42 days detention "sexed up" by the government.

There have been claims this morning that the government have "sexed up" the need for extending the detention without charge limit to 42 days. Nick Robinson reports:

Liberty's Shami Chakrabarti alleges that the government have sexed up the evidence for an extension of detention without charge to 42 days. Her claim comes because ministers have cited the example of two people alleged to have taken part in the alleged plot to blow up planes across the Atlantic in 2006. In these cases yet to come to court the suspects were held by the police for 27 and 28 days respectively - up to, in other words, the current legal maximum. Liberty's claims are right but their defence lawyer has revealed that the police had the evidence to charge them after four days and 12 days respectively, thus demonstrating that no extension of the period allowed to the police to question terror suspects is needed.

As Nick points out, this echo's the WMD claims made before the Iraq war. I think we all expected Gordon Brown to pull out all the stops to win this vote at any cost. And talking of cost, a last minute concession has been offered to rebelling Labour MPs. Any person held over 28 days and not charged will receive £3000/day. That's £42,000 for the full 42 days. So now we know how much our liberty is worth to the government. Our loss of freedom comes at £125/hour. It has often been debated - "What price do you put on freedom" well thanks to Gordon Brown, we now know. I'm not sure I'm very happy about the government being able to buy my freedom for £125/hour.

So Brown and his ministers have resorted to lying and bribery to get this bill through - are they really fit to run this country?

We have yet to learn how much Gordon Brown has offered the DUP to buy their votes. No doubt we will find out after the vote.