We all know of course that the Government is wonderful, only has our best interests at heart, can do no wrong and is there to protect us from the vicissitudes of the angry world ranged against us. This is why, of course, it is absolutely right and correct that we should overturn the wisdom of the ages and allow them to lock up anyone they think they want to, without benefit of a trial, for of course, they are wonderful, have our best interests at heart and can do no wrong:

The Home Office has been
forced to apologise to 10 men placed under controversial anti-terrorist
control orders after it linked them to the ricin plot in London, the
Guardian has discovered.

In
an embarrassing letter to the men, the government claims that it made a
"clerical error" when it said the grounds for emergency restriction
imposed on each of the alleged international terrorists was that they
"belonged to and have provided support for a network of north African
extremists directly involved in terrorist planning in the UK, including
the use of toxic chemicals".

Last
Wednesday, Kamel Bourgass, an Algerian who stabbed a policeman to death
and planned poison attacks across Britain, was jailed for 17 years. But
in a blow to the police and security services, four co-defendants were
acquitted and a second trial was abandoned. Defence lawyers said the
case was a massive conspiracy tapestry woven by the prosecution and
that it had been used by the government to justify the war in Iraq and
detention without trial in the UK.

The
fact that the control orders attempted to connect the 10 men – who were
detained without charge and trial for more than two years before being
released under stringent conditions – to the ricin plot, will cast
further doubt on the validity of the secret evidence the government
claims it has on them.

Last
night a Home Office spokesman said: "Basically there was a clerical
error in the initial order in that the same basis for issue was given
in all of the orders. This was noticed shortly afterwards and acted on
immediately. It did not affect the validity of the order.

"The
home secretary made the decision to issue the control orders on the
basis of information given to him by the security services. The
clerical error did not change the validity of the order in any way."

Certainly, I shall sleep safer in my bed tonight, knowing that I too could be locked up on the basis of a clerical error. Won’t you? So much easier than having to, oooh, I don’t know, persuade a judge, have evidence, anything concrete like that. I mean really, it’s obvious isn’t it, fascism is so much safer than freedom.