Tory MP David Davis gave an excellent speech at the end of the Convention on Modern Liberty. Just read it when it goes online. I asked him afterwards to confirm a point he had made to me a few weeks earlier. He says he would ideally like to see the pre-charge detention period, which the government recently attempted to increase to 42 days, to be reduced to 4 days. Wow.
He prefaced his point by saying that the Americans had a pre-charge detention period of 48 hours. This is because authorities are allowed to use intercept evidence. Davis said if authorities in the UK are allowed to use intercept evidence, there’s no reason why pre-charge detention should be more than four days. I’m impressed.
Welcome to the sixth Carnival on Modern Liberty. We’re back at Liberal Conspiracy, in eager anticipation of the Convention on Modern Liberty which will be taking place today (as if you didn’t know…).
Alastair Darling’s announcement of a £600 billion guarantee to RBS and Lloyds raises more questions than it answers. Perhaps, because we’ve gotten used to the idea of big bank bailouts since the economy is in such dire straits, there isn’t strong opposition to the idea.
In light of news that the public is no longer allowed to take pictures of the police, I’d like to point out a possible scenario which local reporters may have to go through in the future.