Caller to BBC Radio 5 discussion on today’s court ruling against the indefinite incarceration of terrorist suspects in Belmarsh: “I believe in the majority, not the individual!” It was almost enough to make me sympathetic towards Patrick Mercer, the Tory who is luckless enough to be “shadow secretary of state for homeland security” – that is, shadowing a ministry that doesn’t exist – who appeared on the programme too. Mercer made the sound point that, if we are serious that these men are evil terrorists, we should put them on trial, and that legal powers already exist for this.
I wonder if he will be present at the vote on the ID Card Bill? Many of the Tory front bench are supposedly going to be unaccountably absent after Michael Howard decided to support the Bill over their objections. He now supports both Labour’s worst policies – is he the first politician to castrate himself twice?