2004.041 DT035 'Emergency powers
for government', The Daily Telegraph,
3 Dec 2004
The Home Office Minister Hazel Blears
(Letter, 29 November 2004) is unfair to Philip Johnston. She says
his article contains a number of misconceptions, but does not
specify what these are. I can find none.
She implies that he alleged that
the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 granted the Government ‘dramatic
new powers’, but he did not say this. What he said was that
the Government ‘took sweeping powers’. This is accurate.
He did not say these powers were
new because of course they are not new. Hazel Blears is mistaken
in saying they have been available to governments only since the
Emergency Powers Act was passed in 1920. In fact they have been
available since 1914, when Parliament passed the Defence of the
Realm Act (guyed by cartoonists as DORA, a fierce old lady with
a threatening brolly).
One might find fault with Philip
Johnston for saying the Act is ‘objectionable’ because
its powers might be misused by a future government ‘with
scantier respect for democratic procedures than we have been used
to’. But this does not make the Act objectionable because
it cannot be avoided. We have to trust future governments not
to abuse these essential powers.
The media are now more vigilant than
ever before, and so are human rights bodies. We have little to
worry us on that score
