On Start the Week, Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty spoke of an arms race in Home Office policy. She wasn’t talking about tasers or automatic weapons for policemen. Her phrase was metaphorical. Now I find that this metaphor is habitual to her. She used it when giving evidence in 2008 to the committee considering the Counter-Terrorism Bill. It quite annoyed Tony McNulty, who had not then resigned as a minister nor yet apologised to Parliament about his expenses claims.
In discussing detention without trial, he told her: ‘You made a very negative characterisation of the shift from 14 to 28 days. You described it as an arms race.’ She replied: ‘In an arms race there is plenty of substance that is achieved by the escalation… . An arms race is a useful categorisation in that the arms race potentially can go on for ever, and can potentially be counterproductive and damaging to those on both sides of that race.’
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