U-turn over 90-day detention · Judges lead attack
Tony Blair was preparing a humiliating climbdown over anti-terror laws last night in what will be seen as a further blow to his dwindling personal authority.
Senior Downing Street sources said that although the Prime Minister remains personally convinced that allowing police to detain suspects for up to 90 days without trial is essential to combating the threat from al-Qaeda, he has now accepted that in the present political climate he will have to compromise.
Without a change, Blair faced the prospect of his first defeat in the House of Commons this week, with MPs warning that he would have to quit if he lost and the Tories threatening to shoot down the entire anti-terror legislation. He was also facing protests within his own cabinet. In an unusual step, No 10 has withdrawn from negotiations on the controversial 90-day rule and left the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke - who is understood to have protested that rejecting a deal would put him in an impossible position - to find a compromise.
Blair hopes that the move will reassure the angry Labour MPs who were likely to scupper the bill, which will be put to the vote on Wednesday. The retreat leaves Blair in the difficult position of legislating for a move he will then denounce in public, and will be seized on by his enemies as a further sign of his weakened authority after weeks of cabinet infighting.
'The Prime Minister understands there is likely to be a compromise, but that doesn't mean to say he does not believe that the 90 days is the right decision,' said a Downing Street source. 'The most important thing is getting the legislation on the statute book. If you can't get the 90 days through
, there has to be a negotiation. That does not mean we then say the outcome is the right one - it's the only one we can get through.'
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1635444,00.html
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