Will British judges be “responsible” for the next terrorist attack?

Con Coughlin has an awful piece up at the Telegraph arguing that, in the light of today’s decision in the case of Binyam Mohamed, “if another al-Qaeda bomb goes off in London, the judges will be as much to blame as Osama bin Laden.” Seriously. That’s what he wrote. It’s as preposterous as it is repellent. Happily, over at Conservative Home, Alex Deane does an excellent job dismantling this and the rest of Coughlin’s diatribe here.

The crux of Coughlin’s argument – in as much as there is one beyond the notion that the judiciary is inviting al-Qaeda to attack the United Kingdom – lies in the idea that the disclosure of the treatment meted out to Mohamed would damage this country’s intelligence-relationship with the Americans. Well, maybe, but it seems unlikely, not least since this is the argument that is always trotted out to justify secrecy. Anything that might irritate the Cousins must be avoided at any cost, even if that means trampling on our own laws.