42 - The Meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything?

Or is this just the British Government going down the horrible rat-hole of a policy of Internment again?

Jaqui Smith is currently the British Home Secretary, and she wants to make it possible for the police to jail terror suspects for up to 42 days. Deja Vu, anyone?

This policy was rolled out in the early 1970's in response to problems of Northern Ireland. It was the catalyst for the worst campaign of terrorist bombing ever seen in the British Isles.

It's pretty clear that the policy didn't work; it was intended to be used for just a short spell to take certain leaders out of their terrorist organisations, and to allow things to cool down. But it stayed in place for something like five years.

Now, having made that mistake under the Ted Heath regime, the current Conservative* government headed by Gordon Brown wants to test that mistake for accuracy by making it all over again.

This time around, though, the policy will be different. Different to the tune of currently 28 days, with a view to extend it to 42. When you think about it, 42 Days is actually quite a long time to be holding someone if you're not going to give them a trial. Which could happen. How long do the police force in the UK really need to carry out their investigations? They could just lock you up for a month and a half and not have to justify it to anyone.

The current 28 days is surely is ridiculously long; it's about 14 times too much. And if you think that there may be cases that need longer than two days - well give the option for the police to appeal to a high court judge, but don't give them the right to lock any one of us up without reason for a stupidly long time.

I think giving the police two days to actually come up with some evidence isn't too much of a burden; it'd certainly focus their minds on the job of investigating which is a different role to driving round the countryside emptying the coins from the speed cameras.

*Conservative by policy, i.e. privatising things and cutting taxes to the point where we've got the highest tax burden we've ever seen. Thanks Tony. Thanks Gordon. I bet you never thought Dennis Skinner would be considered a Tory, eh?