What Price Liberty?

Apparently it's £1 billion.

This is the amount extracted from the British government by the Irish Protestants for their nine votes in the Parliamentary vote to extend the maximum time police can detain suspects from 28 days to 42 days. As it happened the government won the vote by 315 to 306, a majority of nine.

It took centuries of struggle and the deaths of countless people to achieve the civil liberties that Britain had until 11 September 2001. Some of these civil liberties have been sacrificed today so that the Northern Irish can have cheap drinking water.