I don’t know about you but when I want to influence a vote in the House of Commons, I don’t bother with all the tedious wastes of time like lobbying my MP, writing letters to the minister concerned or, God forbid, standing for office. No, what I do is write an article for one of Britain’s biggest selling newspapers. It’s an opportunity open to all and I heartily suggest you avail yourself of it - who knows, you might even sway the opinions of some very important people.

So who can blame Sir Ian Blair, the apolitical Chief of the apolitical Metropolitan Police, for seeking to interfere in today’s Parlimentary debate on the new terrorist legislation. Instead of making his recommendation to the Home Office and leaving it at that, Sir Ian has gone that extra mile and written a colourful piece for the Sun newspaper.

The sky is dark. Intelligence exists to suggest that other groups will attempt to attack Britain in the coming months.

…

It is the united view of police chiefs that an extension of detention to 90 days is necessary if we are to defeat those planning further terrorist carnage.

Sir Ian picked his platform wisely, the newspaper, should we forget, having a robust attitude towards the rule of law:

Britain is crawling with suspected terrorists and those who give them succour. The Government must act without delay, round up this enemy in our midst and lock them in internment camps.

I say wisely. Most of the people I’ve ever known who read The Sun generally start at the back and work forwards, after checking the breasts on the girl on Page 3. They often make it as far as the TV listings, tea and lunch breaks permitting. Just how many Sun readers will have read Sir Ian’s words, let alone understood, them is moot. He certainly seems to be trying to confuse people with this:

We have no interest in detaining lots of people but we do have an interest, and a duty, to detain some people long enough for us to understand what they are planning in order to protect this country.

What if these some people are planning merely to get up, go to work, play with their kids and lead their lives? What about them? Blair seems to be suggesting that anybody held under the powers after which he is hankering must be “planning” something awful. As for those innocent people who’ll end up being detained: details, dear boy, details. No need to worry about the innocent when there are MPs to be cowed.

Anyway. Don’t worry that Blair, in the same piece, tell us that “[t]he Security Service and the Met have prevented other attacks in the last few weeks” with existing powers and resources. Forget that Sir Ian personally obstructed the inquiry into how an innocent man was shot in the head eight times because the officer who was supposed to be identifying him as a suspected terrorist or not was urinating in the street.

Some would argue that Sir Ian should get his affairs as they currently stand in order. That he should examine his own attitude - and that of some of his officers - towards accountability and procedure, before appealing for the extraordinary powers to intern suspects for three months or recruit a mercenary army. These issues, fortunately for Blair and his supporters, are unlikely to receive much scrutiny in the media today thanks to the Minister for Work and Pensions having kindly just resigned.

(No doubt there are those who would mark me and my ilk as anti-police or pro-terrorism. This is, of course, the same intellectual retardation that dictates that because we want to see Ariel Sharon in a jail cell we also want to see Israel wiped from the map and the Jewish race marched to the ovens.)