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I've kept shtum about 42 days because - is one allowed to say this on so critical an issue? - I don't have firm views on the matter. My inclination even splits both ways: I instinctively oppose such a drastic extension of the state's right to curtail our liberties without firm evidence that it is needed; but I equally instinctively recognise that we live in terrible times when such measures might be necessary.
One the one hand, when a policeman such as Peter Clarke says how important it is, I wonder who am I to say he is wrong. On the other, why do we need 42 when Australia and the US - hardly soft on terror - consider that 12 and one day are sufficient?
In the end, if I had a vote on the issue I'd vote no, for the simple reason that the government have yet to make the case that it is imperative to have 42 days - a figure which seems to have no real basis. And, worse than that, the checks which they propose seem to be to utterly bizarre. As Rachel Sylvester puts it today:
The package drawn up by the Government to reassure Labour rebels has created a constitutional minefield. Parliament is to be given a vote within seven days on whether a terrorist suspect should be held for the extended period - but this is as nonsensical as Alice in Wonderland's Rule 42, which states that anyone taller than a mile must leave the court. Either MPs will be able to debate only broad generalities (in which case the safeguard of parliamentary scrutiny is meaningless) or they will discuss detailed allegations (in which case it would be impossible for there to be a fair trial). And what if the suspect appeals - as he almost certainly would - against the Home Secretary's decision to ask for a longer period of detention?
A judge could rule against the extension at the very moment that the Commons was giving it the nod. Then whose verdict would come out on top? Parliament, elected to represent the voters, or the court, appointed to protect the voters from an over-powerful executive? No wonder the “Establishment” - the security services, police and prosecutors, as well as MPs, are divided in a way that rarely happens when the safety of the nation is at stake. I have lost count of the number of ministers who have told me that they wish Mr Brown would abandon the 42 days proposal.
Quite.