What a tangled web we weave...

The UK Government’s flagship “terrorism“ case has crashed and burned, with only one of the nine people arrested for allegendly conspiring to produce the poison ricin being convicted of any connection to terrorism, reports The Register. The article then tears apart not only the case for a huge terrorist plot but the political capital that has been made out of it, including the recent declaration by Home Secretary Charles Clarke that having ID cards and biometrics would have helped (not likely, given that the one man who was convicted (Kamel Bourgass) made an application for asylum and so already had biometric data on file, but was arrested entirely by accident!). Even better, Clarke announced that the failed cases against the other men showed that the government needs these new control powers it has given itself if it is to meet this threat that the judiciary is unable to deal with. As The Register asks, “what is it about people who definitely weren’t part of a ricin terror conspiracy that means you have to watch them?”