Thursday 19 June 2008

When is a bomber not a bomber?

When he's not actually bombed anyone or anything? And when he's only been charged but not convicted of terrorism-related offences?

I've been altered to a recent blog entry by the Conservative candidate for Bristol North West.
She says: "You probably, like me, gaped when you found out that First Bus has charged Avon and Somerset Police £125,000 - yes, £125 GRAND, for CCTV footage to help investigate the case of Andrew Ibrahim, the Bristol Bomber."

So much for Conservative support for civil liberties. Leaving aside whether he could, even if convicted, be accurately described as 'a bomber', whatever happened to the concept of innocent until proven guilty?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why not ask your colleague, the former Home Secretary, David Blunkett next time he bothers to turn up at the Commons?

'A very real threat to the life and liberty of our country'

Or is it one rule for the government and another for the rest of us?

Kerry said...

It may surprise you to know that David Blunkett actually said quite a few things during his time as Home Sec that I didn't agree with. I remember getting into a heated discussion with a senior Labour MP at a National Policy Forum in about 2002 about a particular article he (Blunkett) had written for the Sun, which I think was about the need for immigrants to speak English in their own homes. (It was around the time of the post Bradford/Burnley/Oldham debates about community cohesion, the Cantle report, etc). If you want to launch a reasoned public debate about such issues, as he claimed, the Sun's not quite the place to start, is it?

As for the case you refer to, well he obviously shouldn't have said it.