police there have the time to detain members of the public for crimes that do not exist. Perhaps they need reminding that crimes (in a free country, at least), with few exceptions, involve theft or damage of property or the harming of another person. [via Samizdata]

ID cards are being re-branded. The objective remains exactly the same, to create a national database with an associated biometric ID card. The difference is the softly, softly approach to introducing them to keep the scheme associated with the public’s security fears. It will cover first non-EU migrants, then ‘sensitive personnel’ such as baggage handlers, followed by those who work with children. Very similar to the plan as set out in a leaked internal document from earlier this year.

While the new structure to the scheme will certainly be easier to spin, the more essential problem remains how government can be trusted with more of our personal data. Just yesterday, a National Audit Office report found that the criminal justice system handles data so poorly that two-thirds of parole cases are deferred because necessary information is frequently unavailable. Perhaps Jacqui Smith should be trying to sort out this wasteful mess before spinning for creating a brand new one? The government line tends to be ‘this will be different, this uses biometric information which will keep identities secure’. However, as the Guardian journalist Ben Goldacre explained last year, remarkably cheap methods for fooling fingerprint scans have already been discovered. And once your biometric data has been stolen, it is rather difficult to get a new set like one can with bank security numbers!

The Daily Mail reports that one in eight entries on the police’s growing DNA database is incorrectly inputted, threatening to associate the DNA signature of a criminal with the record of an innocent member of the public. In the future innocent people could be arrested on the basis of an error made by a data entry clerk, a possibility imagined before in Terry Gilliam’s 1985 film Brazil, set in a totalitarian state with an ever-bungling bureaucracy.

The problem is that even if the government could sort out these problems, DNA evidence will never be a magic bullet to save our criminal justice system. Part of why it is so successful at the moment is that it is still a comparatively novel technology that average criminals have yet to learn to exploit. If it comes to be relied on in the majority of cases, dispersing other people’s DNA around a crime scene, in order to put police off the scent, will become much more commonplace and evidence based on it will become just another thing for lawyers and juries to examine, trying to tease out the facts from mere conjecture. To make criminal justice effective, as discussed last week, we need a system that concentrates on reducing crime rather than "managing" offenders.

A terrorised pensioner died of a heart attack during an attack on his home in a dispute over a parking space at a supermarket. What makes this story especially worrying is that a policeman (and friend of the defendants) traced the 79-year-old by his car registration number, using the police national computer database. There is no word in the news on what legal action the policeman will face, which is strange considering that accessory to manslaughter would be appropriate.

Should MPs’ be exempt from police bugging when conversing with terrorist suspects being held in detention and awaiting extradition?

Forget, for a moment, whether any laws or protocols were broken when police recorded the conversations between Labour MP for Tooting Sadiq Khan and his childhood friend and constituent the Islamist terror-suspect Babar Ahmed.

What laws should govern cases of this kind?

Via Samizdata, we learn that the government is getting into the broadband Internet business, intending to create a million new compulsory ‘customers’ for the big Internet Service Providers by ‘requiring parents to provide their children with high-speed internet access’. The government claims it has been putting ‘pressure’ on companies to lower their broadband costs. How much pressure is really required to make a deal with corporations that involves giving them millions of customers who are not allowed to say no? I imagine a rather limp handshake would be sufficient.

Professor Julian Le Grand has a radical strategy for tackling the supposed problems of ill health in the UK: smoking permits (which might require a doctor’s note), an ‘exercise hour’ for company employees, a ban on additional salt in foods, more free fruit in general and more stern notes sent to the homes of children that have been found to be obese. Le Grand calls this broad sweep of measures ‘libertarian paternalism’, claiming, perversely that none of these actually restrict individual freedom. Wouldn’t ‘libertarian paternalism’ be more normally understood as a friendly word of advice without the backing of force?

Last week, Alcohol Concern, ‘the National Agency on Alcohol Misuse’, managed to generate a significant amount of media coverage with its recommendation to ‘make it illegal to provide alcohol to anyone under the age of 15.’ The reasoning behind this was that since unsupervised consumption of alcohol is spiralling, along with associated anti-social behaviour, among young people, the natural solution is to imprison parents who offer a thimble of wine to their child at the dinner table.

When faced with that as a consequence of their proposal on the BBC’s Today programme, Alcohol Concern’s spokesperson argued that the change in the law was still necessary in order to ‘send a message’. I am not sure what sort of message about this society would be sent out if Jewish Passover services (where every family member is encouraged to drink a traditional sweet red wine throughout the evening) were raided by the police, but I doubt the delinquents in town centres will see the relevance to them. The alternative 'message', that such laws won't be enforced to the letter so best to work out one's own interpretation of justice would be the likely unintended consequence.

There are already some voices calling for personal Sharia law to be applied in parts of the UK. Is it anything to worry about? Recent German experience suggests that any such calls ought to be firmly resisted.

Continue reading at the Centre For Social Cohesion blog.

The new Educational Conscription blog is chronicling the burgeoning opposition to government proposals to extend compulsory education up to the age of 18. The big shift in policy is not the increased availability of further education to young people, a long held and frequently frustrated government aspiration. Instead, it is the use of coercion, with the threat of sanction, to ensure young people comply with these objectives. Fearing that the value of their educational initiatives won’t be evident, the government wants to give young people an offer they can’t refuse. Hence, the correct approach is to examine this as a civil liberties issue – not as just another initiative in the myriads of education reforms.

'Smith!' screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen. '6079 Smith W.! Yes, you! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You're not trying. Lower, please! That's better, comrade. Now stand at ease, the whole squad, and watch me.'

A sudden hot sweat had broken out all over Winston's body. His face remained completely inscrutable. Never show dismay! Never show resentment! A single flicker of the eyes could give you away.

The government is expanding its scheme of ‘talking’ CCTV Cameras to various town centres around the country.

The year is 1780. A sailing ship is ploughing through heavy seas across the Atlantic, loaded almost to the gunwales with a cargo of human beings. They are chained together on narrow shelves, soaked in sweat, blood, vomit and excrement.

In a smart London club, an elegant young graduate fresh from Cambridge is seated at the gambling table, delighting his friends with his wit and charm. From a business family and already an MP, he has a fortune behind him and a promising career ahead.

Who would imagine that these two worlds could have anything in common? Yet that young man was to become the principal instrument in the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, the bicentenary of which we celebrate this week, writes Dr Peter Heslam.

With great fanfare the BBC has launched a prime time documentary called The Trap – What Happened to our Dream of Freedom. It is the usual bravely radical, groundbreaking BBC stuff of course. In other words it is full of soft left clichés recycled from the heyday of collectivism, writes Graham Cunningham.

I was reminded of that 1960’s folk music ditty Little Boxes, popularised by Pete Seeger. Older readers may remember it. Here are a few snatches from memory:

And the people on the box
All went to the university,
Where they ticked all the trendy boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's teachers and film directors,
And tv executives,
And they're all full of radical-chic tacky
And they all think just the same.

OK I confess. I might have changed the words a bit!

Today’s Times reports the last-minute cancellation, for what were reported to have been ‘bureaucratic’ reasons, of a three-day programme of lectures and seminars due to have begun at the University of Leeds yesterday, organised by its German department.

The speaker was to have been a visiting German academic, and his subject how the Nazis deliberately stirred up anti-Semitism in the Middle East, a region that had previously been comparatively free of this pathology but where it is now rife in its most virulent form.

As mentioned, the University denies having cancelled any lecture for fear it might offend Muslim students of whom several had reportedly complained to it about them.

Puzzled as to what possible ‘bureaucratic issues’ could have required cancellation of a lecture, given the programme had reportedly been publicised three weeks ago, your intrepid reporter made enquiries of the University's Press Office and was given the following explanation that he was told he could attribute to the University Secretary:

'The decision to cancel a public lecture by Dr Kuentzel has nothing to do with academic freedom, freedom of speech, anti-semitism or Islamophobia, and those claiming that is the case are making mischief. Nor is the University bowing to protests or threats from interest groups or individuals.

'The lecture has been cancelled on safety grounds alone and because - contrary to our rules and protocols - no assessment of risk to people or property was carried out, no stewarding arrangements were in place and the University was not given sufficient notice to ensure safety and public order (the lecture came to our attention less than 36 hours before it was due to take place).

'We value academic freedom and remain committed to promoting and positively encouraging free debate, enquiry and, indeed, protest. We tolerate a wide range of views, political as well as academic, even when they are unpopular, controversial or provocative.

'Where meetings are potentially controversial, we have a duty to protect the safety of participants in the event, and other people within the vicinity, and to ensure that public order is maintained. The University cannot allow an event to take place without the necessary arrangements in place.'

In view of this explanation, we can look forward to the lecture being rescheduled to some future occasion which will allow the University time to make adequate stewarding arrangements for them.

In the meantime, those wishing to learn more of what the German academic would have said had he been able to give his talk can click onto the following link to a highly informative article of his on this very important subject.

I should also point out that, in a separate communication from the University, I have been asked to state that, contrary to what was reported in the Times, the lecture-seminar programme has not been called off, only the public lecture that was part of it. Two seminars on the subject that are reserved for its students alone are going ahead.

By the way, as I recall, the Nazis perfected the technique of using violence and its threat to suppress speakers whose views or race they did not like. Could this technique have been something they also passed onto the Middle East along with their anti-Semitism?

Before long, many of us will be sitting on Adam Smith. The Bank of England has just launched a new £20 note bearing an image of the Scottish philosopher and inventor of economics, writes Dr Peter Heslam.

It isn’'t clear whether the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, had anything to do with the decision. – He is a Smith enthusiast who is proud to share his birthplace of Kirkcaldy. In any event, it is a remarkable choice, given the way Smith’'s ideas are often associated with precisely what is wrong with the global economy today: its relentless, unethical pursuit of the free market, to the detriment of humanity.

Perhaps if the truth were known we wouldn’'t be so surprised. After all, Smith argued that the economy could function in the interests of all only if it was held in check, both by the state and by morality. In fact, he insisted that it could not thrive apart from a culture steeped in virtue.

He was also the first serious thinker to suggest that there was a solution to global poverty. It was not charity, philanthropy, state power or any other top-down or paternalist strategy; it was the freedom of the individual to pursue their own economic self-interest. Only this –directed as it was by the ‘invisible hand’ of Providence –had the capacity to unleash the human creativity necessary for economic prosperity.

Smith went further. The very aim of human society, he said, should be ‘universal affluence’ through the creation of wealth. This would put the economy at the service of human beings, rather than vice versa, liberating people from the prison of poverty and scarcity that was the inevitable consequence of the subsistence model that had dominated human history.

It was not the Make Poverty History campaign of 2005, therefore, that first inspired the public to think that something could be done about global poverty. It was Smith'’s book The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776 – a time when, even in the West, most people were poor.

Smith'’s own hand in economic affairs may now be invisible, but if we are to address contemporary global poverty, the ideas he articulated are worth revisiting. The new £20 in our pockets will be a reminder to do so. In this way, it may exert a greater influence for the good of humankind than through its purchasing power alone.

Dr Peter Heslam is director of Transforming Business at Cambridge University (www.transformingbusiness.net)

John Reid, in honour of little known and even lesser practiced ‘Safer Internet Day’, has launched another barrage of verbal torpedoes over the issue of sex offenders using the Internet. The plan is to force released sex offenders to register their online identities (email addresses and usernames) with the government so that their communications with others including children can be tracked and dangerous behaviour ‘flagged’ before anything in the real world takes place. Unfortunately, both the strategy and implementation of this place seems to be based on little more than one or two ‘Paedofinder General’ sketches from the television series Monkey Dust.

If it is one thing that the Government is eager to keep in the latest fads and fashions, it is the criminal justice system. In fact, it seems like only yesterday that the last round of changes came in under the Police and Justice Act. You could be forgiven for that nagging feeling as it was only last week. The very morning after, the Serious Crime Bill was published as it went for an initial House of Lords reading. With another, so far unpublished, Criminal Justice Bill due in the spring, the government really is spoiling us. Confused? The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) certainly are as they are still talking about a ‘Serious and Organisated Crime Bill’ [sic] in their press release (via Samizdata), yet this went through Parliament in 2005!

At the end of 2004, the Law Lords ruled detention without trial of terror suspects unlawful where the nature or source of the evidence against them made their trials inexpedient, and, if foreign, where the risk their ‘human rights’ might be violated if returned home ruled out deportation.

The then Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, responded to this ruling by introducing ‘control orders’ about whose likely efficacy I forecast in a blog about the matter I posted on the Civitas website at the time: ‘Control orders are unlikely to prove any more effective against genuine terrorists than ASBO’s have proved in restraining juvenile delinquents of which … in some areas of England every one is breached. ‘

Today’s Times leads with the story that ‘a British-born terror suspect was on the run last night after breaking his control order and evading police by taking shelter in a mosque.’ Apparently, the man absconded within four days of the order being placed on him earlier this month.

On Friday 5 January, a twenty-seven year old Muslim from Birmingham, Umran Javed, was found guilty of soliciting murder and stirring up racial hatred during the Danish cartoon protests in London. It is alleged that Javed led a 300-strong crowd of demonstrators in London, chanting such comments as “"Denmark, you will pay, with your blood, with your blood”, “Bomb, bomb Denmark".

”While this rare case appears to be justified – to a jury at the Old Bailey, – the policy of a modern government should maintain a view on the absolute liberty of opinion and public protest, since it is only in the rarest of cases –such as this - in which one has encroached upon the liberty of others –- should any intervention be sought by law or parliament, writes James McConalogue.

Pope Benedict XVl delivered his controversial lecture at the University of Regensburg on Friday 15th September. His lecture was controversial because it included a quotation from a 14th century text that was highly critical of Islam.

The inclusion of that passage ignited massive protests around the world from Muslims who claimed that it had insulted their religion and its founding prophet. In the Middle East, churches were burnt in protest, and, in one north African country, a nun murdered in apparent retaliation for what the Pope had said.

Where there have been demonstrations against the Pope, some have merely demanded that he apologise for having insulted their religion. Others have gone further, calling for the Pope to be killed by way of punishment. Demonstrations of this latter sort arguably verge on incitement.

On the Sunday following the lecture, a widely reported demonstration against the Pope took place outside Westminster Cathedral at which various placards were displayed and slogans chanted that bordered on calling on Muslims to kill the Pope in revenge for including the quotation in his lecture.

This demonstration was well-attended by police who received a score of complaints from those attending the Cathedral service that morning who claimed to have been upset and intimidated by what they witnessed upon leaving it.

Although a spokesman for the CPS is reported to have not ruled out that some prosecutions may result from what was said at the demonstration, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair is today reported as being satisfied none were.

He is reported as having said of the demonstration: ‘We are living in an angry time. It is the job of the Metropolitan Police to hold the line of free speech and it is a difficult line to hold. But in this particular case I am satisfied there were no offences committed by anybody.’

On the Sunday of the demonstration, a Catholic medical student living in London who keeps a blog attended the service in the Cathedral. This is what he posted about the demonstration that same day:

‘My family decided this Sunday to make the trip to Westminster Cathedral together. As we came out about 100 Islamists were chanting slogans such as "Pope Benedict go to Hell", "Pope Benedict you will pay, the Muja Hadeen are coming your way", "Pope Benedict watch your back", and other pretty hateful things.

‘There were about 100 police around and about keeping an eye on things and video recording the protestors. I asked if they'd be prosecuted, and the policeman sounded edgey. He said they'd been warned about their behaviour already but arresting any of them might just fuel them up ever more.’

In light of this personal testimony, backed up by several photographs taken at the time by him and posted along with his account, presumably Sir Ian Blair’s denial that any offences were committed at the demonstration illustrates what sort of policing he had in mind for the capital on appointment when he introduced a new logo for the force which runs: ‘Working Together for a Safer London’.

That this form of policing may result in Rome or elswhere in the world becoming less safe is presumably of no concern to the Met.

Some deep-seated problems, including high crime, falling education standards, unsustainable immigration, the low quality of the NHS, and rising welfare dependency are not being properly confronted by our political leaders. In particular, political discussion of public services like health and education still seems wedged halfway between the age of collectivism and a more consumer-friendly alternative.

Discussions are taking place across the political spectrum about the next steps and Recalibrating the Right is our contribution. It argues that we need to re-think the guiding principles of a free society, the obligations we owe each other and the traditional values we should uphold in order to discover the beliefs we should embrace in the immediate future. What's good about our country - and there's plenty to admire - and what's gone wrong? How can we come together to fix the problems that our political leaders are afraid to confront? What should be the relationship between a people and its government?

The first chapter sets out the guiding principles for reform and we are publishing it online to give our supporters a chance to contribute to our emerging work. We invite anyone who is interested to contribute their thoughts before the draft is finalised and published as a book. There are two ways to contribute: you can email us at this address or you can comment via this blog.

Rory Bremner has published a good article in today's Daily Telegraph about freedom.

The bravest and most articulate apostate critic of Islam in the West has been stabbed in the back by those who should have most supported her.

The manner and speed with which Dutch immigration minister and aspirant leader of the liberal party (VVD) Rita Verdonk yesterday set about the task of stripping fellow- party member and Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali of her citizenship because of lies she had admitted she told when applying for asylum some 14 years ago are as truly and utterly appalling as they herald a form of capitulation to those who would prefer appeasement to Dutch Islamists than confrontation that is truly dismaying in terms of what it heralds for the future of this once liberal nation.

We received this as an email yesterday. What follows is a detailed and clear explanation of the (sinister) implications of ID card / National Identity Register database legislation. The email finished with the words: “If you did not know the full scope of the proposed ID Card Scheme before and you are as unsettled as I am at what it really means to you, to this country and its way of life, I urge you to email or photocopy this and give it to your friends and colleagues and everyone else you think should know and who cares.”

Today’s Times carries a report about Abdul Rahman, the 41 year-old Afghani facing trial in his home country for what still remains there the capital offence of having converted from Islam to Christianity, something he did some fourteen years ago whilst residing in Pakistan. Apparently, it is reported, he might be able to avoid the death penalty by pleading being unfit to stand trial by virtue of insanity.

One need not be a follower of the libertarian anti-psychiatrist, Thomas Szasz, who rejected the very notion of mental illness, to be disinclined to pin one's hopes for this poor man’s future on faith in any such a sanity clause.

The reason the man should not be having to face trial or the death penalty for having done what he is alleged to is not that he is unfit to plead by virtue of insanity. It is, rather, that he has no case to answer, having done nothing for which he deserves to stand trial or be punished in having left his previous faith for another.

The time has come to strip the BBC of its status as a public service broadcaster. A programme broadcast on 5 October 2005 called 'Little Kinsey' manifested such a distortion of its source material that we can no longer depend upon the integrity of the BBC's factual programmes.

The full press release is here.

The report by Norman Dennis is here. (PDF - large file)

If proof were needed that, on occasion at least, the pen can be a match for the sword, it has been more than amply provided by the recent spectacle of widespread disturbances within the Muslim world over the publication by a small Danish newspaper of cartoons of the prophet, Mohammed.

Ostensibly, what has affronted the protestors has been the cartoons violating an injunction of their religion forbidding pictorial representations of him. Since drawings of Mohammed have long existed in both the Muslim world as well in the West without occasioning comparable protests, their true cause must lie elsewhere.

If any conjuncture of events could have been better tailored to give liberals of all shades cause to ponder exactly where the acceptable limits of freedom of expression should be set by law, few can be thought of being so well suited for the purpose than the rare and striking combination of events to which we have recently been witness.

They comprise the on-going world-wide wave of Muslim protests sparked by the publication by a Danish newspaper of cartoons of their prophet, Mohammed; the recently concluded separate and quite independent trials of Abu Hamzu and David Irving for each havinf expressws views which has resulted in their receiving substantial custodial sentences; and, finally, the still unresolved confrontation with the law of Nick Griffin and his fellow British National Party member for having publicly aired certain disparaging opinions about Islam.

What should a consistent liberal’s position be in relation to these several cases, all involving expression of opinion or publication of images? Should all be permitted by law? Should none be? Alternatively, if what is called for is a more nuanced approach, by reference to what principle or set of principles can and should liberals determine which forms of expression may and should be allowed by law within a country, and which should not?

One of the most persuasive arguments for taking up smoking again seems to me to be the news that it has now been banned across England. It’s a civil liberty thing – pubs should be allowed to choose. As for ID cards – civil liberties are relevant counterargument, but the imbecility of the measures owes more to the government’s inability to make such an ambitious scheme work, the exorbitant costs, and the imminent failure to achieve any of the stated objectives for national safety. Now, the anti-terror legislation being debated in the Commons tempts me to start attending libertarian rallies or hollering about the glories of Fascist freedom fighters and Marxist revolutions.

Let’s be clear that the terror bill has got nothing to do with being firm on terrorism. The offence of glorification owes more to Downing Street's obsession with being seen to do something than a wish to tackle terrorism in a meaningful way. The Conservative shadow attorney general Dominic Grieve has said his party will back the plans to ban indirect encouragement of terrorism, but has rightly accused the government of trying to manufacture a ‘dust up’ so that Mr Blair can claim other politicians aren’t protecting the public. ‘This is a bogus spat,’ he said this morning on the Today programme, ‘generated by No 10 Downing Street for the purpose of the prime minister looking tough.

There are, I think, two points which show that this is the case.

‘There should always be charity and goodwill between different beliefs; toleration must be the norm, but even toleration has its limits. Locke would not have believed in insulting publications….’

Thus writes William Rees Mogg in an op-ed in last Monday’s Times entitled ‘Tolerating the Intolerable: Even Locke, our greatest prophet of liberty, would never have defended those offensive cartoons’.

In seeking to recruit the great British seventeenth century philosopher to the cause of those who, whether by government edict or self-censorship, would suppress publication of the cartoons, critical of Islam, that have lately become the epicentre of a firestorm of frenzied Muslim protest throughout the world, Rees-Mogg -- normally a voice of comparative sanity in an otherwise turbulent sea of media madness -- has erred very badly indeed.

‘Muslims up in arms over all over the world at irreverent Danish newspaper cartoons of Mohammed’, ‘Death threats received by Danish and Norwegian newspapers for publishing cartoons of the Prophet', ’ ‘Middle eastern Muslim countries boycott Danish goods’, ‘Armed Fatah militia surround EU offices in Gaza after EU defends Danish Prime Minister for refusing to condemn or prosecute editor of Danish newspaper’ etc, etc, scream newspaper headlines around the world.

These headlines, or words to their effect. report the latest twists and turns in the long-running and still on-going saga of the widespread outrage that has been provoked within the Muslim world by the publication of irreverent cartoons of Mohammed in a Danish newspaper last September and since in other European newspapers.

Time was when I would have been appalled by how out of all proportion to its ostensible cause was the scale of this latest outburst of Muslim outrage and indignation. But if there is such a thing as jihad-fatigue, I am beginning to suffer from it.

By this I do not mean to imply that the death threats and boycott threats should not be taken seriously by those at whom they have been directed, as well as by the authorities whose job it is to protect their recipients. I mean that it has become all to sickeningly clear that the numerous Muslims throughout the world who have responded so disproportionately to this latest perceived failure by non-Muslims to extend towards their religion the deference that they consider it due are no longer worthy of being taken seriously, intellectually or morally.

The disproportion of their sound and fury to what they claim has been its cause reveals that there is simply no other way in which to respond to them, save to say:

David Cameron is right to be opposing ID cards, as reported in the Daily Telegraph this morning. Everything Blair and co. do is designed to grow government at the expense of civil society and the individual. This is yet another example. And even more cogent arguments against ID cards can be made, not on the basis of civil liberties, but on the feasibility and cost of the scheme.

Are ID cards a proper response to the terrorist threat? Simply, no: they are the wrong answer to the problems of crime and security. They will offer the illusion of safety based on technology not intelligence. ID cards in Spain did not prevent the Madrid bombings, nor would they have done anything to stop 9/11. Richard Reed, like most terrorists, did not hide his identity, only his intention.

Are ID cards going to be effective in controlling immigration? There are already so many illegals in Britain – the government guesses there could be as many as 570,000 illegal immigrants (multiply that by three to get a more accurate estimate) – as to render the scheme almost pointless. The only way it would work would be if ID cards were mandatory for every British citizen, and the borders were far more effectively policed.

Are ID cards going to stop benefit fraud? Less than 2 per cent of benefit fraud is due to ID fraud; instead, benefit fraudsters tend to misrepresent their circumstances. The fact that there are 73 million live national insurance records, but only 46.5 million in the country entitled to a national insurance record hardly fosters confidence in the government's ability to run such a scheme.

Are ID cards going to stop ID fraud? Biometric testing can hardly be said to be failsafe. Even if with three biometric measures it could be said to be 99.9 per cent effective, there would still be a 1 in 48,000 failure rate, which means that someone would be able to access several different records using his own biometrics in order to create different identities (99.9 per cent is, by the way, beyond the realm of possibility).

Are ID cards going to stop crime? If they ever catch them, police rarely have trouble identifying suspects, only proving they're guilty. Cards won't deter criminals unless the government gives police stop and search powers and, again, for this to be effective the card would have to be mandatory. It’s difficult to see what difference ID cards would make, unless the criminal kindly leaves his propped up on the mantlepiece after stealing your DVD player.

‘I pass protesters every day at Downing Street, and believe me, you name it, they protest against it. I may not like what they call me but I thank God they can. That's called freedom’

Not only does that statement, made by Tony Blair in 2002, sound intolerably smug, but it’s also become increasingly untrue...

It's well worth reading Roger Scruton's interview on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the publication of The Meaning of Conservatism. Part I is at the Right Reason blog site. Part II of the interview by Max Goss is here.

Despite making light of it in a leader that parodies the diary he might currently be keeping in some remote cave dwelling in a far off land, the report in today’s Daily Telegraph that Verso Books has just brought out, in a specially commissioned new English translation, a collection of all statements made by Osama bin Laden between 1994 and 2004 is no laughing matter.

For the same week has also seen reports, not only that the Queen is now an Al Qaeda target, but that Islamic web-sites have recently been showing a video made by the British-born July suicide-bomber, Mohammed Siddique Khan, shortly before he blew himself up along with fellow passengers on the London Underground, in which he calls on his fellow British Muslim brothers and sisters to join him in the jihad that the Saudi Sheikh declared on the West some years ago, whose text Verso Books has now so responsibly and obligingly brought to the nearest bookshop of every university campus in the country, where, doubtless, many an impressionable confused and alienated young man and woman will have ample opportunity to read it at leisure, doubtless impressed by the apparent veneer of legitimacy the new imprint has given his views.

The publishers are quick to claim that, in publishing them, they are not implying their agreement with them. Rather, they claim on their web-site that they have decided to published bin Laden's statements to ‘demythologise the terrorist network’.

‘The idea is to have an annotated, scholarly collection of bin Laden’s words. Until now, his words have only been available in poor translations or sound-bites’, so one of Verso’s editors is reported to have explained.

According to the report in the Telegraph , one of the things the book makes clear is that, among the terms of surrender on which the Sheikh is apparently insisting before being willing to call off his war against the West, is that it discontinues ‘alcohol and gambling’ as well as displaying adverts that contain photographs of women who, apparently, are also required to step down from all jobs in which they serve ‘passengers, visitors, and strangers’.

While being, therefore, most unlikely to attract to his cause any chavs or Essex boys and girls, the views of bin Laden contained in the book are unlikely to be nearly as off-puting to any disaffected young British Muslims who might stumble upon the book, many of whom seem especially vulnerable at the ,moment to being drawn into the more fundamentalist and intolerant versions of their faith such as that which are espoused in it.

In light of this undoubted fact, it was arguably the height of cynical irresponsibility on Verso’s part to decide to commission and publish the book.

After having seen Parliament emasculate the Anti-Terrorism Bill by reducing the maximum period terror suspects can be detained without trial from 90 to 28 days, its remaining provisions are now under assault from the Muslim groups created by the government after 7/7 to give advice on how it should go about improving relations between Muslims and non-Muslims.

Today’s Guardian reports these groups are claiming such provisions of the bill as that proscribing the glorification of terrorism will only serve still further to alienate young British Muslims, thereby increasing their likelihood of ending up recruited in the ranks of Al Qaeda's suicide-bombers.

They claim these clauses will antagonise these young Muslims if enacted because they will then no longer feel able to engage lawfully in what they consider to be perfectly legitimate support of ‘self-determination struggles around the world’. For example, these groups are reported to have claimed, “the extremely fine line” between empathising with the Palestinian cause and justifying the actions of suicide bombers could no longer be drawn with any legal certainty.

Similarly, they claim, any list compiled by the Home Office of extremist websites, bookshops and organisations judged of concern will be seen as ‘censorship of all those who might criticise British foreign policy or call for political unity among Muslims.’

Instead of anti-terror legislation, what should begin, the Muslim advisory groups claim, is a ‘dialogue’ between British Muslims and others.

There are several puzzling things about these expressed concerns and proposals.

First, the Muslim groups opposed to the anti-terror bill for the reasons rehearsed above also tend to favour a Religious Hatred Law proscribing incitement of hatred towards those of their faith. They are apparently unconcerned about the repeatedly expressed concerns critics of this bill have voiced that it is bound to inhibit legitimate of criticism of religions, Islamic or otherwise.

How can there be open dialogue between Muslims and non-Muslims, something for which the Muslims advisory groups are calling, if non-Muslims are to be inhibited from openly voicing critical opinion about aspects of their reigion through fear of thereby exposing themselves to prosecution for incitement to religious hatred?

Muslim critics of the anti-terror bill must abandon either support for the Religious Hatred Bill or opposition to the proposed anti-glorification of terror clause of the Anti-Terrorism Bill. They cannot expect to be able to have it both ways.

Secondly, and far more importantly, ...

‘[T]he obvious purpose of a 90-day detention law… [s]urely. was to put pressure on suspects and their associates to talk. The police would be able to pick up anyone they felt like and say: "Tell us all you know and we will let you go. Otherwise we'll hold you for three months and interrogate you all the time."

This observation is made in a letter to the editor that appears in today’s issue of the Daily Telegraph.

Given how weak were the ostensible reasons offered by the police as to why they needed power to detain suspects without trial for as many as 90 days, it seems the letter writer has hit on the real reason behind their request. Let us henceforth suppose it so.

The writer of the letter appears to think such powers excessive and unconscionable. He writes:

‘Maybe this would have helped them make some intelligence breakthroughs, maybe it would simply have generated false accusations against innocent people. Either way, it looked like a step toward Guantanamo-style torture.’

Behind all the hype and tripe served up by pundits and politicians in the last few days over this issue, it seems the real issue might be whether the current threat to national security from Islamist terror is so grave as to justify granting the authorities license to place such enormous harrowing psychological pressure on individuals in the hope thereby of extracting from them information that might enable them to prevent acts of terror.

All sides admitted there was no magic to the chosen figure of ninety days: but clearly the longer the period of detention the greater the pressure capable of being exerted.

Suppose that had the ninety day clause been passed yesterday, the extra pressure the extra sixty days would have allowed the police to exert might in the future make the critical difference in terms of their being able to extract from detainees vital information that enables them to prevent some future terror bombing that claims several hundred or thousand lives.

Would its being able to do be enough to justify this extra period of detention, even though some might be scarred for life by the experience of being detained under its terms, although entirely innocent and having been found in to possess no useful information at all?

How much suffering and psychological damage incurred by how many innocent detainees, if any, could be the morally justified price that needed to be paid to prevent the death of how many other innocent people?

These are agonising and unpleasant questions that present circumstances force us to face.

Some seem to feel the probability such an extension of police powers might be able to make a critical difference in terms of their ability to prevent terrorism is too low as to warrant being given them.

Frankly, if I knew for certain it would do so, I would have no compunction in wanting the police to be given them. But, of course, we don’t know it will do so, but we can be fairly certain that some innocent people will be made to go through hell if they are. So how are we to weigh up the balance of risks and potential benefits against each other.

Rather than all the waffle that was talked yesterday, should not such issues have been discussed by MPs yesterday?

In the wake of last week's terror suicide bombings in London, the Government is considering introducing new legislation to strengthen the country’s defences against further acts of terror.

Among the new laws under active consideration is one that would permit, if not require, non-nationals to be denied entry into the country, if they have previously been denied entry by another country, with whom the UK has friendly relations, on grounds of being suspected of having links with terrorists or terror organisations.

Should the Government introduce such a law very rapidly, someone who could well be liable to be denied entry to Britain as a result is Professor Tariq Ramadan of Geneva, due to speak later this month at a conference in London specially arranged for Muslim youth.

The reason why Professor Ramadan might be denied entry to Britain, should such new legislation be introduced is that, last summer, he was denied entry to the USA where he was due to take up a university appointment in Islamic ethics, after the US State Department revoked his entry visa at the last minute.

A spokesperson for the US State Department subsequently explained to a Washington Post reporter that it had revoked Professor Ramdan's entry visa 'under a section of the US code that bars terrorists and their associates, as well as people who have incited others to violence’.

On today’s World at One news programme, Professor Ramadan was interviewed about the possibility he might be denied entry into Britain on such grounds.

In that interview, Professor Ramadan was adamant there was absolutely no reason why he should be denied entry. He insisted he had always expressed opposition to the use of suicide bombings and other forms of terror and just as strongly denied ever having had any links with Islamic terrorists. He said:

‘There is nothing in my record. There are as many links to terrorists in my life as there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There is nothing in my life connected to terrorists.’

In view of Professor Ramadan’s assertion, it is, perhaps, time the US and UK governments should consider resuming their search for WMD in Iraq. This is because, although it went unmentioned in the BBC radio interview with Professor Ramadan, last December it was reported by the Geneva newspaper, Le Temps, that his name had become linked with that of alleged Al Qaeda member, Djamel Beghal, currently under arrest and about to face trial with others for having attempted to blow up the US embassy in Paris in 2001.

According to the post on the weblog of Daniel Pipes for 14 December 2004, this newspaper article ‘describes Beghal as an active part of the international Islamist terror network, an itinerant preacher dedicated to living as the Prophet did and to acts of violence against infidels. The part [of the indictment] salient to Ramadan concerns Beghal's having become a practicing Muslim in 1994. … At that time, according to the indictment, "he [Beghhal] took charge of preparing the lectures of Tariq Ramadan."’.

Professor Ramadan apparently does not admit ever having met or even being able to recall Djamel Beghal, but unfortunately did not reply to messages left by Le Temps seeking an interview on the subject.

Countries have no legal or moral obligation to reveal to non-nationals to whom they deny entry what their reasons were for denying them entry, if these reasons pertained to grounds for suspecting they might have had links with terrorists or terror organisations.

Prima facie, it looks as if the USA, and, by extension, therefore, the UK too, does have reason to suspect that, at one time Professor Ramadan, may have had significant links with a member of Al Qaeda.

It is also worth adding that, according to the on-line encyclopedia, Wikpedia, this suspected Al Qaeda member with whom the there is some reason to think Professor Ramndan might at one time have had significant links ‘once lived in London and attended the Finsbury Park mosque along with Richard Reid, Zacarias Moussaoui, … and other Al Qaeda suspects’.

Whether the Government should introduce legislation that would enable it to deny Professor Ramadan entry into this country before he is due to speak to Muslim youths here is a question I shall leave to readers to comment on.

It's difficult not to feel uneasy about the number of new powers that have been granted to the government. Again and again, liberties which we once held dear and which previous generations fought to safeguard are derided and dismissed: Blair and Co. have removed habeas corpus, put house arrest on the statute book, banned protesting within a kilometre of parliament, and put forward proposals for the satellite tracking of cars for road use charging - and now ID cards are on the way. Nineteen Eighty-Four has been held up by MP's in the House of Commons on a number of occasions recently. Poor Orwell: he intended his dystopia to be cautionary, not a textbook for the Cabinet.

In response to worries about holding personal information on ID cards, the government smugly replies that it can already access whatever it wants - from our tax details, to that bout of tonsillitis ten years ago, to the points on our driving licence, and the dating line we called last week. But this is not the same as having all the data on a single central database - especially since cards could someday be demanded by police on the streets or required for the use of basic public services. So with the opposition saying that ID cards are a threat to civil liberties, and the government promising that ID cards will protect our civil liberties, who is right? Are the sacrifices required by such a measure worth making?

The BBC is often accused of bias towards the Left. James Naughtie gave the game away last Wednesday (2 March) when he was interviewing Labour candidate Ed Balls. He said: "If we win the election...", and then hastily corrected himself to "If you win the election." The Observer blog has produced a short MP3 recording of Naughtie's Freudian slip.

Muslims not aware that the Blair administration is forever giving with one hand and taking away with the other should take note. For two pieces of legislation currently being rushed through Parliament – a law supposedly preventing Incitement to Religious Hatred and the Prevention of Terrorism Bill – both have the potential to foment Islamophobia.

The Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill, due to receive its Second Reading in the House of Commons on 7 March, contains proposals to ban hatred on religious grounds that will promote intolerance while seeming to encourage tolerance. Among other things, this sloppy piece of legislation would slur the difference between religion (a choice one may object to) and race (an ascribed status one may not); create unwarranted chaos over subjective terms like ‘hatred’ and ‘insulting’ (none are usefully defined in the Bill); make legal the notion that a perception of a fact is a fact (plaintiffs would be under no obligation to prove that a statement actually is capable of incitement); confuse the courts; and bring about caution in the media amounting to self-censorship.

Under this Bill, Salman Rushdie would have been punished not protected and cult satirical classics such as Not The Nine O’Clock News taken off the air. Criticism of Islamic shari’a law would be proscribed, and ‘defamation in the character of the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH)’, according to Iqbal Sacranie of the Muslim Council of Britain, would be ‘a direct insult and abuse on the Muslim community’ and illegal. Just as it is in Iran, Somalia and Syria, countries where apostates may be executed. This law is an affront to George Orwell’s dictum that ‘if liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear’.

Yet if this Bill is a cynical attempt to win over the Muslim support that Labour squandered through the war in Iraq, it would nevertheless not unambiguously favour Muslims. In Australia, where a similar law was passed, religious communities have started monitoring each other in order to bring cases: it rewards the least tolerant – those most anxious to take offence – rather than the most tolerant – those willing to turn the other cheek. Quite apart from how the BNP would exploit things, Muslims could find themselves in trouble for making even innocuous statements about Sikhs, Atheists, Scientologists, Satanists…

In The Times last Saturday Anthony Browne describes the risks many Muslims face when they convert to Christianity. One courageous individual told The Times that:

‘He and his family have been regularly jostled, abused, attacked, shouted at to move out of the area, and given death threats in the street. His wife has been held hostage inside their home for two hours by a mob. His car, walls and windows have been daubed in graffiti: “Christian bastard”.’

Mr Blair’s Government is falling over itself to pass a law against the encouragement of religious hatred at the request of the Muslim Council of Britain in the hope of winning Muslim votes. Ostensibly the measure will protect Muslims from Islamophobia, but the most serious problem we face is not the victimisation of Muslims by non-Muslims, rather it is the intimidation of former Muslims by those who have retained their faith. Few freedoms are more important than the ability to join or leave voluntary associations of all types, including religious faiths, without fear. Instead of inventing a thought crime, the Government should enforce the law against violence as it stands.

A foreign terror suspect held without trial or charge since December 2001 has been freed from Woodhill Prison. He is an Egyptian known as ‘C’. According to the Home Secretary, there was not enough evidence to maintain his ‘certification’ as a terrorist suspect. His case was due to be reviewed at a Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) hearing later this week.

At a previous appeal hearing, Home Office lawyers had argued that C was a leading member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, now allied with Al Qaeda. He was said to have been in contact with prominent extremists in the UK and had assisted in fraudulent fundraising. He was wanted in Egypt where he had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for terrorist offences.

Instead of releasing him, he should have been deported to Egypt. The counter argument is that he might be tortured or executed, but other countries, such as Sweden, have successfully agreed to extradite terrorist suspects to countries such as Egypt, Algeria and Jordan by making an agreement that prisoner will not be executed. France regularly sends terrorists back to Algeria. It is further argued that such agreements are only ‘a piece of paper’ but all these countries are friendly nations, with whom we have diplomatic relations, and often very close ties, going back many years. They have strong reasons not to break their word.

Moreover, they deserve our full co-operation in the struggle against terrorism. Looked at from the vantage point of countries such as Egypt or Jordan, it must seem as if we are giving safe haven to terrorists who threaten them. If the Human Rights Act gets in the way, then it’s yet another reason to abolish it.

Some critics of the Government’s plan to put terrorist suspects under house arrest without trial have said it would be conceding the terrorists’ case. Presumably they mean that the terrorists are totalitarians who want to crush liberal democracy. To live under a dictator is to live at the mercy of arbitrary power and to live under the arbitrary power of Charles Clarke would be similar.

Some writers, such as Bentham, understood freedom as the absence of all restraints on the individual. However, the classical liberal view is that to be free is live under law. In other words, freedom is no