Some things in politics are much more important than party politics

Sport is “all about winning”, they say. But even in a brutal sport like boxing, there are rules. If the boxer you support, hits below the belt or bites off a part of the opponent’s ear, then only the most tunnel-visioned fan would celebrate their “victory”.

Politics is a brutal game too but again there are rules. However, there is no referee. The rules are supposed in theory to be enforced in this country by “civil society”. A vital part of a properly functioning civil society is a media which should expose breaches of the rules and through its immense power of communication enforce compliance.

Last week, the prime minister flagrantly breached the rules of acceptable behaviour in our democracy by calling those who opposed his plan to bomb in Syria, “terrorist sympathisers”. He refused many times to apologise on the floor of the Commons. Such an accusation goes well beyond the normal, robust hurling of political insults. 

David Cameron’s comment is reminiscent of those of the vile, bullying Senator Joseph McCarthy, who - together with his followers - accused those who opposed him of being “Communist sympathisers”. 

McCarthy operated during the Cold War. Cameron uses his McCarthyite slur during the War on Terror. When a powerful person accused opponents of sympathising with enemies of the State, they are telling others that they should discount arguments of those opponents because they are made from traitorous motives. 

Very few in our media seem to grasp how destructive to our political system Cameron’s remarks are. They seem to be quite unable to view politics other than through the prism of party politics. 

After five long years of McCarthy striking fear throughout American society in the early 1950s, it was a TV journalist, Edward  R Murrow who played a crucial role in his downfall. That took moral courage of a high order. McCarthy had destroyed many people’s careers and worse.

Where in our media do we see a Murrow today?

Cameron has disgracefully and dangerously broken the rules of the political game and it is difficult to see who there is in our civil society who will do anything about it.

The situation is both depressing and very troubling. 

Some things in politics are much more important than party politics.

Questions for Cameron on bombing in Syria

We are fourteen years into a War on Terror and there is no end in sight. 

Since 9/11, the West has undertaken military activity against Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen and Mali.

It should not be controversial to suggest the West considers a new approach. The old one based on military action is not working.

Tomorrow, David Cameron will ask for the support of parliament to bomb so-called Islamic State in Syria. He argues that this will make people in the UK safer.

Jeremy Corbyn, who is not a pacifist but does believe that military action should be a last resort, will oppose Cameron. Corbyn does not deny the serious threat from IS. He argues that there are no good reasons to believe that the proposed military action will make people in the UK safer. On the contrary, it may make people less safe.

Corbyn thinks there is some link between the cause of terrorist attacks in the UK and Western attacks on Muslims abroad. Cameron seems to deny that there is any link at all. Those who share Corbyn’s view are often attacked as “apologists” but this is absurd - people should be able to distinguish between an explanation and a justification. 

Here are some questions that I believe Cameron should answer tomorrow.

1. US, Russia and France are already bombing Raqqa, where IS have their headquarters. What have they achieved and what would the UK add?
2. As the 7/7 bombers and most of those who carried out the Paris outrage, were “homegrown”, how will the bombing lessen the chance of a jihadi attack in the UK?
3. Counter-radicalisation measures in the UK deny any link between jihadi attacks against the West and Western military action against Muslim countries. Does this not seriously undermine their likely effectiveness?
4. He speaks of Assad’s “mass murder of his own people”. How is it intended to ensure that by attacking IS he does not strengthen Assad?
5. What steps is he taking in relation to the funding of IS, including by private donors in Saudi Arabia? 
6. It is widely agreed that ground troops will be needed. Does he categorically rule out sending UK troops? He has spoken of there being 70,000 Syrian opposition fighters who do not belong to extremist groups and who could be involved. What is the evidence for the existence of such a force?
7. What lessons has he learnt from his own action in Libya? At the time he hailed it as a triumph but in fact it left a country gripped by anarchy and civil war and allowed jihadi to operate there whereas they had not so before.
8. In light of the shooting down of the Russian plane by Turkey and the fact that the sky over Raqqa will be very crowded, what steps will be taken to prevent accidents?

I would be surprised if such questions were not asked. I hope they get proper answers.

This is not a left/right issue. Some of the most impressive Tory MPs intend to vote against Cameron. Some of them have demanded a free vote on the Tory side, as there will be on the Labour side. 

Cameron’s case looks weak. I am not convinced that it is really about saving lives on British streets. It looks more like a political, cultural, diplomatic desire to stand shoulder to shoulder with the US and France. That is not a bad reason if everything else makes sense - unfortunately, it does not look like it does.

We need a public debate about the right balance between security and privacy

It is natural that after the outrage in Paris, people want all possible steps to be taken to prevent a similar event occurring in the UK. 

It is often said that the first duty of the State is to protect the lives of its citizens but this duty is not absolute. It is always balanced against other considerations. Many more people die in road accidents than in terrorist attacks. However, no government would ban cars or impose a 10 mile an hour speed limit; the costs to society would be too high.

In the wake of the Paris attacks, some are now calling for the Investigatory Powers Bill (IPB) also known as the Snoopers Charter, to be fast-tracked through parliament. It is at a time like this, when emotions are running high, that we need to be particularly careful.

We need to find the right balance between security and privacy. In other countries, such as the USA and Germany, there is a heated and passionate public debate. In the UK, sadly, there has been for the most part shoulder-shrugging apathy. I hope this can change.

There are real concerns that the IPB poses a significant danger to our freedom, privacy and way of life. Joseph Cannataci, the UN’ s special rapporteur on privacy has condemned the IPB as “heralding a golden age of surveillance” and “worse than scary”. 

It is not hyperbole to say that the proposals in IPB would allow levels of surveillance far in excess to those available to the Stasi or even imagined by George Orwell. 

IPB puts into law a range of activities, revealed by Edward Snowden,  which the Security Services have been undertaking for years and which were either illegal or of dubious legality. It is an indictment of the bodies overseeing the Security Services, that either they did not know what was going on or they did know, but allowed it to continue. 

No one in our society should be above the law. Some think that this does not apply to the Security Services. Such attitudes are dangerous and profoundly anti-democratic.

In 2015, technology gives the Security Services astonishing capabilities. Mass surveillance is easy. It is possible to track you through your phone, use your phone as a microphone to listen into your conversations, turn on the camera on your laptop, read your emails and know everything about your activity online. It is likely that even more pervasive forms of surveillance will be possible in 5, 10 and 20 years time.

Some people think the right to privacy is not particularly important. This is not the view of David Anderson QC, the widely respected Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation whose recent report is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the issues in this area. Privacy is essential to a free and healthy society. Anderson writes that we need privacy to develop as humans; to express individuality; to facilitate trust, friendship and intimacy; to secure other human rights; and to empower the individual against the State. 

You may have “nothing to hide” but would you want the possibility of being spied on 24/7? What about in the bathroom or the bedroom? Just the mere thought that you might be spied on, can lead to self-censorship and a loss of what it means to live in a free society.

Snowden was right to say - “Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide, is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”

There is a real possibility that IPB will not even make us all safer. In fact, it could make us less safe. IPB will gather huge amounts of data which can then be hacked into – as in the recent Talk Talk data breach. Furthermore, a less altruistic insider than Snowden would be better able to steal huge amounts of data once it had all been gathered.

IPB would also require companies to leave a “back door” into encrypted material to let spies have access. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, has warned this could have “very dire consequences” as it would undermine the whole system of encryption, which is vital for much of the internet to function. Cook points out that, in any event, terrorists would be able to exploit the back doors. 

IPB allows the authorities to instruct companies to hold for 12 months all the data they have for everyone. Such blanket retention of data is not allowed in any other EU or Commonwealth country or in the USA. 

Police officers and other officials, who need only to be middle-ranking, would have the power under IPB to access metadata, which, for example, includes the time and the sender or recipient of emails and the addresses of websites visited. This metadata could be obtained without any warrant or judicial involvement at all. 

Theresa May suggests that metadata is bland and uninformative - “the equivalent of a standard phone bill”. Snowden strongly disagrees. He says metadata can tell you a huge amount about a person - "Metadata is extraordinarily intrusive.”

Many people are not concerned about increased surveillance because they trust the authorities to use their powers for appropriate purposes.  Anderson recognised that this question is central by entitling his recent report “A Question of Trust”.  

It is always dangerous to entrust great power to anyone without a powerful system of oversight to ensure that the power is not abused. Power does corrupt. Furthermore, the powers in IPB would be available to all future governments. Some feel uncomfortable about the current government having them, others will feel the same way about a future Corbyn government. What about a Johnson or Farage government?

The authorities have certainly abused their powers historically. There are many examples. After the murder of Stephen Lawrence, the police spied upon his parents. Undercover officers notoriously abused their position when spying on environmentalists. MPs have been spied on including Caroline Lucas and Harriet Harman. A long list of groups which are non-violent, but which oppose the interests of the Establishment, have been spied on. 

Snowden reported spies in the USA using people’s own cameras to watch them having sex.

Certain groups have particular concerns about IPB, such as those involved in legitimate democratic protest and those who have historically had the confidentiality of their communications protected, such as doctors, lawyers and MPs.

The most intrusive powers in IPB are limited to the Security Services and need both the authorisation of the Home Secretary and also the approval of a judge. Theresa May calls this a double-lock. However, the judges’ role is limited to “judicial review grounds”. This means the judge does not actually consider the substance of the request. The organisation Liberty describe the judge’s role under IPB as a mere rubber-stamping exercise.

Given the secret way the powers under IPB are exercised, the reality is that most people would have no way of proving that powers had been abused. A proper, rigorous form of oversight would protect whistle-blowers and punish those who abused their power. IPB does the opposite. It effectively criminalises whistleblowing and protects those carrying out the surveillance.

IPB needs to be looked at in the context of what else this government is seeking to make law. They want to scrap the Human Rights Act, the main legislative protection for our privacy rights.

And, in a brazen use of power, whilst they seek more powers to know the people’s secrets, the government wants to restrict the Freedom of Information Act, so that it is more difficult for the people to know the government’s secrets.

If we do not get the balance of this legislation right,  Anderson warned “we risk sleep-walking into a world which - though possibly safer - would be indefinably but appreciably poorer.”  

We badly need a proper public debate about the right balance between security and privacy. We should beware handing the terrorists a victory by allowing their actions to lead to us abandoning essential components of a free society.