Home Sec: terror threat "severe" and "growing"

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith appeared in the News of the World this week defending the need for 42 days by 'exclusively' revealing statistics on the level of threat we face. 2,000 individuals are being monitored, 200 networks and 30 active plots.

This all rings a bell, and that is because these are just about the exact figures that MI5 chief, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, released in November 2006. At that time there were 1,600 individuals, 200 networks and 30 active plots.

So in the last one-and-half-years, the good news is that there are no more active plots and networks, and when Smith says the problem is "growing", we'll accept that she means just on the lone individuals front rather than networks and active plots which she also mentioned.

Can we also ask that of these 30 active plots how 'active' are they? Why have these people not been arrested yet?

Comments

[Roobin]

Thanks, this occurred to me at the time but I didn't look it up. Perhaps 2007 was a bad year for plots? Perhaps plot is just an intermediate term, somewhere in between scheme and idle fantasy. Who knows?

They're a quixotic bunch, New Labour.

[joe90]

New Labour can always be relied on to tell the truth - look at all the WMD the British Government has found in Iraq, to date.

(Note - British WMD was sold to Saddam Hussein on credit, 'Credit Export Guarantees' - a scheme where we, the lucky UK taxpayers, get to subsidise ruthless bloodthirsty dictators)

all the best RuT!

ps
Next week, Islam on BBC Radio 4 -

Could I Stop Being a Muslim?
BBC Radio 4 FM
Tues 22 Apr 2008 20:00-20:40
(Rptd Sun 27 April 17:00)

BBC Radio 4 website blurb -
'Former Muslim radical Shiraz Maher spent his student days campaigning for an Islamic caliphate in which execution for renouncing Islam would be written into the constitution. Now Shiraz is calling for moderation and greater Muslim integration into British life, a stance which has meant he himself is now labelled an apostate by some Muslim radicals, for which the penalty is death. He asks whether such an extreme punishment is really justified by the Qu'ran and the example of the Prophet Muhammad.'

I gather Shiraz Maher was once a member of 'Hizb ut-Tahrir' which, as far as I'm aware, is a law-abiding peaceful organisation but is being demonised by some western governments because of its Islamic outlook and politics.

Personally speaking, I would like to see New Labour, and the British Government in general, making greater efforts to integrate itself into British culture and society - rather than being just another out-of-control, anti-democratic, one-party, parliamentary dictatorship bent on following its orders from Washington, whatever the costs to its victims at home and abroad.

[MonkeyZerg]

They haven't been arrested yet because they haven't been infiltrated with agents provocateurs to entrap them yet.

Please watch this video to know what I'm talking about:
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=4909196303982339948&q=Unfair+dealing&total=38&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2

(Look up Unfair Dealing in google videos)

And there's a lot of talk about the 42days limit. What else are they trying to pass in their legislation under the guise of fighting terror?

http://www.sacc.org.uk/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=49&catid=28