42 days detention has nothing to do with our security

Gordon Brown's Commons victory on 42 days' detention has nothing to do with counter-terrorism. It is, as Dianne Abbot MP so eloquently put it, all about positioning. Like Blair's rejected 90-days proposal, it is designed to make Tories appear "soft on terrorism" and peel off a slice of Middle England's saloon-bar support to New Labour. We have a Prime Minister ready to become a recruiting sergeant for al Qaeda and curtail our liberties in exchange for a few weeks' improved opinion poll ratings.

Thus does Brown finally prove himself the equal of Blair, although the two senior law officers in Blair's government, Lords Falconer and Goldsmith, oppose him. Both former champions of 90 days' detention have rediscovered principles when freed from high office. Their voices join those of Scotland's Lord Advocate, the Director of Public Prosecutions and even, before application of a big clunking thumbscrew, the government's own counter-terrorism Minister, Admiral Sir Alan West.

MI5, a long-rumoured opponent of the bill, makes an unprecedented declaration of neutrality. But what of its sister service, MI6? Sir John Scarlett has never been slow to tell prime ministers what they want to hear, rather than what they need to know. Sure enough, he delivered for Gordon on 42 days just as he did on 45 minutes for Tony. But even his support was couched in terms so cryptic (he does head the Secret Intelligence Service) to allow wriggle room should Brown fail and resign.

This wicked and unworkably stupid bill was passed by a majority of nine votes - exactly the number of Paisleyite MPs supporting it. Have they learned from their 1970s folly of driving innocent nationalist detainees into the grateful arms of terrorists? Not, seemingly, if there is a £1bn reward for Stormont up for grabs.

Other votes were grubbed by scraping the bottom of the pork barrel to buy off Labour rebels: easing of Cuban sanctions here, more money for miners there. As Mark Durkan MP put it, Gordon Brown has been saved from a humiliating defeat but at the cost of a humiliating victory.

The proposal now faces annihilation in the Lords. It is a bad day when we have to depend on unelected peers to buttress a cornerstone of democracy. Will Gordon Brown really invoke the Parliament Act a year from now, given the narrowness of the vote on Wednesday? Those too-clever-by-half Labour MPs who calculated "no" and voted "aye" might have egg on their faces.

By that time the country will be months away from a General Election, when it will be political suicide to humiliate the Prime Minister. Their only remedy is to dump Brown sooner, rather than later, and allow the Labour Party the opportunity denied last year - to elect its leader.

Thomas McLaughlin, Jordanhill, Glasgow

The role of government is many-fold but one of its prime objectives is to preserve the citizens of a nation from exposure to avoidable risks to their health or safety. The Labour government has taken to this responsibility with great vigour and has been exceptionally active in trying to minimise, as far as is possible, any risk from terrorist activity. To this effect it has enacted a whole slew of new legislation on airline security, extended detention, logging of phone and internet records, ID cards and so on.

So why do I not feel that my risk of harm has been reduced? Is it to do with the fact that the chance of being involved in a terrorist incident, while real, is exceptionally small, and was so even before the new legislations were enacted? Could it be that we as citizens are exposed to a large number of other risks that the government has chosen not to be tough on? For example, on a typical day the risk of being killed in a traffic accident is comparatively very high. There are many things the government could do about road deaths, such as enacting legislation to bring down speed limits in towns from 30mph to 20mph: you are eight times as likely to die if hit by a car at 30mph compared with 20mph.

A more topical example might be hospital-acquired infections. Entry to hospital is now a daunting prospect for older persons, who are worried that a trip to hospital may leave them sicker (or worse) than when they went in. The government could mandate screening of all new patients for antibiotic-resistant germs and isolation of those presenting as carriers. Such a screening and isolation system is already in place in the Netherlands.

The extreme focus of the Labour government on the limited terrorist risk is unhelpful when the world is full of real risks that we encounter every day of our lives. If the government thinks the price of tacking these risks is too high it only needs to scrap some of it huge "terror-related" programs such as ID cards to release money to combat the real risks that real citizens face every day.

This government needs to stop playing politics with risk perception and should look to using its budget wisely to effect the greatest real benefits to its citizens.

Bob Downie, Glasgow

Joined by the DUP in support of the government's proposals on extended pre-charge detention, Scottish Labour MPs might have learned something about extracting money from the Treasury for the benefit of devolved administrations. Even if so, it is an expensive lesson. Hopefully the shiver that passed along Labour benches in the Commons will find a spine to run up in the Lords.

Geraint Bevan, Glasgow

"What price freedom?" Apparently, £3000 a day after being deprived of it for four weeks. Those Labour MPs who were persuaded to vote "yes" last night as a result of this last-minute "concession" have surely abandoned any claim to principle; while those officials or ministers who dreamed up the idea of generous compensation for 29 to 42 days' detention without charge clearly took the cynical view (apparently correctly) that putting a sufficient price on loss of freedom would win round enough rebels.

The depths to which this desperate government has sunk is demonstrated by its readiness to buy its way out of difficulties of its own making.

Andrew A Reid, Glasgow

Will the person who left the top-secret papers on the train be locked up for 42 days pending further investigation?

Ruth Marr, Stirling