Prevention of Terror

Another parallel, or - I suppose - its absence: back in late 1974, the government of the day was able to rush the Prevention of Terrorism Act through Parliament in the space of a single day, with minimal opposition. Now, we have a government that has just seen bloodier attacks in England, launched by a movement it persists in claiming is far greater threat to Our Very Way Of Life than the IRA ever was. They've had months to prepare the ground for this. And yet they still can't win the vote, going down to a defeat far worse than John Major ever suffered.

Here, incidentally, is a decent old Statewatch article on states of emergency in the UK, printed a few years after the 1974 Act was passed.