Hague: Govt guilty of 'ineffective authoritarianism'

Tuesday, 29, May 2007 12:00

The government's "robust language", combined with its poor record on keeping track of terror suspects and foreign criminals, has made it guilty of "a kind of ineffective authoritarianism", William Hague has claimed.

But the shadow foreign secretary said the Conservatives would judge all the government's counter-terrorism proposals "on their merit".

Drawn on whether leaked plans for an extension of police search-and-question powers seemed a good idea, Mr Hague said that he would need to see more detailed proposals before passing judgement.

"If there are measures that are truly necessary to combat terrorism in this country… then we will support them," he told the BBC's Sunday AM programme.

"[Ministers] have to explain what they are doing, and why it is necessary.

"When they tried to argue for a 90-day detention of people without charge they couldn't come up with any actual instance of when it had been necessary, and so we voted against it," he said.

"We don't live in a country, thankfully, where we just do anything that 10 Downing Street says, or that the police say. We do live in a country where, with some rational debate and consultation between political parties, we ought to be able to support what is necessary to fight terrorism."