Health Secretary John Reid is quoted as saying "I don't think there will be any further major concessions, because we have to protect people in this country. The other parties have, quite frankly, to make their minds up and then explain their position to the people of this country."

In a well publicised News of the World article yesterday, ex Chief of the Metropoliton Police, Sir John Stevens, spoke up in favour of the government proposals, claiming there were ‘up to 200 al qaida “terrorists” on the streets of Britain’.

Sir John commented: "The main opposition to the bill, it seems to me, is from people who simply haven't understood the brutal reality of the world we live in and the true horror of the terrorism we face."

Neither Reid nor Stevens felt compelled to mention that the ‘brutal reality’ of Islamic terrorism is directly tied to the war in Iraq and western colonisation of the Middle East. By keeping the nation in the dark about this cause and effect, the governement and its supporters are failing to protect the people of this country.

Continued support for the US crusade right across the Middle East continues to make the UK a focus of Islamic anger. To pretend otherwise, as do Reid and Stevens, is for them to show that they “simply haven't understood the brutal reality of the world we live in”. Or that they are happy to deny it.