The Guardian reports today that

The government is to draw up a list of extremists from all over the world, the home secretary, Charles Clarke, announced as he revealed new anti-terrorism measures today.

My question is simple: How exactly does Mr Clarke propose to define an ‘extremist’?

At first glance, the problem seems relatively easy, a simple case of including anyone who encourages others to kill themselves and others. But that ideology is more closely tied to religions around the world that you might expect – not just Islam, which this legislation is clearly unfairly aimed at, but also Christianity, the stated religion of choice for the majority of British citizens. For example, a couple of weeks ago, I saw a Christian minister preaching about David and Goliath, effectively a story about a small unlikely minority overpowering and killing their perceived enemies of a much greater force. The minister went on to say that those that helped to fight this kind of injustice were truly treasured by her god. In the minds of the perverted minority, this could be taken as a sign that they, too, should fight to kill their perceived religious enemies, and go and blow up the nearest Mosque. In the minds of the potential bombers at least, the minister would have appeared to encourage them to take this course of action, and it is undeniable that this message can be taken from the sermon and from the Bible if that is what one is looking for. So does this minister count as an extremist?

Let’s refer back to the Guardian article:

The database would list individuals who had demonstrated “unacceptable behaviour”, which would include inflammatory preaching or running websites and writing articles intended to foment or provoke terrorism.

Ah. We’ve hit a bit of a brick wall. The database includes people who have demonstrated “unacceptable behaviour”. That’s helpful. But with the given examples including “inflammatory preaching”, I can’t see any reason why our middle-of-the-road Christian minister couldn’t be on the extremist database. Except, of course, for this small clause:

He said the “unacceptable behaviour” would not be permitted by anyone with leave to enter or remain in this country, including students, asylum seekers and refugees.

So as long as our minister is British-born, it isn’t an issue. If, however, early in life – perhaps too early to remember – she had fled with her parents from persecution in Zimbabwe, she could possibly end up on this database.

But ending up on this databas – the purpose of which is sinisterly unexplained – is likely to be the least of our minister’s worries, when she considers what else is in this upcoming legislation:

He said the legislation would create three new criminal offences – acts preparatory to terrorism; indirect incitement to terrorism, which would cover those who glorified and condoned terror acts; and giving and receiving terrorist training.

This minister, in preaching what many millions have preached before her, has undoubtedly given ‘indirect incitement to terrorism’. She didn’t mean to put the idea into the perverted minds of her audience, but she’s managed to do it. That’ll be a lengthy jail sentence for her, then.

Now I’m quite likely to be accused of being silly here. People will doubtless point out that this is not what the legislation is intended for. But – and here’s something this government doesn’t seem to understand – that doesn’t matter. Laws are not restricted to what they were meant to be used for. Judges and the police have a nasty habit of sticking to the very letter of the law. That’s why laws have to be carefully constructed, debated, and re-written almost to destruction, and not rammed through Parliament to ensure as little opposition as possible.

If this government continues to make laws which are this full of gaping holes, sooner or later it’s going to turn round and bite them back. For instance, when Tony Blair encourages us to do everything possible to defeat these terrorists, is he not indirectly inciting me to go and commit a terrorist attack on foreign soil, against those I perceive to have been behind the terrorist attack here? These laws also leave the door open for a future, even less moral government to legitimately lock up their opposition – after all, speaking against the government must surely be indirect incitement to terrorism – and generally rule with an iron fist.

The government may well feel we’re under a great terrorist threat, but much of their legislation designed to combat it puts us in ever greater danger of a future much more bleak than the very occasional terror attack. In short, they need to get a grip.

Following yesterday’s publication of the Chatham House report, which was swiftly followed by mildly ridiculous denials by Tony Blair, Jack Straw, Charles Clarke, and John Reid, an argument is understandably being fought between the media and the government. The government is losing.

Shortly before the London bombings, an intelligence report claimed that

Events in Iraq are continuing to act as motivation and a focus of a range of terrorist-related activity in the UK

So Mr Blair’s denials of this show that he is not accepting what his intelligence sources are telling him. He’d prefer to spin his own version, which doesn’t get him in quite such hot political water.

Now in the face of overwhelming logic, Mr Blair has apparently seen fit to shift his argument slightly.

Of course these terrorists will use Iraq as an excuse as they will Afghanistan. But 9/11 happened before both to those and before then the excuse was US policy.

“They will always have their reasons for acting. We have to be really careful to giving into the perverted and twisted logic to which they argue.”

He said compromising on certain aspects of foreign policy would not make the terrorists go away but would enable them to argue that the UK “was on the run, let’s step it up”.

So he appears to no longer be arguing against the obvious point that attacking Iraq has provided terrorists with another ‘excuse’ for attacking us, and thus provided yet another reason, increasing the risk to the country. The third paragraph of the above quotation also shows very clearly that he’s now admitting that British foreign policy affects the actions of terrorists, something that he’s previously strenuously denied. So that’s quite a significant shift, however subtly he’s tried to make it.

In a slightly pointless exercise, the Guardian has conducted a poll which concluded that two-thirds of Britons believe that there is a link between the invasion of Iraq and the London bombings, and over half believe that Mr Blair bears some responsibility for the bombings. The value of these particular results is not really very clear, but tucked away at the bottom is a much more significant statistic: Support for ID cards has fallen, relative to polls taken both immediately after the bombings, and – crucially – before them. So, even in the face of a terrorist attack on British soil, ID card support is falling. This is particularly significant, because one of the central arguments earlier in Mr Blair’s ID cards campaign was that after any hypothetical terrorist attack, people would be angry that he had not done any more to protect them, and would not be worrying about civil liberties arguments. This has today clearly been proven to be a flawed argument.

All things considered, it would seem that the Chatham House report has played badly for the Prime Minister. But, more frustratingly, it never needed to, if only he’d accepted in the first place that foreign policy affects the terrorism risk. If handled correctly, this admission would have been much less politically damaging than this Chatham House report appears to have been, as the report has essentially made him look pretty stupid, and their handling of the attack as a whole hasn’t really helped their Terrorism policies. But then, it’s very easy to say these things with hindsight, and I’m sure that when trying to deal with a terrorist attack of this nature, life is rather more difficult. Unless, of course, you’ve got a well thought out plan. But this government isn’t really very good at planning for unexpected events, is it? Look at Iraq!

Oh, and just to make you feel extra safe, the leaked report also concluded that

At present, there is not a group with both the current intent and the capability to attack the UK.

Our lives, their hands.

Chatham House has published a report (PDF) whose conclusion is, in a nutshell…

There is no doubt that the situation over Iraq has imposed particular difficulties for the UK, and for the wider coalition against terrorism… The UK is at particular risk because it is the closest ally of the United States.

Jack Straw and Tony Blair, who have published precisely zero reports into this, are absolutely convinced that Chatham House is wrong:

“I’m astonished that Chatham House is now saying that we should not have stood shoulder to shoulder with our long-standing allies in the United States,” Mr Straw told reporters before chairing an EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels.

“The time for excuses for terrorism is over,” he said. “The terrorists have struck across the world, in countries allied with the United States, backing the war in Iraq and in countries which had nothing whatever to do with the war in Iraq.”

Of course, he’s very helpfully misrepresnted the contents of the report, which does not say that the UK should not have supported the USA, and also does not say that if we had not done so, there would be no terrorist attacks. The report merely suggests that antagonising terror cells increases the chance of a terror attack occuring. Which, logic says, it does.

Whilst terror cells are quite happy to attack many places in the Western world in order to make their voices heard, they are doubtlessly going to expend greater efforts attacking the countries which most greatly represent the ideology which they wish to attack. And if this country is attacking Muslims around the world, logic follows that we’re going to be somewhere near the top of the list. If we weren’t attacking them, we’d probably be a little lower down.

It’s also interesting to see today that Charles Clarke has decided that his ‘crucial’ new terror laws, which he claims are necessary to secure the country and help prevent further attacks like those in London, are now to be introduced only in December, because our hard-working MPs need a summer holiday, and really can’t be expected to stay back for an extra couple of weeks. If Charles Clarke continues to say that these laws are so ‘crucial’ after the summer, then I hope someone will point out to him that his own government have delayed their introduction twice – once by calling an early General Eleciton, and once by refusing a summer recall – and so they really can’t be that important.

As serious a story as this is, I think there’s room for a little humour. The Times provides this for us, with possibly the most ridiculous heading for a newspaper graphic so far this year: ‘Tentacles of Terror‘. Whoever said The Times was becoming more tabloidesque?

In all seriousness, Mr Blair and his government must begin to accept that their foreign policy has an impact at home as well as abroad. Until they do this, the country will be in much greater danger than is truly necessary.

A little over a week ago, I argued that the symbolism of the G8 was far more important that anything it would achieve. Now that the summit is over, the final communiqué has been issued, and the leaders are on their way home, have my opinions changed?

In my last piece, I pretty much wrote off anything the G8 would achieve in terms of African poverty, since I thought that

They are far to focused on Western cultures and ways of approaching problems to provide genuine solutions.

Whilst I still believe that, I think that real steps forward in the aid that is given to these countries have been made. There have been big pledges for increased monetary aid, not least in terms of $1.5bn per year to help to combat malaria – an easily preventable and treatable disease that kills a shameful number of people each year in sub-Saharan African. But aid will still remain below the UN target levels – instead of wanting to exceed the expectations placed upon us by the world in terms of helping other nations, we’re not even shamed enough by the current lack to come up to scratch and give what’s expected of us. Every step in the right direction helps, but every step not taken results in the deaths of thousands, and I just hope that in future that our government will support African governments in the ways that they themselves decide they need help to make their own countries better places.

On climate change, the communiqué is generally full of lots of non-committal bumph, generally about waiting for technology to provide the solution to all our problems instead of taking pro-active measures to reduce carbon emissions with the technology we currently have available. This is, of course, a valid strategy, and if the technology does indeed rescue us then it will provide the most effective solution. But it seems foolish to stake the future of the planet on such a gamble, and I think that it would be more wise to look at cutting greenhouse gases here and now, if only as a backup which may appear to represent a foolish overspend in future if the technology does come along to solve the problem.

In my opinion, not much has really changed policy wise at the G8 summit, especially when you consider that this was a summit of countries with the financial power that these have. But last time I suggested that

Achievements aren’t everything. The symbolism is just as important… we should celebrate the fact that at least these eight leading nations are co-operating and even holding meetings in an age of cynicism, distrust, and warfare.

Of course, I wrote that before yesterday’s terrible attacks on London, and it would be lovely if I could now say that the symbolism of these countries standing firm together against the attackers only heightened the point. But, for me, it didn’t. I have to say that I personally was disturbed to see eight of the most powerful men on Earth standing united against ‘terrorism’. Terrorism is subjective: One man’s terrorism is another man’s war. To see, therefore, eight men resolutely determined to fight an abstract subjective concept filled me with fear, far more that it did confidence and peace.

Clearly, if the G8 nations were on the verge of all-out war, the world would be worse-off, and of course we should celebrate co-operation between these nations – and, indeed, between all nations. But we should not support this open declaration of ‘War on Terror’. Warring against a concept is not just illogical, it’s also dangerous, particular with such a subjective concept. One would have hoped that the meeting of the eight greatest minds of a generation would have reached that conclusion, and the fact that it actually reached the opposite conclusion is cause for concern indeed. Of course all of the nations should condemn the callous attacks on London, resulting in the deaths of scores of people, but it is difficult to do so convincingly on the ground of ‘fighting terror’ when many of the countries around the table are active engaging in terror in Iraq, killing many times more Iraqi civilians. Why should the lives of citizens of the G8 nations be worth more than the lives of other human beings? Are we not all the same?

Following the G8 summit, I’ve been left feeling more uncertain about the value of the G8, and a little more concerned about its power and potential for destruction. We can only hope that the leaders choose to use their undeniable powers wisely… not something with which they have a good track record.

Yesterday saw the biggest terrorist attack on London in many years, as four bombs killed dozens and injured hundreds. Television schedules were cleared as an apparent power surge on the London Underground turned into something much more sinister, and the roof was blown off a double-decker bus. The contrast between the mood in London today, and the mood 24 hours ago is palpable even to me, 200 miles away.

The BMA’s building in Tavistock Square was left spattered with blood. An institution founded on the principle of helping the most needy made unclean in the name of a loving, caring religion. The G8, meeting to discuss action to be taken against many of the injustices Muslims try to fight, disrupted. Innocent bystanders killed, as specifically forbidden in the Koran. Is any further proof needed that ‘religious extremist’ is a misnomer? These people couldn’t be further removed from the very religious principles they claim to defend. They aren’t ‘religious extremists’ – they’re amoral murders who sully the good name of the religion they claim to defend.

Yet to fight a ‘war on terror’ and actively engage in combat with these people is not helpful. To do so gives them a true cause to battle against. By simply defending ourselves from their attacks, and recovering as quickly as possible when they manage to strike, we stop pro-actively providing them with reasons to attack, and make their job of recruitment much harder. Curbing our own civil liberties through ill-thought-out legislation and restrictions on our daily lives only serves to give these people hope, and a sense of achievement, to further invigorate their disturbed cause.

Dozens of people have been unexpectedly – and almost inexplicably – bereaved in this attack, and my thoughts are with them. But it is crucial that these poor people hold firm, and stand united with the rest of London against the people who committed these atrocities; and however hard it is, that means not seeking vengeance against the religion or people they claim to represent, as these are as innocent as their loved ones.

Our government must also respond properly, with correct measure, and should not try and restrict our freedoms further. As high as is the human cost of this terrible tragedy, is freedom not worth so much more? This country has certainly paid a price many times higher on many occasions during our history. Of course we should defend our country, but not at any cost. To do so simply increases the perceived success of these terrorists.

Image taken from heute.de

From the Times:

Hundreds of volunteers are being trained by police to trap drivers speeding on rural roads. The “village vigilante” scheme, which started as a local experiment in traffic policing, has quietly expanded across large swathes of the country.

I should be raging about this. I should be up in arms about the fact that the police are essentially sanctioning and aiding vigilante action. I should be pointing out that we pay police to keep law and order in this country, and they shouldn’t be out recruiting the public to do that job for them. But I can’t; it just seems like too much of a good idea.

Speeding is a huge problem in this country, and an area of widespread law-breaking. You’d think that this very fact would lead politicians to reconsider the law in the first place, but it hasn’t. That’s neither here nor there in this discussion, though, because a lot of speeding is senselessly dangerous. Therefore, to go back to a situation where people caught speeding are not issued with a fine, but instead with advice on why they shouldn’t be doing it, and thus increasing drivers’ education and understanding of the problem, can only be a very good thing. The fact that the police are asking volunteers to help out with this scheme so that they can concentrate on catching ‘real’ criminals should surely delight Daily Mail readers everywhere.

These volunteers have no police powers. They’re simply issuing advice to motorists. It’s no different to charities advising kids not to get into drugs because they can be seriously detrimental to health. So whilst I’m less than impressed with other ‘community policing’ measures such as CSOs, this doesn’t seem such a bad idea to me. So I’d broadly support the proposal.

Michael Portillo has written a piece in today’s Times that I almost entirely agree with. That doesn’t happen very often.

From the Sindie:

The cost of an NHS dental check-up is to rise sharply to help pay for a ceiling on the costliest treatments.

This government burying bad news amid all the Live8 coverage? Never.

During the election campaign, Mr Blair said

You cannot determine specifically how many people are here illegally

He even said it was impossible to estimate the number. I know, because I sat and watched the interview when he made these claims.

Also during the election campaign, John Salt came up with a figure of 500,000 illegal immigrants, which ministers called

grossly inaccurate

Of course, how they knew it was inaccurate when they were unable to make the calculations themselves is a mystery.

Now it’s quite understandable that the Labour party would be a little coy about admitting that 500,000 people are in the country illegally when an election is being fought in which immigration and asylum are central themes.

Yesterday, though, the Home Office declared that there are approximately 570,000 illegal immigrants in the country. Which is, no doubt, a help when we’re debating an ID cards bill, which is (nonsensically) supposed to tackle illegal immigration.

Clearly confused, some bright spark asked the Prime Minister’s Offical Spokesperson if it had come as a surprise to the Prime Minister that Home Office were able to produce statistics on illegal immigration given that he had said that such figures were impossible to calculate. The PMOS’s reply? That Tony Blair could not possibly have known the figure during the interview because it hadn’t yet been calculated. So why he said it was impossible to calculate, nobody really knows.

Putting to him that this was convenient that this figure had not been available during the General Election but was now being used to justify ID Cards didn’t get anybody much further. The PMOS simply replied that the figures were not being used to justify ID cards, and…

In all of this we should not lose sight that asylum applications are down 73% from the peak of October 2002.

See what he did there? He jumped from immigration to asylum, despite condemning the Tory party during the election for confusing the two in people’s minds. In answer to a question quite clearly about immigration, he tells us that asylum applications are down!

But we really shouldn’t be surprised at all this. Tony Blair’s public image no longer matters as he’s not seeking re-election, and thus is not accountable to the wider electorate any more. He can do what he likes, and get the dirty work done without having to worry about looking bad in public. And what did Alan Milburn say during the campaign?

I’d do anything to win the election.

Guess what? He has.

The G8 is one of the few groups which truly has the power to change the world at the stroke of a pen. But, despite their huge wealth, they won’t.

Even if these largely Westernised countries offer enormous aid to those most in need, their inability to see the world from the eyes of the desperate will hinder any attempt to help: They are far to focused on Western cultures and ways of approaching problems to provide genuine solutions. They can’t even agree that condoms are the best way of preventing the spreading of HIV, despite mountains of evidence proving this, so how on Earth do they hope to tackle the far trickier problems of poverty?

But just because these countries can’t get together and change the world for the better doesn’t mean that we should write the G8 off as useless. However unproductive, argumentative, and ineffective the meetings are, we should celebrate the fact that at least these eight leading nations are co-operating and even holding meetings in an age of cynicism, distrust, and warfare.

Achievements aren’t everything. The symbolism is just as important. That’s why, now more than ever, the G8 summit really matters.

Originally written for Channel 4 News