I’m not “grateful”. I’m saying that the fact that the police were able to release them after “only” 14 days means that 42 and 90 are utterly unnecessary. The “only” is most certainly an argument against detention without charge.

And I’m slightly confused as to why you would read it any other way, to be honest. Has this blog been equivocal about this issue before?

Every attack on civil liberties could always be worse. But that’s no reason to accept something evil just because it is lesser. Where civil liberties are concerned, it has to be an all-or-nothing affair: there has to be a boundary beyond which we do not go. Being grateful that the boundary is overstepped by a small amount, that Rob, is a slippery slope. History’s victims of it bear it out (no Teutonic names mentioned).

Regardless of what went before, the push itself was clearly brutal. It came from behind as he was walking away (so doesn’t meet “self-defence” criteria) and it sent him sprawling. Even if he’d just committed a crime (and we have no reason to suppose that he had), the correct response would surely have been to arrest the man, not send him flying to his death.

I think a good solution would be if all the police had guns, and were properly trained, and were truly held responsible for what they do with them. I also think there should be proper personality testing at the recruitment stage to keep the power-crazed sadistic violent psycho types out. There’s definitely too many of those on the loose, and not a good enough system to protect us from them.

On point 1 – fair enough, although the huge Guardian logo all over the footage irks me.

On point 2 – You’re irritation is totally misplaced. I say “only” in comparison to the 28 day limit, and the preposterous 42 day limit the Brown attempted to enact, and the offensive 90 day limit that Blair tried to sneak past us. My point is in relation to these figures, not to the massive inconvenience faced by these men.

Regarding the push and “brutality”, it does rather depend on what went immediately before… which I was complaining we had not seen. It could have been in response to earlier violence, and the police man in question felt threatened. Having seen more footage on channel 4 though, I think that argument loses a lot of water.

Anway, I’m really not interested in mounting a defence of the police on this one. I am part of the group that has lost trust in them, even though I have a brother in the force. For now, I’m merely urging caution, avoiding the rush to judgement, and noting that in the 21st Century, the idea of a disinterested, neutral camera is probably a myth.

1. The footage of Ian Tomlinson being pushed was touted around by the guardian in response to the police saying that they’d had no contact with the man.

2. How are those arrested going to get their 14 days back? You refer to “ONLY” a few days’ detention as if it were no big deal. You would not think so if you were on the receiving end.

Oh, and ps, how can you be in any doubt that pushing a man from behind who was walking away could be anything other than brutality? There is no “alleged” about it. Or are you saying the footage was faked?