The subject of torture has raised its ugly head again. The British Secret Service (a name I always find so old fashioned) is accused of being complicit in the torture by the Americans of Binyam Mohammed.
This morning Lord Harries (the former Bishop of Oxford) tried to explain on radio why torture should be banned. It was, he said, because it took us down to their level, it made us do things which were simply not the sort of things which would be done by the type of society we wanted to be (by which he means the sort of society he wants us to be).
I must say, I don’t think the British public are with the bien pensants on this one. I think most of us – if we get the signatures can we have a referendum, Mr.Cameron? – think that if police have in custody a suspect who, they seriously believe, knows details of a terrorist attack which could cost hundreds of lives, they want him tortured until he spills the beans. I know this is difficult. Perhaps a variety of exceptional methods of interrogation (the euphemism sounds lots better than 'torture' which is reminiscent of the Inquisition) could be authorised by a High Court Judge, the Security Services being scrutinised afterwards to make sure it was targeted rather than random. I'm in two minds about it, to be honest, but I want to discuss it rather than being lectured by the great and good.
The other thing the public don’t much like is ‘the sort of society we are’ being determined by these self-appointed arbiters of morality, such as the liberal leftie Harries. We ordinary people might decide that depriving a subject of sleep is a vastly different moral transgression to blowing up a busload of innocent people. We might in fact decide that rather than being the sort of cosy, smug society Harries would like, we are in fact a collection of vindictive torturers. Whatever we decide, I don’t believe lefty Harries is representative of us.
I, for example, think Harries should be tortured until he explains why he nearly destroyed the Church of England by appointing an openly gay priest (who later had to resign after the damage was done) as Bishop of Reading. He knew it could cause a schism so why did he do it? Why? Where’s my rubber truncheon?
This morning Lord Harries (the former Bishop of Oxford) tried to explain on radio why torture should be banned. It was, he said, because it took us down to their level, it made us do things which were simply not the sort of things which would be done by the type of society we wanted to be (by which he means the sort of society he wants us to be).
I must say, I don’t think the British public are with the bien pensants on this one. I think most of us – if we get the signatures can we have a referendum, Mr.Cameron? – think that if police have in custody a suspect who, they seriously believe, knows details of a terrorist attack which could cost hundreds of lives, they want him tortured until he spills the beans. I know this is difficult. Perhaps a variety of exceptional methods of interrogation (the euphemism sounds lots better than 'torture' which is reminiscent of the Inquisition) could be authorised by a High Court Judge, the Security Services being scrutinised afterwards to make sure it was targeted rather than random. I'm in two minds about it, to be honest, but I want to discuss it rather than being lectured by the great and good.
The other thing the public don’t much like is ‘the sort of society we are’ being determined by these self-appointed arbiters of morality, such as the liberal leftie Harries. We ordinary people might decide that depriving a subject of sleep is a vastly different moral transgression to blowing up a busload of innocent people. We might in fact decide that rather than being the sort of cosy, smug society Harries would like, we are in fact a collection of vindictive torturers. Whatever we decide, I don’t believe lefty Harries is representative of us.
I, for example, think Harries should be tortured until he explains why he nearly destroyed the Church of England by appointing an openly gay priest (who later had to resign after the damage was done) as Bishop of Reading. He knew it could cause a schism so why did he do it? Why? Where’s my rubber truncheon?
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