Jon Bright (London, OK): You might remember the case of Babar Ahmad which Steven Taylor posted on in these pages a couple of months ago. The petition to prevent his extradition, which reached over 5,000 signatures, received it's official government response yesterday, and provided more ammunition for those who think power only flows in one direction in this country.

The petition asked a simple question: Ahmad is accused of committing a crime in the UK - so why can't he be tried in the UK?

The official response is as follows:

The US authorities have sought Babar Ahmad's extradition on terrorist related offences. The case is governed by the provisions of the Extradition Act 2003. The case has been considered by the courts and by the Home Secretary. The current position is that Babar Ahmad has exhausted all of the available domestic avenues for contesting the US request for his extradition.

However, he has since made a further application to the European Court of Human Rights. That remains under consideration and, pending the outcome, no further steps towards surrender are being taken. In these circumstances, the case is still before the courts and it would not be right to comment further.

This would be a satisfactory response if the question had been "who on earth is Babar Ahmad?". Otherwise it represents nothing more than a patronising pat on the head: "go back to sleep" the government tells us, "we're sorting things out". Immensely frustrating.