We're changing the rules, Blair tells hate preachers

This is either madness or charlatanry. If "preaching hate" is to be a crime then Blair should begin by locking up 90% of the Labour Party who have been preaching hatred of "class enemies" since the Party was founded. Putting your "tanks on Oxford's lawns" to force the University to discriminate against the privately-educated is preaching hatred - and the Government has been doing that. Banning sports which have been part of the fabric of English society for centuries on the grounds that they are pursued by "toffs" is preaching hatred too.

inciting violence and/or racial hatred is already criminal. That's quite stupid enough. Free men have no excuse for doing wrong just because some idiot "incited" them to do so. Adding MORE nebulous "thought crimes" and "speech crimes" to the statute book will do no good. Acting on mad ideas should be criminal; having or expressing mad ideas should not.

If Blair knows this (and hard though it is for a professional colleague to believe sometimes he IS a trained lawyer), then it is not madness but charlatanry. If adequate remedies are on the statute book, then he is just proposing new laws for political effect. That's wicked.

Worst of all is that, once again, the leading candidate to succeed Michael Howard is forming a front of national unity with Blair. Our freedoms ebb daily. A line must be drawn somewhere. By all means exclude or deport undesirable aliens. All civilised countries do that. But if, as reported, the Government plans to prove its anti-terrorist credentials by deporting people to countries where they may face torture, that is just disgraceful

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