The London Blasts: Media Review

THREE MONTHS ON - FOUR YEARS ON

DAY 92: 7 October 2005

The Fourth Anniversary Of The Invasion Of Afghanistan

Contents

Blame God - Bush's Rationale For Invading Iraq

Blame Iran - Blair Repeats The Lie

Repression - Amendments And Outrage

Today we're short of time. Just snippets. Maybe you prefer it that way?

SNIPPETS

BLAME GOD

Guardian front page: 'George Bush: "God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq" '. No comment.

BLAME IRAN

Tony Blair follows up the allegations of Iranian interference in Iraq (allegations from Britain!):

'"What is clear is that there has been new explosive devices used, not just against British troops, but elsewhere in Iraq.'

' "The particular nature of these devices lead us either to Iranian elements or to Hizbollah, because they are similar to the devices used by Hizbollah, which is funded and supported by Iran." ' (Independent, page 2)

Not so, as we discussed yesterday.

REPRESSION - AMENDMENTS

'Home Office in climbdown on terrorism laws' (Times, page 8) Well, not much of one. Just on 'glorification' of terrorism:

'The offence of glorifying terrorism will still feature in a Terrorism Bill, to be published next week, but it will have to be proved that the person making the statement intended to incite further terrorist acts.'

'Critics had said that the previous wording was too wide. It would have applied to terrorist acts in the past 20 years and any historic terror incident put on a list compiled by the Home Secretary of the day.'

'The list has now been abandoned after criticism that it would ignite a debate centred on one person’s freedom fighter being another’s terrorist.'

Other crimes still to be introduced.

'Clarke backs down on anti-terror plan' (Telegraph, page 2) has more details:

'Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, has abandoned plans published just a few weeks ago to crack down on extremist preachers who "glorify" terrorist atrocities.

'... It will be an offence to glorify a terrorist act only if it can be proved that the person making the statement intended to encourage or induce further atrocities. However, since it is already an offence to incite someone to carry out a terrorist act, either in Britain or abroad, it is unclear how the new wording will make any difference.'

'The new Bill is also expected to contain powers to shut down mosques that are being used as a base for terrorist supporters. A consultation paper published yesterday proposes a step-by-step procedure that could lead to the closure of places of worship that have fallen into the hands of extremists.'

'Mr Clarke made clear that he was sticking to his plans to give police the power to detain terrorists suspects for up to three months without charge compared to the current 14-day maximum. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said a case for a three-month detention period had not yet been made.'

The Conservatives are to the left of New Labour. (Well, Mr Davis is.)

'Ex-law lords say anti-terror proposals are "intolerable"' (Independent, page 8):

'Lord Steyn and Lord Lloyd of Berwick, who until recently sat as full-time judges in the Lords, say they are particularly concerned about powers to hold terror suspects for up to three months without charge.'

Lots of other good stuff in this piece.

Home Office Minister Hazel Blears has written ('Terror tools')to the Telegraph complaining about Philip Johnston's recent (3 October) article. Nothing in her letter detracts from the force of his observations.

JNV welcomes feedback.