Guarded Optimism

The Liberal Democrats have issued a stark warning to Daveybloke's Cuddly Conservatives that any decision to retain New Labour's policy of house arrest for suspected Muslims would cause a significant reduction in their delight over the Government's reclamation of some people's civil liberties. Should it prove necessary for the Liberal Democrats' promises on control orders to go the same way as their promises on tuition fees and nuclear power, it is eminently possible that some of them will feel not altogether inclined to absolute satisfaction.

Since attaining office, the Home Secretary has apparently decided that control orders are a necessary evil, although her press agents are putting it about that she has done so in a spirit of reluctant conformism rather than gleeful authoritarianism. The Secretary for Justice and Big Tobacco, Kenneth Clarke, and the attorney general are even less enthusiastic; which should at least mean there will be more of a debate on the matter than if it were merely a question of waiting for the Liberal Democrats to jump into line.