I SEE that Mrs Allison has got off to a flying start in 2004 with her usual mixture of misrepresentation, hyperbole and statements which are clearly unsustainable (Letters, January 2).
However on her main theme I have to inform her that she is nearly 800 years too late. She castigates MPs and Lords for opposing "indefinite detention of foreign nationals without trial" and spreads the blame around her usual scapegoats: the European Union and New Labour for imposing human rights on us.
As it happens it was our idea in the first place, or so I was taught at school. The rot started (as Mrs Allison would have it) when the barons persuaded King John to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215. The relevant bit was that "no freeman should be detained save only by the judgement of his peers".
Admittedly in 1215 the barons did not intend most of the population to benefit from the Charter, but since then most of us have grown attached to the principle that we are innocent until proven guilty, and are not to be subject to detention without trial. It is reassuring to hear that our representatives in Parliament are continuing to uphold that principle.
COUNCILLOR
DEREK BODEN
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