Terrorism Bill

I shall not glorify any of those people, thus protecting myself from the clause. There are circumstances in which terrorism is seen in different lights in different places. In democracies, people have a right to expect an obedience to the law that they do not have a right to expect in military dictatorships. In today’s world, we have a right to expect obedience to the law in a way that would not have applied in Britain 100, 200 or 300 years ago—not necessarily mainland Britain, but certainly the island of Ireland. It ill behoves us to pass legislation that is the Prime Minister’s appendix: the bit left over, an entirely different piece of the jigsaw that has unfortunately been left there and will, if we leave it still, have much the same effect as a grumbling appendix. We do not need it but we need to deal with it, and the only way to do so firmly is to cut it out.