Bring these men to trial – or revoke their control orders

Bring these men to trial – or revoke their control orders

It's not only the law lords who are confused about the threat the controlees pose. What has the Home Office got to lose?

The conviction of three men for conspiring to murder using explosives on aircraft brings a set of competing nightmares into the debate about terrorism. The images of the death and destruction apparently planned by Abdulla Ali, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain on transatlantic airliners are terrifying to watch and rewarding for the intelligence services, who describe their operation disrupting the plot as "their most significant investigation ever undertaken".

On the other hand, for 19 men also accused of involvement in terrorism, but who have not had the luxury of a trial at crown court, their severely restricted existence under a regime of control orders is, according to the House of Lords, also "the stuff of nightmares".

Arse backwards

It would appear that this is arse backwards. In that "The Home Secretary will make a written statement to parliament tomorrow", whereas the Torygraph releases the news today.

Once again, David Davis gets hold of the wrong end of the stick and tries beating the hapless John Reid over this fiasco and misses the point. On the other hand, Nick Clegg recognises that the fault lies with the Control Order scheme and makes his point.