Not just for good days

Mr McNulty may believe that he is manifesting the "toughness" that the government prides itself on displaying and passes off as determination to protect Britain's population.

If that were the case, he might have an arguable case for acting like a McNumpty, but he is very clearly wide of the mark.

Infringing or ignoring this country's well-established legal norms and hard-won human rights does nothing to defend the people of Britain. History shows that it has the opposite effect.

When British paratroops opened fire on peaceful civil rights marchers in Derry, killing 14 of them, did this assist or hinder recruitment to the Provisional IRA?

When the British government stampeded the Prevention of Terrorism Act through Parliament in a matter of hours, opening the way to the targeting, torture, imprisonment and demonisation of Britain's Irish population, did this win their hearts and minds or did it increase sympathy for the IRA bombing campaign in England?

Cobbling together new arrangements to facilitate the transfer of terror suspects to countries that are notorious for torture and extrajudicial killing amounts to nothing less than lowering legal safeguards for Muslims.

It has the effect of making all of Britain's Muslim communities scapegoats for the terrorist crimes to which a small minority of Muslims have turned in response to imperialism's actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.

Tony Blair, whose cavalier disregard for legality marks him out as special in the ranks of Britain's lawyers, believed that legal safeguards could be trimmed to fit the political needs of the hour.

Fortunately, more principled lawyers such as Gareth Peirce took on the requirement for legal consistency, defending many Irish defendants as, today, she is representing Muslim terror suspects.

And the Court of Appeal is also to be applauded for its refusal to kowtow to government political pressure to fall in line with the proposal to deport people to repressive governments, provided that they sign a piece of paper promising not to torture prisoners.

Given that most of the governments concerned have consistently denied mistreatment anyway, even though it was an open secret that torture was utterly routine, what trust could be placed in their promises now?

Whether it be transferring suspects overseas to be tortured, using torture obtained in other states for evidence in trials in Britain or extending imprisonment without trial to build up a case, the government must be told that these developments are unacceptable.

Human rights and legal safeguards are not there simply for good days. If they do not apply to difficult times and to people who may not arouse natural empathy, then they are fragile rights indeed.

Britain ought to be mature enough to defend its people on the basis of legality, human rights and an open society.

The rank opportunism of political charlatans such as Mr Blair, who ranted about the rules of the game being changed, must be told that our rights are not a game.