Keep The Secrets Secret

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The Court of Appeal ordered the disclosure of evidence that showed that MI5 knew about the mistreatment by the CIA of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee, a UK resident who chose to wander around areas of the world which wiser folk might have avoided.

This then led to cries that the Secret Service orchestrated a ‘cover-up’ which, in turn, led to vehement denials by the Home Secretary and the Head of MI5.

Britain is still, thank heavens, a free and democratic country and there are far too many people who try to interfere with and upset that. MI5 and other intelligence departments exist to protect the people of this country and do so very often under difficult constraints and circumstances.

Of course, they must operate within the law and that was made clear by the Head of MI5 when he said yesterday: ‘People who choose to work in the service do so because they want to protect the UK and its liberties. We are an accountable public organisation and take our legal and oversight responsibilities seriously.’

Now I am no advocate for torture; in fact, quite the opposite.

But I am an advocate for keeping secrets secret, especially when it comes to terrorism, and I think I tend to agree with the view that some human rights lawyers and other activists help the cause of extremism in this country.
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A ‘Broken Society’?

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Speaking in Kent yesterday, David Cameron talked about Britain’s ‘social recession’.

His point followed the trial of two brothers, then aged ten and eleven, who subjected two other boys, aged nine and eleven, to what was described as a ‘sadistic’ attack and who have been sentenced to an indefinite period of detention.

In some respects, this morning’s papers may give some backing to what Cameron said:

A woman has been jailed for three years after subjecting her son to ‘enduring’ cruelty by pretending he was severely ill so as to gain publicity and financial rewards; a mother and her brother have been jailed for life for the murder of a man they tortured to death; and the man behind one of the biggest gun smuggling operations in the UK has been jailed for thirty years.

None of these, plus other similar stories in today’s newspapers, make for easy reading, but I don’t think they point to a ‘broken society’ as inferred by David Cameron.

If that were so, people wouldn’t offer themselves as foster parents, volunteer to help those who are disadvantaged or do any of the other things that aim to help others. More importantly, people wouldn’t feel the revulsion that is so apparent from their reaction to such stories.

While people do these charitable things and react with such generosity to disasters such as the one that has engulfed Haiti, British society is not yet broken.
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