This week the headache became a full blown migraine for the Government when plans to give police up to 42 days to question terrorism suspects were crushed by the House of Lords. Peers voted against the measure by 309 votes to 118. This came after opposition to the proposals from all sides, with 24 Labour rebels including two former Lord Chancellors, Lord Irvine and Lord Falconer, as well as Baroness Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5, Lord Justice Woolf, the former Lord Chief Justice, and Lord Condon, the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

In an emergency statement to MPs, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith conceded defeat and said that the Counter-Terrorism Bill would continue its journey through Parliament without the 42 day measure. According to the ‘Guardian’, Government sources said the Prime Minister’s hand was forced because whips in the Commons told Downing Street that they would struggle to muster a majority in favour of the proposal. The 42 day plan was only passed by MPs in June by nine votes after the Prime Minister won the support of the nine Democratic Unionist MPs. If ministers had insisted on keeping the 42 day plan there would have been the need for a series of votes in the Commons to overturn the Lords’ rejection and eventually the use of the Parliament Act to force the bill through next year.

The capitulation was defiantly unrepentent. In her Commons statement, the Home Secretary was positively reproachful. She said “The other place has tonight voted to remove from the Counter-Terrorism Bill the protections that the government believes should be in place. Not to amend; not to strengthen; simply to remove. Mr Speaker, my priority remains the protection of the British people. I do not believe, as some hon. members clearly do, that it is enough to simply cross our fingers and hope for the best …that is not good enough. Because when it comes to national security, there are certain risks I’m not prepared to take.”

In what some see as a face saving gesture, the Home Secretary announced that she had “prepared a new bill to enable the police and prosecutors to do their work – should the worst happen, should a terrorist plot overtake us and threaten our current investigatory capabilities… The Counter Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Bill now stands ready to be introduced if and when the need arises. This would enable the Director of Public Prosecutions to apply to the courts to detain and question a terrorist suspect for up to a maximum of 42 days. Individuals could only be detained where this is authorised by a judge.” Once again the totemic 42 days.

The climb down has pleased a wide diversity of groups, and it is reported that David Davies, who resigned his seat and fought a by-election over this issue, shared a celebratory bottle of champagne in the Commons with Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty.

Given that the number of days a suspect spends in detention before trial is a not a scientific exercise but an uneasy compromise, how can it be that 42 has achieved the status of a threat to the leadership of the government? While there has been much agonising , soul searching and almost daily concessions to get the provisions through Parliament, the actual number itself seems to be sacrosanct. All this for a proposed law which may be needed one day in the future, may never be used at all, and would affect very few people.

The police have apparently provided examples of circumstances which would justify the 42 days, but even they have not claimed that any terrorist has escaped justice because 28 days was not enough. The Security Services don’t want it, former senior Law Officers have spoken against it – even those who supported the Government in the previous 90 day vote – and almost all others in the know (but not on the Government payroll) agree that there is no evidence backing 42 days. The current level of 28 days is more than other members of the European Union consider necessary, despite being equal targets for terrorism. Their criticism of the British proposals has been robust and concerted.

Writing in the ‘Guardian’, Marcel Berlins says 42 is symbolic. “It represents all the government’s excessive anti-terrorist legislation; detention without charge or trial; the steady erosion of the rule of law; and the nibbling away of civil liberties. The resistance of the Labour rebels is not based on a calculation of how many weeks is appropriate. It is a statement encompassing the whole of Labour’s anti-terrorist policy. Enough is enough.”

Come back Douglas Adams. Your country needs you.