Leading article: Tired games and time-honoured tricks

Gordon Brown was confronted with his first terrorist crisis just hours after moving into No 10. His response was impressive in its solidity and calmness. Both he and his Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, eschewed the emotive language so often favoured by their predecessors. As a newspaper, we welcomed this change of tone, as did many civil liberties campaigners and British Muslims. Mr Brown, it seemed, had adroitly seized the chance to rebuild some of the trust Tony Blair had eroded. And we dared hope that this was a harbinger of a more enlightened approach to the threat of terrorism.

Perhaps if our hopes had not been raised so high, the Prime Minister's statement in the Commons yesterday would have been less of a disappointment. But a disappointment it was. Much of the substance revisited territory we had hoped never to see again - whatever government was in power. Most disturbing was Mr Brown's desire to reopen the question of how long a suspect may be detained without being charged.

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In our view, anything that compromises the principle of habeas corpus is too much and detracts from this country's tradition of liberty and justice. But in all the arguments to and fro, we have heard nothing that suggests the police need even the 28 days they have at their disposal now, let alone the 56 days Mr Brown has proposed. Work, as is known, has a habit of expanding to fit the time available. The police are no exception to this rule. Has the Met, which has long angled for 90 days, nobbled the new Prime Minister so soon? We are back to playing politics with terror.

The whole exercise contained worrying echoes of Mr Blair's response to the London bombs two years ago: an initial refusal to panic, a promise that any legislation would be carefully considered, followed by a hard-line statement on the eve of the parliamentary recess. Even the preparation was similar: prime ministerial "toughness" relayed to the popular press - see The Sun's triumphal headline, quoting Mr Brown's pledge to "kick out 4,000" foreign offenders. Here we had the old game of numbers, with a generous dose of xenophobia.

It is a time-honoured trick. In the Commons, of course, Mr Brown was more measured. He broached alternatives to longer detention, including the introduction of continental-style investigations managed by judges. But he left little doubt of his preference. The undertaking to double deportations of offenders, a restatement of support for ID cards, and a plan - stolen from David Cameron's playbook - for a unified border force, completed the package. We have now met the other Gordon Brown.