You read it here first
posted by Luke Akehurst at 1:59 pm
Monday, June 16, 2008
About Me
- Name: Luke Akehurst
- Location: North Durham, County Durham, United Kingdom
Labour MP for North Durham since 2024. Labour Party activist since 1988 - firmly on the moderate wing of the party. Member of Labour’s NEC 2010-2012 and since 2020. National Secretary of Labour Students 1995-6. Parliamentary candidate for Aldershot (2001) and Castle Point (2005). Hackney Councillor (Chatham Ward) 2002-2014, Labour Group Chief Whip 2002-09, Chair of Health Scrutiny 2010-2014. Dad. Unite and GMB union member. All views expressed in a personal capacity. The rest will become evident from reading the blog.
54 Comments:
So this "terror attack victim" is going to say that the attack is likely to have been prevented had the detention limit been 42 days, not 28? That's quite a claim.
Also, at what point does becoming a victim of a terror attack bestow upon that person a greater understanding of security issues, or greater foresight when it comes to future attacks? This is tabloid-level, not evidence-based, politics.
2:22 pm, June 16, 2008
If the government didn't believe that at least some attacks are likely to have been prevented if the detention limit was 42 days, not 28, they wouldn't have introduced the change. That's the whole point in it.
2:30 pm, June 16, 2008
I understand that's the Government's view, but (a) why can't we have a Labour candidate in H&H to defend it in person, rather than leaving the field open to cranks, extremists, and 'victims'; and (b) as many, many bloggers have argued, it's rather a dubious, dare I say, unpalatable view to take...
2:34 pm, June 16, 2008
Labour is under no obligation to field a candidate when Davis ensured his re-election by striking a deal with the Lib Dems not to stand.That move removed any hint of 'principles' out of Davis' stance. It's a stunt, not a stand, I see no reason why Labour- who polled 12% last time- should dignify Davis' ego by wasting the party's money and taking part in a sham that wastes the public's money.
2:41 pm, June 16, 2008
The argument against having a Labour candidate is
a) that then it ceases to be a referendum on this issue - people will vote for or against Labour for a range of other reasons but Davis, not least historic social and demographic ones as this has never been a Labour seat, and Davis will claim a Labour defeat is an endorsement of his position
b) why dignify his stunt by participating in it? We don't think he should have called a by-election.
If the Party wants to run a Labour candidate who actually believes in the Government position on this, I am of course waiting (though not holding mt breath) for the phone to ring.
2:43 pm, June 16, 2008
You read it here first.
No, Luke, you read it in a tabloid first. Now Murdoch has pulled the plugs on McKenzie standing against Davis with support from The Sun, the inevitable has happened and The Mirror is hawking round for a "terror victim" to stand under their banner. Looks like a circulation war has broken out. But something tells me they'll both get a few more readers than you.
2:56 pm, June 16, 2008
but Luke, you've been publicising his 'stunt' on your blog since the moment he announced it.
Unexpectedly it appears that Labour are beginning to look pretty daft on this.
2:57 pm, June 16, 2008
sorry, meant 'dignifying' rather than 'publicising'
2:59 pm, June 16, 2008
I can't help thinking that, as the people's party, Labour should never not stand in an election, even if we do so in order to campaign on a particular point, content in the knowledge that our supporters are smart enough to do the right thing. (That's the general point. The fact that I vehemently disagree with the official line, here, is another issue.)
Furthermore, the sums of public money involved are, in the great scheme of things, peanuts. 80 grand to potentially resolve an important security/civil liberties issue like this? Bargain.
I hope the phone does ring for you, Luke!
3:00 pm, June 16, 2008
B4L- that depends if you feel it is 'an election'. I don't. Candidates do not usually ensure their re election before a vote is cast by ensuring their only serious challenger steps aside. The vast majority of people in the bye election will not be voting on 42 days, I see no reason why Labour should allow Davis to claim his 'victory' as an endorsement of his stance.
3:15 pm, June 16, 2008
"people's party"
22% of them ain't bad eh
3:16 pm, June 16, 2008
You think that makes the suggestion any better?
The government are, quite simply, wrong.
4:08 pm, June 16, 2008
I suspect the 'anti-terror campaigners' referred to in the story might be you, Luke!
We either contest it as if it were a proper by-election, with our PPC, or we ignore it (i.e. TOTALLY ignore it, not support some other candidate).
As I've said elsewhere, I think the government is 100% wrong on this and should ditch this aspect of the bill (and one or two other little bits actually that have slipped through amongst the sound and fury). Obviously ditching it now would look like a victory for Davis. We should try and minimise the impact of his stunt as far as possible (by ignoring it to death) then - in the name of the parliamentary process and impact of legal experts in another place, etc. - accept the amendments that will come from the Lords, which will probably be at a time when Davis is a rather foolish-looking Tory backbencher.
4:42 pm, June 16, 2008
The link doesn't work, or at least it doesn't for me.
Have you noy considered the fact that no-ne, and I do mean no-one, has produced any evidence as to why the Government desided to run with 42 days instead of, say 56 days, or the original 90 days which was defeated a couple of years ago. People have become so cynical about this Government that they simply don't believe anything it says or does.
42 days is a case in point. It's just a ploy by the Government to try and make it look tough - this from the party that refused to support the prevention of terrorism act right up until about 1996 when they suddenly realised that they were going to win and would need such legislation themselves.
It's pure political threatre.
7:56 pm, June 16, 2008
It's from the Sunday Mirror and reads:
Terror attack victim to stand against David Davis as MP in by-election
By Vincent Moss 15/06/2008
Tory rebel David Davis could face a humiliating by-election challenge from a terror attack victim.
Anti-terror campaigners are seeking a victim of the 7/7 bombings to stand as an independent against SAS reservist Mr Davis in next month's election.
On Thursday he quit his Shadow Home Secretary job and put himself up for re-election to crusade against Gordon Brown's narrow Commons vote victory to hold terror suspects for 42 days.
Both the Lib Dems and Labour are refusing to put up candidates against him.
But former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie and glamour girl Gemma Garrett have said they will contest his Haltemprice and Howden constituency in Yorks, where he holds a 5,116 majority.
Last night airport worker John Smeaton, hero of the Glasgow terror attack, scotched rumours that he would stand
9:24 pm, June 16, 2008
Mirror / Sun....gutter press. What are you starting to read Luke. I had you down as a clever boy not some yard boy trash.
This is like asking the mother of a murdered child to be judge and jury to the accused.
What about the guardian, telegraph or the independent.
Well if you want to go down that route then most of the polls put the constituents behind Davis. I'm not sure whether they agree with him but they admire his stance and will almost certainly remain loyal to him.
I admire Davis and I personally think he's genuine. There are an awful lot of people in the UK who feel that their liberties are being destroyed. The Treaty being a very good example of this. Too many MPS are hiding their true beliefs for the sake of party loyalty. This is hurting our democracy and will in the end force extremism and the growth of fringe parties.
9:58 pm, June 16, 2008
... errr, no the |treaty actually protects not destroys liberties. So does the Human Rights Act.
lets not confuse matters - oppose 42 days, sure, but the rest of the loopy libertarian stance, be very selective!
10:03 pm, June 16, 2008
Luke said:
"If the government didn't believe that at least some attacks are likely to have been prevented if the detention limit was 42 days, not 28, they wouldn't have introduced the change..."
But this is the same Government that fine well knew that its intelligence on WMD in Iraq was a tissue of obsfuscation, half-truths and down right lies... but that didn't stop them going into an immoral and probably illegal war. So why all of a sudden do you have this endearing trust in speculation over what this Government honestly believe?
This just gets worse and worse... first we nearly had a proxy Murdoch sponsored candidate in the Davies by-election becuase Brown's Labour doesn't have the dignity or guts to stand, now we have the dregs of the Mirror and The Sun dregged up as justifications for the Government's dereliction of duty.
10:08 pm, June 16, 2008
The worst thing about this is not that Davis's principled (if massively misguided) stand is being undermined but that you, allegedly a social democrat, are revelling in it.
"Hoohoo, look at the EEEEVIL TORY squirm!" [despite the fact that he was born into a working-class household on a council estate, something you wouldn't know while you were sipping port at Bristol, or kissing Pipe's bum at the Town Hall]
"Hee hee, Labour can get a terror victim to make the Tory look bad. What a wheeze! What a lark! Now we can triangulate ourselves to death, getting all the white swing voters who want to string d*rkies up from lampposts on our side. Brilliant! Hurrah! Because winning's all that matters, sod principle!"
And worst still you plot all this disgusting schoolboy game while accusing the bloody Tories of playing party politics.
You're a right wing hypocrite and a disgrace to the Labour movement. You should be ashamed of yourself, but why am I bothering, shame isn't a word in your B'stard-like vocabulary.
10:44 pm, June 16, 2008
On top of that you say "If the government didn't believe that at least some attacks are likely to have been prevented if the detention limit was 42 days, not 28, they wouldn't have introduced the change. That's the whole point in it."
The Government knows full well that 42 days instead of 28 won't prevent A SINGLE terrorist attack.
They think instead that it will make Gordon look big and tough with the swing voters and paint the Tories as "soft on terror", and maybe claw back some points in opinion polls.
THAT'S the whole point in it. It stinks far more than anything Blair ever did.
10:47 pm, June 16, 2008
Anonymous, FYI I grew up on a housing association estate with parents on Family Credit, so I'm not going to accept that some Tory has a moral head start on me because of his humble origins. Any port I drank in Bristol - and there was a bit - was funded by hard graft working as a waiter and washing dishes in a Little Chef during my summer holidays rather than being inherited privilege.
I'm sorry that your ignorance about my background is matched by your stupid refusal to believe that anyone might support the government's position on principle, and that you are so ignorant of the existence of a proud tradition in the Labour Party of people who believe that taking a tough line on defence, security and law and order is not just compatible with fighting for social justice but goes hand in hand with it.
I'm sorry that you are so gullible that you've been taken in by a Thatcherite whose commitment to human right includes support for the death penalty and opposition to the Human Rights Act, and who thinks the big problem facing the UK today is not poverty, inequality or climate change but CCTV.
I'm even more sorry that you are such a coward that you post here anonymously despite purporting to know about me, my life or my politics.
11:04 pm, June 16, 2008
Good on you, Luke. You never cease to amaze me.
Somebody craps on you and like Tigger you just keep coming back with some well-intentioned but misguided riposte constructed around the preposterous position of the Labour Party.
You're a fool. But I can't help but like you. Go Tigger Go.
11:13 pm, June 16, 2008
Comes from the extreme self-belief engendered by the free public school education I got when Mrs Thatcher's Assisted Places scheme plucked me from the mean streets of Chartham. One day I must thank her.
11:29 pm, June 16, 2008
Luke, you're correct to flag up the security record of the Labour Right, but even if I were a NATO-hating unilateralist, this argument is irrelevant to the issue at hand. What your argument boils down to is: (a) trust us; (b) let's err on the side of caution (in the sense of detaining suspects we're not quite sure about).
In general, (a) is an unhealthy thing for Governments to expect of people, especially at a time when officials seem to leave security records willy-nilly on trains. So, for the time being, I don't particularly fancy putting my trust in any government. And by asking you to explain why 28 days is insufficient, but 42 days is sufficient, we hope to avoid erring altogether. For example, if you can't prove that 42 days makes - or is likely to make - any substantial difference when it comes to deterrence or extracting intelligence, then your point about going one step further to protect the British people is blown out of the water.
One final point about political priorities: arguments of the form 'why aren't you (Davis) tackling the real issues?' boil down to the same old 'how dare you focus on Achievable Aim (that we don't support) when Unachievable Aim (that we do support) has not been achieved?'. Why, after all, focus on poverty or rights when we have 'real' issues like Original Sin and World Peace to tackle? It's irrelevant and a logical dead-end.
12:30 am, June 17, 2008
If the government didn't believe that at least some attacks are likely to have been prevented if the detention limit was 42 days, not 28, they wouldn't have introduced the change. That's the whole point in it.
Luke, that's some claim to make.
As with any spurious claims my call is always the same: where's the proof? (Please note - I'm not singling you or this blog out for particular criticism in this regard - I ask the same question of religion regularly).
What evidence is there that holding a suspect for 42 days (rather than 28) without trial would have prevented the attacks of July 7th 2005?
Internment in NI did nothing but get peoples backs up - and did absolutely nothing to produce peace.
Before you launch off on the differences between NI and Saudi Arabia (amongst others), having been a soldier in both I'm perfectly aware of the differences, the predominant one being that when "Paddy PIRA" killed himself in an explosion it was by accident not design.
My point is this - the motives of the current government for seeking this 42-day extension have not been proven to the electorate.
Indeed, there's more evidence for this being a knee-jerk reaction than anything else - most specifically that the Police and Security Services don't want it.
The outcome of this - winning the vote only with the assistance of an Ulster party - smacks of desperation on the part of the current government and one must ask the question why.
Oh, and something else - whilst we're at it - the actions of the Whigs and the Conservative party from years ago give the current Labour party - remember Robin Cooks ethical foreign policy? - no mandate to behave like petulant pugnacious prats.
Finally, if (to use one of the mantras of your party) if you're being "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" perhaps the FCO should be involved in this taking particular action against the sources of the hatred being preached in our nations Mosques?
I've worked in Saudi Arabia - I've seen first hand the nature of anti-western feeling there. Surely it sends an unclear (not to mention downright hypocritical) message to the world where we are prepared to lock up for six weeks without charge the people who are using the teaching of the Wahhabist (amongst other) strand(s) of Islam but not going after the authors thereof.
A thought for you and your masters at Downing Street to chew on.
4:41 am, June 17, 2008
Er, yeah, but Tim Collins is supporting DD and so is John Smeaton, as far as I am aware. Rachel is screaming at you, so that pretty much takes care of all the obvious heroes and heroines...
Running an outsider isn't going to work, not now that every bugger knows from the Campbell Diaries that Martin Bell was a stooge. You can't pull the same trick twice...
I'll give you one thing - you and I are about the only bloggers who do not delete any postings. And as link bait this nonsense has turned up trumps for you.
The rest is just bad. You have lost the working class, and bollocks like this will help you lose the liberal middle class. Now it looks as if the ethnic middle class may dump Nu-Labour as well. (I'm blogging about that at the moment.)
6:23 am, June 17, 2008
Luke: what will assist in this case is gaining the intelligence to ensure that the right people can be arrested.
That requires not additional days, but better intelligence - and I think 42 days will threaten this amongst the relevant communities
But there is a question of principle, and as you have admitted in a previous post, you are simply not a natural liberal - which is why, although not a left-winger, I find your positions on so many issues difficult to sympathise with.
10:13 am, June 17, 2008
I watched the news the other night and they mentioned this proposal. I turned round and told my missus that is, verbatim what you had said here on your blog.
Can you predict what other depths we can sink to before we lose the next GE?
11:09 am, June 17, 2008
Yes Luke, you should thank her. And follow it up by re-introducung the scheme.
11:20 am, June 17, 2008
Was this terror attack victim attacked by someone completely innocent, perchance?
3:02 pm, June 17, 2008
your little scheme doesn't become any less repugnant because The Mirror/"anti-terror campaigners" (whatever the hell that means) came up with the same idea.
It's unprincipled because standing a victim of terrorism has nothing to do with the arguments, nothing to do with addressing the issues, it just involves propping somebody up to beg for sympathy. It's using their pain to score political points.
3:07 pm, June 17, 2008
This comment has been removed by the author.
3:07 pm, June 17, 2008
"If the government didn't believe that at least some attacks are likely to have been prevented if the detention limit was 42 days, not 28, they wouldn't have introduced the change..."
The logical implication of this argument s that one should always trust government, because it's always right about stuff.
This, from the people that brought you the abolition of the 10p rate.
People make mistakes. This is as likely to be one of them as any other decision is.
3:08 pm, June 17, 2008
I suspect this is just evidence that journalists are getting lazy and are just reading blogs instead of doing any proper research/networking.
3:16 pm, June 17, 2008
Actually Smeaton accepts that such powers may be needed. But he is obviously not standing. He's going to the USA for a while. But this was never a good idea. Mackenzie was a better idea if you want to thrash out the issues in this farcical by-election. Blair would have been better.
But there is no mileage in standing for this stunt. And voting against Davis' writ would be quite a fun wheeze as the next step.
The funniest thing in your original post on this clutzy idea Luke was comparing your champion to "Martin Bell" - ho, ho, ho; how we laughed.
3:29 pm, June 17, 2008
Interestingly on the Smeaton angle one of the examples that Lord Carlile the Lib Dem peer gave in justifying 42 days was the case of a Terrorist mortally wounded and in hospital for so long that - presumably under arrest all the while - his 28 days would pass without a single question being put to him or her.
Lyrical Terrorist Poetic Justice.
3:37 pm, June 17, 2008
Chris Paul announces:
"Actually Smeaton accepts that such powers may be needed."
There seem to be no bounds to the farcical aspect of this whole thread and the Labour Governments' lack of dignity and guts on the issue of the Davies by-election.
Have you listened to Smeaton and managed to hold onto any much coherent thoughts emenating from him? He's a harmless nonentity that got lucky on the fleeting media fame front (the provenance of his claims to fame were of course subject to some allegations and asserted doubts). Yet here we have his opinions being cited alongside the likes of Murdoch man McKenzie and odd this and thats dregded up by the Mirror... what a squalid unseemingly excuse for the lack of any principled and democratically acountable Government.
What will its supporters come up with next?
4:48 pm, June 17, 2008
"It's unprincipled because standing a victim of terrorism has nothing to do with the arguments,"
no more unprincipled than a supporter of the death penalty championing civil liberties.
5:13 pm, June 17, 2008
Or a fascist stooge like Chris Paul, a lowly dog who defends the lyrical terrorist bitch, Taleban poster-girl Samina Malik, having a go at the heroic John Smeaton.
Chris Paul, if you love the minging Malik so much, why don't you marry her and feck off to Iran.
Traitor
5:20 pm, June 17, 2008
@anonymous: it is actually, considerably more unprincipled. Davis may or may not be genuine in his little martyrdom play, but he's not trying to exploit someone's personal tragedy for political gain.
I'd never vote for Davis in a million years, but there's a truckload of difference between what he's doing and what's being suggested here.
(oh, and it's not even inconsistent to believe in habeas corpus and the death penalty)
6:32 pm, June 17, 2008
Ted Harvey said
"He's (Smeaton) a harmless nonentity that got lucky on the fleeting media fame"
Ted you make me sick a "nonentity" I bet the people who were Glasgow Airport that day wouldn't descibe as that, the man risked his life to help others you insensitive pompous pratt!!
7:42 pm, June 17, 2008
What ever way you look at it Labour will not be winning another term. It really is over.
Brown is smashed and what ever his vision is he won't be achieving it because there is too much other stuff kicking off.
The UK has lived very well for over 10 years on consumer spending driven by debt. Now it's pay back time and I can't believe the UK is going to avoid a recession. Every economic indicator is pointing towards a serious recession. Inflation, falling house prices and rising unemployment and some people are experiencing falling wages.
Balance of payments is way off the chart and the pound is falling in value.
I can predict what is coming. The oil bubble will burst and markets across the world will go into freefall.
Disaster, really is a disaster.
9:57 pm, June 17, 2008
anonymous hides as anonymous and calls other people 'a prat' all the while he (or she?) has swalled the whole media-establishment-approved 'story' about braveheart Smeaton who took on the Taliban.
Anyway, back to the real braveheart issue... the Labour Government not putting a candidate up at the Davies by-election a candidate to oppose the terrorist- loving foe.
10:06 pm, June 17, 2008
There is the real cowardice - Labour not standing up for their policies at Haltemprice.
10:24 pm, June 17, 2008
At the risk of repeating myself - this may be a government policy, it is certainly not a Labour policy. It has been in no manifesto or agreed policy document of the Labour party.
There is no way Labour would or should fight a campaign based around support for the 42 days policy.
I am a tribal labourist and I will, of course, be supporting candidates and politicians who supported this measure come future elections (however much it angers me to do so) - but there is no way even tribal Labour loyalists would rally around a policy so many of us fundamentally disagree with as the central plank of an election campaign. It would be absurd.
Labour has a candidate for this seat. I understand that person is opposed to 42 day detention. There would be no rationale or justification for over-riding the local party and imposing a pro-42 days candidate.
Such a measure would be easy, maybe even populist. It is certainly not cowardice not to do so.
12:38 am, June 18, 2008
Luke I am now asking you directly for an answer to this post I put on one of your other items.
Anon said
Its been well over 24 hours, any chance of one of you anti terroism experts answering my question
Anonymous said...
Could one of you who seems to think that being able to lock someone up for 42 days without charge will stop a terrorist attack.
if the security services have enough iformation to arrest someone for suspicion of being involved in an imminent attack they will do so regardless of if they have 28 or 42 days before charging. This dross about it will stop a suicide bomber is pathetic. The security services will NOT leave someone they know about on the streets if they believe they are about to commit an attack. If they do not know about them having the option of 42 days does not matter because the first time they see them they will be spread across large parts of the country.
9:46 PM, June 15, 2008
12:56 am, June 18, 2008
So now it appears that the best way to guarantee the freedom of extremists and potential terrorists is to send unencrypted material about them to your good friend Hazel Blears.
6:22 am, June 18, 2008
If the government didn't believe that at least some attacks are likely to have been prevented if the detention limit was 42 days, not 28, they wouldn't have introduced the change. That's the whole point in it
Since you appear to be an aspirant professional politician, I cannot believe that such remarks can be attributed to naivete. The reason for this being introduced is to make the opposition parties look 'soft on terror'. That's all it is - cynicism, politics, bullshit.
9:00 am, June 18, 2008
duncan hall I respect your position, all the more sincerely since you have stuck with the Party through it all... But can I please point out that the Labour Government by and large increasingly has not listened to the Labour Party.
For example, in my experience at the time, almost the entire Party (i.e. 90%+) was against the second Iraq invasion - the Labour 'Government' just entirely ignored the Party.
Anyone, from any background, Party or not, who differed from the Government was ignored, sidelined or vilified personally can remember feeling repeatedly stung and insulted by the patronising 'Five Wars' Labour PM Blair patronising all of us who opposed the war (i.e. the vast majority). He was constantly lecturing in language like what 'these people have got to understand'. Or what about Defence Minister’ Doctor' John Reid of we-will-in-and-out-of-Helman-in-six-months-without-a-shot-being-fired fame? He just constantly harangued the likes of me as being soft of terrorists or being 'unable to face up to the tough issues'.
And the statement by Des Brown that was at best inept and at worse… well I’m just not going to say what… when he announces that sending 200 paratroopers to Helman and bringing the number of troops in Afghanistan to an all-time high is a ‘mark of our success’ – this on the same day that the latest five dead British soldiers are shipped back to the UK.
Sorry duncan, but this Labour Government just does not listen to the Labour Party unless it comes to do the brute force of a dodgy Commons vote (and of course the Government can always fall back on its allies, the Ulster Unionists, if too many of its own MPs don't behave on the matter of 42 days).
10:34 am, June 18, 2008
Ted - I agree with you entirely.
5:32 pm, June 18, 2008
According to Recess Monkey, News International is now backing Davis. WTF?
9:31 pm, June 18, 2008
"FYI I grew up on a housing association estate with parents on Family Credit, so I'm not going to accept that some Tory has a moral head start on me because of his humble origins. Any port I drank in Bristol - and there was a bit - was funded by hard graft working as a waiter and washing dishes in a Little Chef during my summer holidays rather than being inherited privilege".
barf.
Bully for you, Luke. You worked during University. Welcome to our world.
You really don't know when to stop.
9:46 pm, June 18, 2008
and that you are so ignorant of the existence of a proud tradition in the Labour Party of people who believe that taking a tough line on defence, security and law and order is not just compatible with fighting for social justice but goes hand in hand with it.
It'ds not a 'proud' tradition; it's a pretty squalid one. A tradition that would sooner squander £70 billion on Trident than ensure that the people of this country have adequate access to health and dentistry. Frankly, Luke, you are simply a Tory who lacks the honesty to admit it to yourself.
10:45 pm, June 18, 2008
UNISON members desert Labour in droves.
You probably read it here first.
11:51 am, June 19, 2008
Post a Comment
<< Home