Well, you'll be happy to know that this is an issue of habeus corpus (having the body),
which means you have to have some proof before you lock someone up. Otherwise, you've got, for all intents and purposes, a dictatorship. This is an old law, from the 17th century, even before the short-lived Cromwellian Republic (that's Cromwell below). You know, long curly hair, talc, doilies, mens' hosiery. What do they know about law? A lot more than today's parliament.
Well, thanks to all those terrorists going around destroying something, who knows what, the government thinks it has the excuse to erode this habeus shmabeus.
So, now they've locked up a Conservative politician, and you're Labour or Lib Dem, so you think this is getting back at Thatcher. WRONG. Actually, you're next, if you step out of line or if you put the wrong nose out of joint. They'll just lock you up indefinitely, oh, sorry for 28 days now, is it? No problem. Think of it as a vacation, unpaid of course; a vacation from democracy.
checkitout: The Economist- Bagehot, the unfinished revolution
art: fotosearch.com, royalty-free
