The politics behind the row over the terror laws

The proposed anti-terror laws, as I write in today’s Sunday Telegraph, are an example of how Brown will, to an extent many will find surprising, persist with Blair’s policies. This particular area, as is clear from the Observer’s coverage, is fraught with difficulty. Cameron knows that Brown cannot afford to be defeated in the Commons, as Blair was over 90 days. So the game is to claim, again and again, that Labour is breaching the political “consensus” on counter-terrorism. Of course, there is no such thing: Labour is much more authoritarian than either the Tories or the Lib Dem on how to deal with jihadis. But Dave’s gambit is to present Blair now, and Brown soon, as the opportunists. The stakes are vertiginously high.