A waste of time

Plenty of reaction to the 42-day vote in this morning’s papers.  A summary of the consensus: enjoy this success while you can Brown, because it won’t last long.  But of the all the angry column pieces, Steve Richards’ is perhaps the most incisive.  His thesis is that Brown has wasted Government time in the effort to get his detention proposals through Parliament:

“Here is a Labour government with possibly less than two years left in power. If it loses the next election, the party could be out of power for two terms at least. This summer is the last phase, possibly for a long time, in which a Labour administration can take some risks in order to make a difference to people’s lives, to implement policies which make a lasting impact, ones that will generate waves for years to come. Soon all attention will be on the next general election and there will be no space for big legislative moves.