Blair on hostage-takers. posted by Richard Seymour

This is too easy. Here is the Prime Minister on the principle behind hostage-taking and negotiations:

"If you take a situation here in this country, if a hostage is taken and the police turn up, they will talk to the people who are holding the hostage.

"They are not going to give in to the hostage takers' demands, that's a different matter all together, that would be completely wrong."

Give in, they may not. Negotiate they do, to minimise loss of life. As Leroy Thompson, an author on such matters relates :

"The good negotiator is absolutely essential in dealing with virtually any hostage incident.

"He or she may be able to defuse the situation and talk the hostage-takers out without violence."

Follow my logic here:

1) The Prime Minister and government spokespeople said initially that they do not negotiate with terrorists. Except when they do.

2) They then tried saying that actually what they meant was they don't negotiate with hostage-takers (almost exactly the shift Straw made on the news this morning).

3) Now that communication is being made with this group, Blair has acknowledged that you can "talk" to terrorists. Fine. He gives as his example the way the police handle hostage crises in this country. Anyone with half an education knows that the police do not say "well, it's all in the hostage takers' hands, and I'd like to commend the dignity of the family..."


Negotiation doesn't involve "giving in", but it does avoid the stupid posturing of weak and nasty politicians, desperate to look tough. For a lawyer, the Prime Minister is pretty fucking shit at selecting his sophisms.