Ex-PM Blasts UK Government on Civil Liberties

The British parliament is set for a nail-bitingly close vote on a law that will allow the police to hold terror suspects without charge for 42 days—by far the longest in the free world. As Gordon Brown pushes the law and attempts to prevent his first Commons defeat, John Major writes in the London Times that the law is an indefensible part of a new "siege society."

"I don't believe that sacrifice of due process can be justified," writes the ex-PM, arguing that allowing detention without charge will embolden rather than thwart "home-grown terrorists." And other proposed incursions of civil liberties—from mandatory ID cards to bugging to a DNA database—have left Major aghast: "This is not a United Kingdom that I recognize." (More John Major stories.)