So it’s been a busy week of politics both here in London and also back home. Hillary Clinton’s big speech, etc. Maybe I’ll write about that sometime but it seems a bit done to death at the moment. What is there left to say? In any event, the talk of London politics nowadays comes on two topics: 1) knife crime and 2) the proposed 42-day limit on government detentions.
As an American, both of these debates are rather charming and quaint. Knife crime. Isn’t that what Americans were concerned about in the 1700s? We are SO far ahead of the Brits on this one. What they need to do is legalize guns and then BANG! Your knife crime problem is gone.
In all seriousness, this totally puts the lie to the National Rifle Association’s arguments in the States that if you ban guns only criminals will have guns. They won’t. They’ll have knives. And between you and me, I’d rather face someone with a knife than a gun (although I’d rather face someone with a tray of cupcakes than either). Now, knife crime is definitely a problem here and I don’t want to belittle that. It’s actually quite shocking, some of these stabbings that are reported almost daily.
In that story linked above there was reference to the CCTV cameras that are a mainstay of the fight against crime and terrorism here in the UK. I myself actually don’t have a lot of problems with the CCTV, which is funny because if they were put up in America I would likely go nuts. But, it’s funny that when you move to another country you open yourself up to all kinds of different possibilities. That being said, doesn’t this Transport for London poster seem a trifle Orwellian?
Still, it seems like this debate about extending the detention of suspected terrorists from 21 to 42 days has perhaps stretched public credulity to the limit. Yesterday I saw the Home Secretary on the Andrew Marr Show and he tore her a new one. Her arguments essentially fell back on the ‘infinite security’ argument, whereby the Government needs all the tools it can think of to fight terrorism. When confronted with the fact that cops don’t actually think this is a good idea she just steamrolled right through.
So what’s quaint about this? The fact that you’re debating it (I say you, because I’m not allowed to vote). Brown should have taken a page from President Bush and just instituted it. If Brown loses this vote, he’ll know he should have just followed the Bush plan: flout national and international law and just keep it all a secret.
