Recent articles

Guy Aitchison (London, OK): Reports this morning suggested that Brown was ready to make concessions on the 42 days, legislating for greater parliamentary and judicial scrutiny in return for the support of potential rebels. He apparently said he would “rather be right, and lose” but now recognizes that a defeat would be disastrous, possibly even fatal, for his leadership. His concessions have not done enough to convince Labour MP David Winnick, however, who went ahead and tabled an amendment to the Counter-Terrorism Bill to stop the extension of pre-charge detention. Winnick is the MP who tabled the amendment allowing 28 days detention in 2006, defeating Blair’s plans for 90 day. What is promising for opponents of the Bill (pretty much everyone outside the Home Office, including the Director of Public Prosecutions) is that Winnick claims to have support of MPs who supported the 90 days but have since decided that 28 days is sufficient. He thinks this may just be enough to bring about a government defeat.

I hope he’s right. As Stuart Weir and other supporters of OK and LC's “Not a Day Longer" campaign have endlessly pointed out on OK and elsewhere there has been no new evidence produced to justify 42 days detention; the judicial and parliamentary safeguards are inadequate; and the law risks alienating precisely those communities whose support is needed to defeat terrorism.

Brown’s determination to go for 42 days in the face of massive opposition from the legal establishment, human rights groups and countless experts on counter-terrorism was a cynical and calculating move designed to make him look tougher than the Tories and appeal to the Murdoch press. There is now every chance that, just like the strategy with the 10p tax, it will backfire spectacularly.

Guy Aitchison (London, OK): If, like me, you know next to nothing about James Purnell, the young Work and Pensions Secretary now tipped to succeed Brown, then it's worth reading this profile by Fraser Nelson, which the Spectator has now put online. He is a member of the "Primrose Hill set", apparently, which includes Miliband (whose qualities were noted in Claire O'Brien's recent devestating post) and other young Blairites. He has an impressive mastery of detail too and that rarest of gifts amongst politicians - the ability to sound human. Fraser Nelson reckons he is the best hope Labour has of beating Cameron. I wonder. When he was briefly in charge of our culture he declared that he was about to start a new renaissance. This allowed Anthony Barnett to suggest that Damien Hurst's diamond skull was the emblem and symbol of Purnell's Blairism. Then there was the episode when he was photoshopped into a meeting that he had missed and people asked which was the real picture - the one that included him or the one that didn't.

Guy Aitchison (London, OK): The PM has just announced the Government's Draft Legislative Programme to the Commons. We hope to have more coverage on this and PMQs later but on first glance there seems little sign of the bold "new constitutional settlement" Brown called for last July. It appears the Bill of Rights and the citizens summit on the Statement of Values have both been put on hold. The only reference to these I can find is a vague promise to hold consultations on the Bill of Rights which will "give people in the UK a clear idea of what we can expect from public authorities and from each other, and a framework for giving effect to our common values." And expect yet another White Paper on the Lords.

Guy Aitchison (London, OK): Neal Lawson, chair of Compass, has an article in today's Independent calling on Brown to step down and return to the Treasury. He offers an analysis not dissimilar to Anthony's in Why Brown is Doomed, blaming the PM's plummeting popularity on his failure to make a decisive break from Blairism: