Charles Clarke urged police to lobby
Via the Daily Telegraph comes the news that the British Home Secretary Charles Clarke urged police chief constables to lobby members of parliament to vote for his anti-terrorism proposals, including the controversial and rejected proposal to lock up subjects without trial for ninety days.
The Exile explains why this is going to hurt Labour badly:
This one is just going to backfire, and what is left of Labour’s membership are going to be outraged. It is not all that long ago that Labour canvassers were getting harrassed in some areas by the police. The industrial wing of the movement has a whole catalogue of instances where the police have acted as an escort agency for scabs, and ordinary people will be able to chip in with tales of kids harrassed, fathers picked up on spurious charges and homes left wrecked as the police conduct their “search for evidence”. The police are not the friends of the Labour Movement and we all know that. At best they are a necessary evil, but one that we want kept well away from us.