YESTERDAY the 24 suspects accused by the state of ‘a plot to commit murder on an unimaginable scale’ by blowing up 10 airliners with liquid explosives remained uncharged, with the police unable to produce even a shred of evidence, or a drop of liquid, against them, when the attempted mass murder was allegedly just a few hours away.
At his press conference yesterday, Home Secretary John Reid insisted that there was no indication that police action was going to be taken ‘imminently’ against the alleged terrorist plotters when Prime Minister Blair left the country for his holidays. That action was going to be taken only became clear in the last 24 hours, said Reid.
Just why the Prime Minister could not be bothered to return to Britain to supervise the situation where murder was being threatened on an ‘unimaginable scale’, with thousands of lives under threat and with the entire national airport network shut down, Reid did not bother to even attempt to explain.
This is despite the fact that the UK security threat level remains at ‘critical’, meaning that a terrorist attack is imminent.
This is also despite the fact that Reid has admitted that while he thinks that the ‘main suspects’ are in custody, there are a number of suspects who are not, ie. that this particular crisis is still very much ongoing.
Blair’s decision to dally in the Caribbean, and to allow MPs to remain on their holidays, and not to recall parliament, suggests that the crisis was not as grave as was, and is still being suggested, and that he was quite prepared to leave matters in the hands of the capitalist state and its Cobra committee of police chiefs, army officers and civil service mandarins.
The action which took place at just a few hours notice also raises issues about the massive preparations that were needed. These included the printing of large numbers of special leaflets to explain to air passengers what was happening, and what they could carry as hand luggage and what they couldn’t, and also the provision of the numbers of see-through plastic bags that were required to be made available at airports throughout Britain.
This is as well as the training that would be required for groups of airport staff who would have to take the lead in the operation.
What seems to have happened on Thursday is that the state decided to engage in a massive exercise to try out a number of its agencies, and introduce a situation of chaos that TV reporters never tired of telling us on Thursday that we would have to get used to as part of normal life, in this era of ‘instability’.
That such a scenario suited the requirements of the government is obvious. It cannot wait to rush through its 90 days limit for the police to hold a suspect without charging him or her, and to introduce its control orders, which so far have been foiled by the judiciary and parliament, along with, no doubt, a host of other measures.
It also created the situation for what could be termed a very British coup.
Blair plays the absentee landlord, Prescott is pushed to one side, and in steps that ‘man of steel’, Doctor John himself, to pose as the real saviour of the nation, the man that Tony Blair trusts to sort out the most difficult situation, and with Gordon Brown and the House of Commons not even in sight.
One might say that the police raid and the plot to ‘commit murder on an unimaginable scale’ launched the Blairite challenge to stop Gordon Brown in order to continue the undiluted Blairite assault on the working class at home and abroad.
We witnessed the intelligence led operations that produced the state murder of Jean Charles de Menezes and the Forest Gate raid looking for WMD, but we never saw any evidence.
Now we have the intelligence led raid to stop unimaginable mass murder.
Let us see the intelligence and let us see the evidence – otherwise let the 24 go.
.