Classic Keith,

When your arguments fail to convince, attack the intelligence, morals, or ethics of your opponent.

My statement was that the first point of attack for police should be to improve the speed at which the required information can be obtained, and that any erosion of civil rights should be avoided except as a very last resort.

If those two are reversed, it would seem that the intention was to gain time for a fishing expedition, something which most judges on both sides of the Atlantic strive to prevent, for very good reasons.

As for your somewhat naive reliance on allowing the "professionals" any powers they ask for, because "they know best", these are the same professionals who recently followed a young man across half of London, before chasing him into a tube station, where they blew him away with gunfire.

His crimes?

1. He came from a building they had under surveillance.
2. He was South American, with a complexion that COULD have been Middle Eastern.
3. He ran to catch a train, or maybe because they scared the s**t out of him. Anyway, he ran.

Ask the parents of Jean de Menezes whether THEY would agree with more powers for police. Their son was deprived of his civil right to go on living by the very people who should have been protecting those rights.

If you feel the need to live under a more repressive regime, the world is full of countries that should be more to your taste than this one.

Lasly, 90 days in the nick may seem like nothing when viewed from outside by one who is unlikely ever to be in that position, but I reckon the thought of it is probably very worrying to anyone with a swarthy skin and a beard, i.e. Muslims, Jews, Hispanics, and a host of other ethnic groups.

Don T.