Intelligence community don't support organisation bans

Fascinating reports in the New Statesman and the Times about how MI5 and MI6 apparently seem to be distancing themselves from the government's anti-terror plans.

Tired of being leaned upon in Tony Blair's "if you only knew what I knew" manner, and burned by the dodgy dossier scandal, they've said if the government want to go ahead and ban organisations they can, but they must stop citing intelligence reports as their justification.

The reports mention that Jack Straw has been "isolated" in pushing for the whole of Hamas, not just the military wing, to be listed as a proscribed organisation. The leaked emails the reports rely on also have Home Secretary saying that "there is no apparent case" for banning Hizb-ut-Tahrir and "much of their literature explicitly rejects the use of violence".

This comes after the defeat of the 90 days plan, backtracking on the powers to close mosques, and the Lords throwing out the "glorification of terror" clauses. There was a suspicion in August that Tony Blair made up the anti-terror plans on the hoof. If you don't think this kind of things happen, read these comments from Armando Iannucci of The Thick of It. The BBC comedy which portrayed policy being made on the back of an envelope on the way to an announcement has apparently found a resonance in Downing Street.