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Number 10 Press Briefing: 11am Monday 28 February 2005:

Put to the PMOS that the Prime Minister had said in a “Woman’s Hour” interview that there were “several hundred people plotting” a terrorist attack, and did that therefore mean there would be several hundred house arrests imposed, the PMOS replied: no. The Prime Minister had used the same phraseology last week in PMQs, and he made clear that with regards to the extreme end of the control orders, we envisaged that it would only be used against a very few people.

The Guardian:

No 10 also made light of the prime minister’s remark. But talk of “several hundred” active plotters – made on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour – is far in excess of what intelligence officials estimate.

The Times:

A Downing Street official said Mr Blair’s claim was based on the few hundred people being monitored by the security services, some of whom would be subject to the new control orders. However, one senior security source told The Times that the figures were based on numbers from MI6 of people who travelled to training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, prior to September 11.

Of that group of 200 or so, only 40 to 50 were regarded as a “moderate�? or “serious�? threat, and of that group up to 15 had disappeared from Britain altogether. That left around 25 or 30 who are known to be in Britain, with some of those in prison in Belmarsh.

Telegraph:

Tony Blair said the police and security services were keeping watch on “several hundred” people they believed were engaged in or plotting or trying to commit terrorist acts.

Restrictions on their liberty would be used “only in the most limited circumstances”, he said.

The Home Secretary later denied that the Government was planning to impose control orders on that number of suspects, suggesting that Mr Blair was referring to many cases in which action had already been taken.

Ha ha. This “hundreds” tosh was only ever going to have a shelf-life of a matter of hours even with those bovine enough to take the Prime Minister at his word.

No doubt this will just fade away. Maybe we’ll get a “so sorry, we were given the wrong figures” later on if someone can be bothered to query Blair on yet another queasy instance of his serial mendacity. In the meantime let’s hope at the least it’s made one or two more voters realise just in what kind of contempt they are held.