A sad day for Parliament

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Sun 20th Feb 2005

Politics and the national interest took a turn for the worse when Parliament voted through the Labour Government's measures for detention without trial and house arrest last night.

Ed Fordham, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Spokesman for Hampstead and Highgate said "I am deeply worried and saddened at this move. The power to place any individual under house arrest now lies in the hands of one man - Home Secretary Charles Clarke - he need no proof, the decision is his and there is currently no identified means of appeal.

"This measure is an extreme reaction to a perceived problem - it is not based on need, evidence or rational considered opinion. It is the knee jerk reaction of an increasingly irrational and reactionary right wing Labour Government.

"Arrest and and detention without trial did not work in Northern Ireland during the peak of the troubles and it is a measure used by very few countries in the world - most notably it is used by the military dictatorship in Burma!

"Perhaps saddest of all is that what has been revealed beyond the departure of the Labour Party for the regards of the rights of the individual and the role of the law and judiciary in Britain today, is the ineffectiveness of our MP on this issue.

Yet again, having a Labour MP has failed to stop the excesses of bad government and we have ended up with the worst of both worlds."