Tony Blair described the struggle against terrorism as a "war on terror". Gordon Brown signalled an end to that language.
The British Government is not at war with terrorists, he said, and Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, insisted she wouldn't use the phrase "war on terror". The new line is that terrorists are "simply criminals": the best way to deal with them is to use the ordinary criminal law in order to bring them to trial and convict them.
There is only one problem with that approach: the ordinary criminal law is not equipped to deal with terrorists promptly and effectively. It has evolved to deal with people who steal, harm or kill from the standard human motives of jealousy, greed and lust.
It is not designed to deal with people who aim to kill as many people as possible in their attempt to replace democracy with theocracy - which is what Islamist terrorists aim to do. They have already murdered more than 50 people in the attempt, and they would have killed hundreds more, had not the alleged plots to blow up 11 passenger jets, or to detonate car bombs in London, or to blow up Glasgow airport, all been foiled.
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