Comments on: Britain drops “war on terror” rhetoric? Apparently not.

By: David Weinberger

David Weinberger — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 21:17:23 +0000

And in this article, Gordon Brown confirms that his government is not going to use the term any more:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/22/news/terror.php

Yay.

The article is from July 2007.

By: Rich

Rich — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 20:18:02 +0000

The quote from Sir Kenneth McDonald appears (not quite verbatim) in his forward to the book Security and Human Rights, edited by Goold and Lazarus. The book is dated February 2007, so it might seem that he wrote the forward long before the article in the Daily Mail, but the article from The Guardian was dated January 24, 2007.

By: Glyn Moody

Glyn Moody — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 17:20:37 +0000

There was fuller coverage in The Guardian. As to shifts in the UK government's position, you might find this more significant: Mr Benn, a candidate for Labour's deputy leadership, confirmed that UK officials would stop using the term.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 16:58:25 +0000

I remember this story from a while back and The Observer reports it here on Dec 10, 2006 as being a policy from the Foreign Office: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,1968668,00.html

The change of policy was highlighted by Hilary Benn, International Development Secretary in a speech in New York, April 2007: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6560389.stm

And again in August 2007 by Gordon Brown in a visit to the US: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6924843.stm

By: davidw

davidw — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 16:44:03 +0000

Thanks, Seth.

The fact that there has been (apparently) no other coverage of this, and no explanation of why the chief prosecutor gets to determine what the government says, plus the fact that Sir Ken has been arguing for this change for a while, makes me highly skeptical that the British government has indeed made this change.

By: Seth Finkelstein

Seth Finkelstein — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 16:15:03 +0000

This is the article in the Daily Mail, though it’s little more enlightening:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/text/article.html?in_article_id=504573&in_page_id=1811&in_main_section=News&in_sub_section=World%20news&in_chn_id=1469