If anyone remained in doubt about Tony Blair's attitude to civil liberties he admits it today in an article in The Times.

Discussing the recent absconding of three terrorist suspects subject to control orders, Blair says:

"So the fault is not with our services or, in this instance, with the Home Office. We have chosen as a society to put the civil liberties of the suspect, even if a foreign national, first. "I happen to believe this is misguided and wrong."

Well Mr Blair, I would say the same about you. Civil liberties exist to protect us all. Eroding them in an attempt to fight terrorism is an own goal.

Talking of British terror suspects Blair says:

"Over the past five or six years, we have decided as a country that except in the most limited of ways, the threat to our public safety does not justify changing radically the legal basis on which we confront this extremism. "Their right to traditional civil liberties comes first. I believe this is a dangerous misjudgment."

If it's a misjudgement then it's a misjudgement that people have spent centuries trying to achieve. Our civil liberties are the core of our free society, they can't be thrown away for short term gain.

People sometimes wonder why I support the civil liberties of people suspected of terrorism. It's because I support the civil liberties of people wrongly suspected of terrorism.

That might one day be you.

Blair civil liberties Tony Blair UK politics ukpolitics

Labels: civil liberties, Tony Blair