Lords defeat Blair over terror bill

Cool:

"The government was tonight defeated in the Lords over its controversial terror bill as peers voted to reject a clause creating a new offence of "glorifying" terrorism.

The bill will now go back to the House of Commons in a battle of wills between the two houses which is referred to as "parliamentary pingpong".

Charles Clarke, the home secretary, immediately hit back, saying: "I am disappointed that the Lords have chosen to ignore the clear and repeated signal from the Commons that glorification of terrorism is unacceptable."

Oh for goodness sake! Is this government incapable of distinguishing what is unacceptable from what should be illegal? And if they insist with this arduous and illiberal legislative project to make everything that is a sin also a crime, wouldn't it go better if they hadn't coupled two of the most nebulous and indistinct concepts imaginable and tried to make a freakin' law banning it, them, whatever?

The thing with Blair I've never understood is that he's a trained barrister. You could be forgiven for not noticing.

"I know what you're thinking: 'Did he fire six shots, or only five?' Well, you know, in all this excitement I kinda lost track myself..."