You take a man who is a dangerous terrorist. You imprison him for years without trial and subject him to torture and deprivation. The rest of the civilised world is appalled by your treatment of him, no matter what he has done before (and no one is ever told what that was, it's taken completely on trust). He is completely within your power. And yet when it comes time to deal fairly with that person and try them, that beaten, broken, powerless person is suddenly still a threat. Like stamping on a spider that ran behind a curtain and you're not sure if it's dead; Americans have reacted to the logistical realities of the closure of Guantanamo Bay by standing on a chair, holding their skirts and shrieking like girls. There is also a racist overtone of contamination. When the US first began systemised immigration control, they also chose an island to house millions of foreigners for processing before they were privileged enough to set foot on the north American mainland. US soil is considered sacred, in fact sacrosanct. Ironically they seem to have confused imprisonment and trial on US soil with freedom. Is being in prison in the US still better than being free in, say, Yemen? And what happens when an accused terrorist actually puts a foot on the homeland. Does a yellow smoky cloud of evil snake out from under his sandal and poison a water course? Does a grenade he has concealed in his cheek and kept hidden for all these years explode and wipe out the American dream, the American way of life, a Ford Fusion, a donut factory and the Duluth branch of Wendy's in one sickening go? Does everyone who goes near him immediately fall ill with leprosy? It's an absolutely mediaeval response to the realities of the situation; one the US itself created. Try these people and convict them fairly, if they are guilty. It could not be simpler.

At the same time we are finally admitting the gurkha's to live in Britain, since they have fought and died for it. An overwhelming public majority in the UK is behind this move and our government resisted it for far too long. For so long we have been told how to behave towards our fellow man by politicians. And yet when a glaring example of how we feel about people who are considered brothers by everyone who serves with them, the MOD and by extension the government, cavil. It's a government department fretting about money instead of what people really feel strongly about. That proves that really that's all Westminster cares about. Cash and how to get it and keep it. This country has borrowed a ridiculous amount, and Westminster has pooled that cash and has a completely perverse system of spending it.