Odd behaviour
When Blair does something unexpected, I tend to think that it's because he knows, or believes, something we don't, and which can't be stated publicly.
The famous 'six points on the back of an envelope' which explain his decision to join the US action against Iran (and not to accept Rumsfeld's offer to send extra Americans instead) say nothing whatever about 'weapons of mass destruction' or a danger to Britain. They do include the judgment that it would be impossible to stop the Americans going in, and that it would be better for everyone if they did not go in alone. Not because it was obvious that the occupation would be badly handled - but on the contrary because it might have been handled well - and it would take a vigorous effort to prevent them going on to invade Iraq.
In the present row over imprisonment of terrorist suspects, the intelligence which Blair has been given (and perhaps has shared with opposition leaders though not with the press) is unlikely to relate to those few who have been arrestee and held, but to the much larger number of unarrested and perhaps unidentified 'sleepers' up and down the country waiting for a call to action. And the easiest question to answer about them is not where they will attack, but when. Both theoretically and from experience (in Spain) the answer must be 'a few days before a general election'. It is very important that Blair should do what he can to make it difficult for opposition parties to exploit such an atrocity, and discourage the attempt to produce it.
Posted by Nicholas Newman on behalf of Henry Blyth
