PM seems to have the rights idea

AS the director of Liberty, sometimes I think people see me as being a bit like the grim reaper. If you see me everywhere, you know that something pretty awful is happening.

Unfortunately, you may have seen too much of me recently but now, as change brings opportunity and with it the hope of a more enlightened consensus for rights, equality and the rule of law, there is no better time for me to assess the health of human rights and civil liberties after ten years of New Labour government and in the light of fresh terror plots uncovered this week.

The Blair legacy in home affairs was contradictory. On the one hand, his government gave the United Kingdom its modern Bill of Rights by way of the Human Rights Act. On the other hand, we are witnessing the poorly labelled "war on terror", the introduction of sweeping police powers and denigration of asylum seekers - all serving as a threat to poison our race relations.

It seems that the lessons from Northern Ireland have been forgotten and now Muslim terror suspects have been subject to years of internment in Belmarsh prison and house arrest under control orders. Our pre-charge detention period for terror suspects now stands at 28 days - the longest in the free world. That said, if it had not been for a rare parliamentary revolt, that period might have been three months.

The most inexcusable act was the previous government's willingness to turn a blind eye on torture. It refused to investigate reasonable suspicions that our airspace and airports have been part of the web of kidnap and torture called "extraordinary rendition".

It also sought to rely on the products of foreign torture in UK courts and to deport foreign terror suspects into the hands of potential torturers rather than bring them to justice in Britain.

By most accounts Gordon Brown, the new Prime Minister, got off to a flying start last week. The "Government of all the talents" was derided as carefully planned spin by opponents but, nonetheless, sent signals that a more constitutional approach to our democracy might follow.

The would-be murderers who emerged over the weekend must have been as disappointed by the Prime Minister's rather humble entry to the highest office in the land as by the way their intentions have been foiled by the calm courage of emergency services and ordinary citizens in recent days.

As Liberty condemns the murderous plots exposed in London and Glasgow over the last few days, we also pay tribute to the new Prime Minister, Home Secretary and First Minister. So far at least, Mr Brown has resisted partisan posturing or a knee-jerk rush to the statute book.

Debates of principle and policy no doubt remain to be had. But these will be for another day and according to a timetable and process already set out. The new government thus far has demonstrated the unifying response that it rightly seeks from all of us.

• Shami Chakrabarti is director of the human rights pressure group Liberty.