Rebekah Brooks and the horse

On the way home today I listened to ex Blue Peter presenter and former coke snorter Richard Bacon, now rescued from supermarket-opening obscurity and enjoying the limelight again with an afternoon show on Radio 5, announcing the names of his guests for the afternoon. One them, Bacon said, would be his Radio 5 colleague Simon Mayo.

Like many such shows, Bacon's programme often consists of him interviewing people who have a film, book or TV show to plug. It's a cheap way of making a programme, and the interviewees probably shift a few more units as a result. And yes, it turns out that Mayo, who used to present the afternoon programme himself (and actually still does so on Fridays), had a product to flog: he has written a children's book.

So Mayo gets to appear on the programme he used to present, to enable him to drum up more publicity for something out of which he hopes to make money. So far so unedifying.

What's this to do with Rebekah Brooks and the horse, lent to her by the Metropolitain Police? Well this was the top story on Bacon's programme, and the ingenuous presenter wheeled out two guests, Labour MP Denis McShane and phone-hacking solicitor Mark Lewis, neither of whom could find a good word to say about Ms Brooks (although neither did they have the wit to point out that if the Met was concerned to save money on surplus horses they might have done better to try and sell them). It seemed therefore that Ms Brooks, the Met and the horse = corruption.

On the other hand, Bacon plus Mayo plus book-plug is apparently quite OK.

It looks to me as if it's not just News International's stable which could do with a good clean out.

PS - On Bacon's programme the next day up pops Mark Austin, BBC Home Affairs Editor. Guess what Austin has done? Yes, he too has written a book. Just to make sure we know this, he mentions it twice in his first sentence. Bacon then refers to it as "your excellent book". Pass the sick bag.

Dangerous Abu Qatada

What to make of the furore surrounding "dangerous" Abu Qatada, the international terrorist wanted on, er, terrorism charges in Algeria, the United States, Belgium, Spain, France, Germany, Italy and Jordan?

(If this list is incomplete, please don't bother emailing - it is surely long enough to be going on with.)

The curious thing, if that's the expression I'm looking for, about Mr Qatada is that he has been in prison in Britain on and off for six years, fighting deportation to Jordan. The British Courts were persuaded that Qatada was too dangerous to release on bail. Only the other week the European Court ruled that Qatada couldn't be deported, because the Jordanian Court might admit evidence obtained by torture, and now the British Government has had to release him on "control order" bail, whatever that is, with total release in three months if there is no progress on the Jordanian trial negotiations.

A number of things strike me. One, I really don't like the idea of someone being detained for six years without trial just because the Government thinks they might be too dangerous to release on bail. "Control orders" are indefensible. Two, Qatada would rather languish in jail here without trial than take his chances with Jordanian justice. Three, Qatada and people like him tend to be very keen on the rule of law when it can be used in their favour, but are paradoxically quite happy to violate it by blowing other people up (or exhorting others to blow people up) when it suits them.

Fourthly, how short sighted is the European Court? After all, if there's a risk that evidence against a person has been obtained by torture, any lawyer worth their salt will have a field day discrediting the witnesses. Many a defendant going through the British courts would give their right arm to be able to cast such a slur. The proper course surely would be to let the Jordanian witnesses have their say, and then let Qatada's Defence lawyers off the leash. Assessing the evidence - whether it's any good or not - is the Court's function.

Of course if half the things our government says about Qatada are true, he would not last long on the outside in Britain without putting his foot in it somehow. Perhaps Qatada is a kind of Joey Barton of the Islamist world, unable to open his mouth without urging Jihad or the killing of all infidels. Given a decent amount of surveillance by Scotland Yard, it wouldn't be long before he had committed an imprisonable offence.

On the other hand it's perfectly possible that Qatada might come out and live peaceably amongst his family, doing nothing more dangerous than claiming benefits, going to the mosqe, keeping his nose clean and watching daytime Al Jazeera. What a life.