Anti-terror laws and 'the need to be seen to be doing something'

Last night the former Director of Public Prosecutions for England and Wales, Sir Ken MacDonald, was interviewed on BBC Radio 4 about his often stormy 5 year tenure as head of the Crown Prosecution Service.

In the interview, which can be found here, he said:

...that a need to be seen to be doing something fuelled a lot of the government's criminal and terror legislation during his time as DPP...

...and that there has been far too much legislation and believes the next parliament could do well to "back off, calm down, and leave criminal justice alone for a while."

As described by Alex below, RIPA could be seen as the apogee of this appraisal; and as a consequence RIPA has today been changed to try and prevent its widespread abuse.

Sir MacDonald's revelation is no more than most already suspected. Namely, that in the absence of really knowing how to contain the terrorist threat, the government passed mountains of legislation that has imposed itself more and more on the daily lives of the ordinary British citizen.

Legislation we now need to see removed. 

By Dylan Sharpe