Panic at Lack of Threat from Terror Suspects

Three men whom the Minister of Unfitness for Purpose had placed under control orders "to prevent them travelling to Iraq to kill British and US troops" absconded on Monday night. "It was a deliberate attempt to disappear," said an anonymous counter-terrorism source; "you have to ask why. They disappeared in a coordinated way." Muslims being evidently neither as clannish nor as hidebound by tradition as has traditionally been thought, the fact that two of the men were brothers is clearly not enough to explain this sinister co-operation.

Accordingly, the Minister has had the customary hissy-fit and, in the best New Labour style, has declared that, in any conflict between his whims and the rule of law, the duty of the law is to do as he tells it, otherwise he will overrule the insubordinate beast. Members of Parliament are afraid that "the control order regime is in danger of becoming a public laughing stock" because people keep escaping from it. It is possible that there were members of the Supreme Soviet who objected to the Gulags on similar grounds.

The three men have not been charged or prosecuted for terrorist offences, and the Minister does not consider them "'at this time' to represent a direct threat to the UK public". The instant and utter Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Ian Blair, said that "nobody can be perfectly satisfied that they are not a risk to the public here, but the intelligence is pointing in another direction"; which appears to be the same statement as the Minister's, but with free additional levels of confused pomposity.

Nevertheless, despite the lack of threat, "there is a very serious threat", according to the Minister; a threat which, thanks to the courts not knowing their place, "we are fighting with one arm tied behind our backs". So the Minister hopes that when he attempts yet again to "strengthen Britain's anti-terror laws", everyone will stand shoulder to shoulder and "we will have a little less party politics and a little more support for national security". Otherwise, the Minister might be forced to use the "nuclear option" of derogating from the article of the European Convention on Human Rights which guarantees the right to liberty. It's all to protect our way of life, after all.