Rachel from North London, one of the survivors of the London bombings, has had enough. This is really powerful stuff.
"Right. I've bloody well had enough of the Home Secretary. I've tried to keep quiet about it because we are supposed to be meeting up again in May, this time with other survivors of 7/7, and so I judged it pertinent to keep it zipped in the interests of further fruitful dialogue. And he was very nice to me when I met him in Norwich. And he had apologised to my dad. After the meeting I actually felt sorry for him because he had been getting such a kicking and I want to believe the best of people...
Last week, the news that those who are wrongly imprisoned and freed on first appeal are not to receive any compensation. That really offended me...How many people are locked up who shouldn't be? How many more do you want to lock up on suspicion but without charge, without trial? And are we any safer for it?)
Then, yesterday, Mr Clarke was getting snippy with the ''lazy and deceitful'' pesky liberal media...
To call your critics ''lazy and deceitful'', Mr Clarke is a bit much. The press is doing its job, calling you to account over the creeping authoritarianism of Blair's government. Those of us who protest about the frightening erosion of our civil liberties are dismissed as ''pathetic liberals'' but we will not shut up, and we are grateful to the media for highlighting what is going on and having a debate about it.
Liberty and liberties are bloody important Mr. Clarke. I do not think it is 'pathetic' to cherish and protect them.
The most important modern freedom is now apparently ''the freedom not to be blown up on the way to work''. No it isn't. The most important freedom is to be able to live freely, not fearfully. And how does clamping down on civil liberties make me safer on the way to work, anyway...
What you should be concentrating on, rather than busily colluding in the shredding of the fabric of the British constitution, is doing your damn job properly. Last summer, you were warned of an unholy mess as dangerous prisoners - paedophiles, rapists, vicious robbers and murderers who should have been deported - were set free. They have served their time, but they should not have been in the country in the first place. They should also have been under close scrutiny.
Today we find out Mr Clarke does not know where the hell they are...
Tough on crime? Let's remind ourselves of what you were banging on about yesterday, Mr. Clarke. Remember this sentence?
''The right not to be killed by someone who has served his sentence for violent crime but remains dangerous''.
Right, exactly like the people who are now roaming the U.K who should have been deported? The ones you have lost track of?
For pity's sake, this is just *hopeless*. And once again, I'm sorry to say, it is scarily personal with me.
In July 2002 I was beaten, raped, robbed and left for dead by a foreign national, Julian Williams, a violent and sadistic crack-addicted teenager from Jamaica who had entered the coutry illegally. He broke into my flat, having followed me home. In December 2002 he was caught after a series of violent street robberies, and detained, thanks to the hunch of a policewoman in South London. His DNA matched that taken by the tireless police officers of Harringey Sapphire Unit, the Met's Sex Offences investigation team from my attack. In January 2004, after a drawn out and painful legal process, he was finally sentenced at the Inner London Crown Court to 15 years in total, 12 consecutively and 3 concurrently. The judge described him as ''a dangerous and sadistic young man.'' He'll probably be out in 2009, maybe 2008...
Right now, I am very afraid and I despair. Will Julian Williams come after me, Mr Clarke in a few years time? Very possibly. What assurances can you give that the situation is under control?
Very few, it seems.
Yesterday you said that people like me, who attack you on your civil liberties record were out of step with public opinion.
Now I think you are out of step with public opinion. The public wants you to go, judging by the calls that were coming into the news yesterday. You've completely let me, and people like me, down."
Read Rachel's entire post. I doubt the Home Secretary will.
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