Tolerating the Intolerable

The smirk on his face tells all one needs to know.  Abu Qatada, a notorious hate preacher and terrorist suspect, has been released on bail.  This follows a successful appeal against deportation to Jordan, where he stands accused of various terrorism offences. 

I’m sure you’ve heard the script before – he will not get a fair trial, say the liberal old judges sitting on the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, proving once again that an ass is far too intelligent an animal to be compared to the law.    It’s not justice denied, it’s not justice delayed; it’s justice mocked.  More than that: we as a nation are mocked, a refuge for every murderous fanatic who knows how to manipulate the system.

Apparently David Cameron, our benighted Prime Minister, shares the nation’s ‘frustration’ at this latest development.  Nick Clegg, his Deputy, says that the government is still “absolutely determined” to deport Qatada. 

Now, here’s a question for you: what does Cameron’s ‘frustration’ and Clegg’s ‘determination’ amount to?  Oh, I know, the answer is just too, too simple.  They amount to precisely nothing, because nothing is what we shall get.  Oh, sorry, that’s not true: we shall get years and years of Abu Qatada. 

I personally would send Qatada off on the next plane to Amman.  No, I don’t care about the asinine judges and I don’t care about the European Convention of Human Rights, adopted wholesale into our own legal system without consideration or reflection by Tony Blair and his toy town government.  I don’t care if the evidence to be used against Qatada in Jordon is based on confessions obtained by torture, the chief objection of the judges.  I don’t even care if he is tortured himself; I just want rid of him; I do not want this appalling man to breathe English air.  I really do not care if he breathes any air at all. 

This is too, too awful of me, don’t you agree?  Taking a more than usually pompous tone in the Telegraph yesterday, Dan Hodges writes that the calls for the immediate deportation of Qatada will rightly receive short shrift –“Once we start simply ignoring the laws of the land, Abu Qatada has won.  Nor do we want politicians muscling aside our independent judiciary.”

Frustrated Dave and Determined Nick most assuredly won’t do that, or anything else, for that matter.  Once the law of the land starts to offer shelter and protection to the enemies of the land then it is worse than useless.  Fine, I’m happy to let Qatada have the victory, just so long as he smirks about it in Jordan.  What I want is a politician less ‘frustrated’ and less ‘determined’; I want a politician with the character of Alexander, one who acts, not talks, one who has the courage to cut through the Gordian Knot and to hell with the consequences.

In essence what I want is to see the loathsome Abu Qatada smirk on the other side of his face.  As it is he is likely to spend years amongst us, all at huge public expense, smiling away at the stupidity of our judges, our law, our politicians and our country, a country that can tolerate the intolerable.