Britain is not a police state but a nation with police state tendencies. In any democracy the dictates of freedom wrestle with those of security. Britons are a liberal people who want to be safe. Do they also want to live in a condition of perpetual paranoia?
In his five months of power, Gordon Brown has shown himself a tentative, uncertain leader, reluctant to confront admirals, bankers, property developers, American presidents, and now his own security apparatus. This final weakness is the most dangerous.
Under the same “fortress Britain” rubric as Tony Blair, his predecessor, Brown last week initiated a sudden and extraordinary set of measures curbing liberty in the name of security. They involve extending the present eccentric luggage checks at airports to 250 “strategic” train stations as well as to ferry ports, sports stadiums and other places of public resort.
A further 100 “sensitive” installations such as power stations and petrol plants are to be reconfigured against suicide car bombs. Architects are to redesign public buildings as blast resistant (and presumably windowless) on their lower storeys. Brown is insistent that security demands British citizens be subject to detention without trial, charge or even explanation for up to 56 days.
The public realm is here being medievalised at the bidding of Osama Bin Laden. According to the civil rights group Liberty, the 56-day infringement of habeas corpus compares with a maximum of one day in Canada and two days in America and Germany. The British limit is already 28 days and there is no evidence that this has impeded counterterrorism. The 56-day proposal is rather a display of machismo and a leitmotif of loyalty to the prime minister.
The steady extension of discretionary detention 56 represents a collapse in democracy’s ability to curb the repressive tendencies in any security regime. It suggests a drift towards banana republicanism, towards regimes that survive on perpetual states of emergency, in thrall to some bullying police chief or paranoid spymaster.
It was Blair who said, extraordinarily, that it would be irresponsible of him not to do “whatever the police asked”. In 2005, aided by Charles Clarke, his home secretary, he ran scare stories that state security might demand the incarceration of up to 1,500 “known” terrorists uncharged for 90 days. John Reid, Clarke’s foolish successor, went further and claimed that Al-Qaeda’s threat to Britain was “worse than Hitler’s”.
Earlier this month Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, made a Downing Street-approved speech telling of 2,000 “known terrorists” who were “grooming” young people and children as suicide bombers “as I speak”. Evans did not explain why he had arrested none of them even for the permitted 28 days. The scaremongering was a crude prelude to a demand for more powers and resources.
This is not responsible government. Yet on the advice of a self-confessed “simple sailor” security adviser, Admiral Lord West, Brown is now to encircle Britain with an “e-border”. All comers and goers are to be electronically recorded and asked to supply addresses, phone numbers and computer details, up to 53 items of personal information. Officials are to be given powers to revoke visitor visas at immigration desks without appeal. It will make America’s draconian immigration control seem like open house.
Given the fallibility of government computers – the new e-border one is to cost an astronomical £650m – getting into, out of and about Britain will change from inconvenient to sheer hell. If a Brazilian, de Menezes, can be shot for looking Arabic and a normal Briton in a diabetic fit be Tasered and manacled for “looking Egyptian”, the mind boggles at the accidents waiting to happen.
To the health-and-safety regulariat is now to be added a terrorism one. Whitehall’s 450 counterterrorism officials (doing what all day?) are to be reinforced with hundreds more to run courses in terrorist detection for all staff in cinemas, theatres, hotels and shopping centres. They will be told how to control car stopping distances, the location of bollards and barriers and the use of CCTV. A new chain of bombproofed courtrooms is to be built to try the terrorist hordes. A new prosecutor is to be appointed to deal with hate speech and incitement.
The principle that a free democracy requires some personal risk to both VIPs and ordinary mortals has vanished in an avalanche of police overtime and equipment salesmanship. Security-obsessed officials and blame-averse ministers simply give in to any safety argument and pay up, citing the last bomb blast. It is the equivalent of closing all motorways because 3,000 people a year die on the roads.
At a recent Whitehall conference on “civil risk”, officials compared various threats to life and property. Top were motorway pile-ups, industrial explosions, fires, floods and food contaminations, along with the dissemination of drugs and organised crime. A terrorist bomb was way down the priority list, yet it was cock-of-the-walk for attention and resources. The mere mention sent ministers berserk.
The threat from an Islamist bomb clearly requires new types of policing from that applied to the IRA or to anarchist groups in the 1970s and 1980s. Militant Islamism is challenging in its ideology and its hold on particular ethnic groups. But with a few stark exceptions, the threat is amateur and apparently easier to stifle than previous ones. It calls for more intelligent community policing.
The explosion of a deadly bomb is always possible in an open society enjoying freedom of movement. It does not “threaten the nation” or destabilise its freedoms unless government so decides, in Brown’s case by altering the social, legal and physical infrastructure of the nation. Ministers seem unaware of this distinction. In capitulating to the terrorism industry they capitulate to the terrorist.
Were a Tory government introducing these measures, Jack Straw, Peter Hain, Harriet Harman and others would be howling about dictatorship. Instead they mutter “national security” and “if you knew what I know” and avert their eyes in shame. They are only obeying orders.
The result has reopened a division in British politics between what Isaiah Berlin called negative and positive concepts of freedom. The first is freedom to pursue individual liberty without interference by superior authority. The second is an enforced freedom to be safe and sound under a beneficent state. The latter is “owned”, defined and imposed from above and is mostly phoney, represented in Berlin’s day by Soviet communism. It lives on as a statist gene within the British Establishment.
Hence Blair would talk of the civil right to be safe from being blown up or threatened by Saddam Hussein as “overriding” the civil rights of an alleged terrorist. Brown has joined the same intellectual fraternity. Frightened of being depicted as “soft on terror”, he does not plead the cause of freedom against a demand for more police powers.
One remarkable consequence has been to end the customary response at Westminster, that “national security” justifies anything proposed by government. That line is no longer bought without question by the media, peers, Labour backbenchers (other than the most cringing) and even the Tory party.
Indeed Brown has pulled off a remarkable coup in unearthing a libertarian conscience within modern Conservatism. David Davis, the Tory home affairs spokesman, usually a walking-talking police state, admits he can find “no evidence whatsoever” of the need for 56 days’ detention. For once the Tories are on the side of liberty’s angels. They must stay there if the government’s fifth antiterrorism law in office is not to be followed by many more. The boundary is a fine one between a paranoid state and a police one.
The job of the security services is to propose to government what they think will make Britain as safe as the grave. The job of politicians is to put such proposals to the test of proportionality, value for money and civil liberty. It is now moot whether Britain’s politicians are up to that job.
simon.jenkins@sunday-times.co.uk
If we cannot generally trust people then we have lost it. We have to begin with the basics again eg. the ten commanments.
Ian cheese, London, UK
I disagree we have crossed the line! We are just not admitting it to ourselves.
I grew up with the IRA bombings but we never had to experience anything like this! We know the threat is out there and if it's not the catholic's it's Muslims and if it wasn't them it would be someone else!
One has to wonder if the people in charge of security are paranoid schizophrenics off their medications!
Jaz Jones, Blackpool, Lancashire
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin
Richard Franklin Carter, Toronto, Canada
Time to wake up people! Drag yourselves away from trivia and distraction such as the latest diet/mobile phone or which celebrity has just left the jungle. Don't sit saying "I've done nothing wrong so I don't have to worry, I'm alright Jack". Doh! You could be doing something wrong these days and not even know until it's too late!!! Nevermind, just watch another reality TV show while your civil liberties are falling away from you by the hour.
The government (doesn't matter whether it's Brown or Cameron) do not care for anything but their own agendas, and certainly not us. This whole terror issue seems rather orchestrated and it's terribly convenient for the government to try to scare us all into believing they are acting in our interests while they take our freedoms. Who are the real terrorists here? Come on people, if they know we don't believe them anymore, they lose their power.
Gail, Brighton,
Excellent article. Please keep this up SImon. I am so afraid that people are just going to sleep-walk into all of this stuff without a mumur. Then wake up in truly terrifying place where travel is so restricted no-one bothers.
I lived and worked in London throughout the IRA's campaign of terror and never witnessed hysteria like this. What on earth is happening to us?
To be really honest, this government scares me more than any terrorist threat. I will never vote for them or their surveillance state again.
Ross Woodhouse, Brighton, UK
Gen Musharraf has gone the distance on this in Pakistan: martial law, states of emergency, crack-down on the judiciary, imprisonment of the opposition - all in the name of keeping the people safe and secure from terrorism. Our government is surely on the same path.
Jill, Hampton on Thames,
Excellent article, its just a shame no-one is listening. When I attempted to mail similar views to the PMs office, it was unable to process my email !
To KG Brown of Brighton I say we become like them by giving up our freedom without a fight and becoming a surveillance state
M Price, Manchester, UK
While inequalities of wealth increase, the instruments of control and surveilance will continue to become more powerful.
AG, London, UK
I'm reading Imperium by Robert Harris - towards the end of the Roman republic, Pompey sought extraordinary power from the senate to set up a force to counter piracy. Use of fear to demand powers and restrict freedom is not new. However history does offer lessons. We should be defending our freedoms. 56 days detention without charge is a disgrace. British people have been justifiably proud of habeas corpus for many years.
Graham Scrimgeour, Edinburgh, Scotland
The change in the law that need to be addressed is the one allowing terrorists to be interviewed after charge and the case to be continually built against them. Therefore, if the accused were charged under terrorism laws the case would automatically be given an eighteen month court settlement date. This would be the time given to prepare the case against the defendant by the prosecution.
The evidence against the defendant> to charge him< is then presented at a special terror court, in front of a judge and jury, with reporting embargo of 7 days for an acquittal, insufficient evidence to charge, or further restricted to eighteen months for a person sent for full terror trial. The special court only decides on the charge and the evidence against the person at time of charge, not whether he is guilty. This special court is limited to declaring there is insufficient evidence against the accused or confirming the evidence is indeed strong enough to sanction the eighteen month holding
purps, chelmsford,
The "terrorists" can no longer use 'freedom' as an excuse to attack 'the west'.
Our own "governments" have slowly eroded any freedom we may have once enjoyed.
Time to look who the real "terrorists" are.....we certainly know who the TRAITORS are.
Maggie Freeman, Nottingham, England
This is all about incompetence. The government (all governments but particularly this one) are incompetent. To hide their incompetence they endlessly legislate. To justify their legislation, they try to scare us.
I am not frightened of young muslims in this country. As others have noted - a better job of community policing would go a long way to dealing with the odd problem. I am frightened of the government and the police. I have been a law abiding member of society all my life. I am not paranoid. But any Labour politician who reads this should stop and think 'what on earth are we doing to this country that ordinary people are becoming frightened of the government.'
They need to develop some competence instead of trying to frighten us all into hiding under our beds.
This government is, however, doomed.
Mike Wilson, Winchester, England
I've just returned from a supposedly 'real' police state, under martial law. Although Thailand's coup is nearing it's conclusion with the general election to be held on 23rd December, I could'nt help noticing how Thai society was around 1000 times less draconian than that enjoyed by British subjects in the 'democratic' United Kingdom.
Mr. Parry, Somewhere in the UK,
Various people have mentioned Orwell's 1984 book. May I also suggest Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Personally I have a number of copies of this book. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from the population whereas Huxley feared the truth would be lost by irrelevance.
Various UK Government announcements and proposed laws and plans are irrelevant and only serve to waste billions of tax payers money. Announce some stupid proposed laws and even enact some of them and that will keep the media, newspapers, news repeaters busy for a while. Continue to put about "possible", "what might be", "worst case", "potential", " terrorist scenarios in order to suppress the population at large.
The ever widening and increased use of section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 is being used to prevent UK subjects (please note that actually we are subjects not citizens) taking part in legitimate protests. The police are measured by meaningless metrics and so respond in kind by trying to "pick low hanging fruit" in terms of crimes to solve. I could go on.
How can the young learn people in our society learn what respect and trust is when UK civil authorities have no respect and no trust for UK subjects?
TRUST, SOCIETY and a real sense of COMMUNITY are what make other countries greater than GREAT Britain today.
A paranoid society is a doomed one.
Jon, Southampton, UK
IRA threats were a problem and we *lived* with these, knowing to be alert to bombs. Now we are scared to live and the government seems to be obsessed with measures such as ID cards, which will not add to our security, and increasing the time for detention. It seems that we are sleep walking into a police state. I have respect for the police, they have a tough job to do but we must protect our privacy and human rights.
Dr Angela Steele
GP Cambridge
Angela Steele, Cambridge, England
I think England has had an appreciable police state element since Elizabethan times, if the truth be known. Together with the distinction of the oldest Parliament, it probably has the oldest continuous secret police. I would think it is becoming more obvious, but then I can only speak for myself in that respect, though I would submit that it will become more positive in the present state of this country. Given the way the media is developing, the technology, the increasing disparity in wealth, it is surely inevitable. That is also the observable experience of the last 20 years in particular. I would associate a move away from Europe with an increase and consolidation of this tendency, which I don t associate with the Labour government but with the changes made by Margaret Thatcher. These are likely to be emphasised and reinforced by a succeeding Tory government, except in the unlikely event that David Cameron is elected and is able to reverse the centralisation of government that has taken place in the last 10 years.
Henry Percy, London, UK
Just where is the "terror threat" that justifies such draconian measures? Living in London during the eighties and early nineties was far more dangerous. There were weekly, daily, IRA attacks, most of which never even made the national news.
National amnesia?
dom, devon, devon
Here in Sweden our politicians are heading the same way, both the left and the right, which is really scary since Sweden hasnt had any type of terrorism in the recent years. The political elite is turning against its own citizens and nobody is protesting. Very sad...
Jonny, Stockholm, Sweden
We have to realize especially the politicians that the anti-terrorist acts are on a temporary bases until the goverment feels that the threat is no longer there,what we have to realize that we have to protect our lives,our country and our freedom.,and our way of life that is British and we treasure.
Countries that sponser Terrorisum have made it very clear that they are at War with the West, USA, Israel,and all its Allies,remember the sighns
at the Iran parade and what it said!!!!!!!.
We are dealing with enemy who will stop at nothing in murdering people to get there religous
control in place
What the goverment is doing ,is minor to what it is trying to protect
William Badger, NYC, NY
Please remember that questions 1 - 53 on the 'arrival' form could easily be joined by No. 54 - 'Which political party do you vote for'?' That is likely why habeus corpus has been junked- and why Mr Brown is taking control in a way that makes Joe Stalin look like a paid up member of 'Liberty'. A decade ago, the holding perion was 4 days- now Mr Brown is absolutely determined to raise it to 56. Ask yourselves - why? Unless you are a totally mindless member of the Labour Party (and there are many) be very, very afraid of this Government and its plans for you.
Doug, Glasgow,
An excellent article on a depressing subject but even the government seems more than confused.
Lord West is today reported saying that Britain "is ahead of all the world on the ( terror) protection front which is great... and is a world leader in anti-terrorism measures" ..... so why do we need more ?
Dark times are ahead if all these measures are introduced and they will have to be paid for by everyone. ID cards are a false solution, look at the ID fraud and crime rates in those countries where ID cards are used-- they're not that much different from here. Why does the US not plan to introduce cards if they are so effective ?
Additionally how many people have noticed that short trips will become virtually impossible as "police, customs and security services" must have data related to travel plans "for at least 24 hours" before travel is due to take place. Why is there for 14 new courtrooms for terror trials ?
Humphrey Hudson, Tunbridge Wells, England
The way this government has debased our country for the past ten years they would be better protecting themselves from the indigenous population as opposed to the terrorists. I have given up my parking space to the disabled, my pub to the non smoker, and my low paid job to the economic migrant and I have no intention of giving up my freedom to a bunch of Jock's in an English Parliament. Look to the Shire's Mr Brown all is not well and a simmering anger is brewing. Perhaps the real reason for all the extra security has yet to blossom?
Cromwell, Leeds, England
The way this government has debased our country for the past ten years they would be better protecting themselves from the indigenous population as opposed to the terrorists. I have given up my parking space to the disabled, my pub to the non smoker, and my low paid job to the economic migrant and I have no intention of giving up my freedom to a bunch of Jock's in an English Parliament. Look to the Shire's Mr Brown all is not well and a simmering anger is brewing. Perhaps the real reason for all the extra security has yet to blossom?
Cromwell, Leeds, England
Isn't it time the moaning stopped and was replaced by action ?
Terry Dell, Weybridge, UK
1) Uncontrolled immigration
2) CCTV everywhere
3) Unwillingness to cap fuel duty
4) Council tax annually rising at ludicrous rates
5) Ongoing participation in an illegal war (making us a target)
6) Smokers, drinkers and motorists bearing the financial brunt of their ridiculous, knee-jerk policies.
7, 8, 9 etc.
The ordinary British citizen has so many reasons to vote out these incompetent reactionaries. Sadly, while any non Labour vote is a good vote, there are no other obvious reasons to put the Tories back in. The opposition will say anything necessary to get in and worry about actually delivering later.
Where's LHO when you need him? :)
FootieFan, Eastbourne, England
Correct me if I am wrong, but is it not true that every facist state in history has been born out of a national socialist party.
Mike, Denham, UK
Thank goodness for this article, I was beginning to think I was one of a very few who could see these control freaks chip, chip, chipping away at very hard won freedoms.
My father died just into this millenium, just before his death I asked him if he thought he'd ever make it that far, notwithstanding 5 years sailing Atlantic convoys dodging U boats and, was it like he imagined it would be all these years later. His spine chilling response "it's just like I thought Hitler would have had it - under the thumb" My father knew fascism's ways. That was six years ago, much has changed since then with nothing being added in the cause of freedom. Let "them" bomb, the IRA failed, Hr Hitler did, just as "they" this ill defined group, certainly will.
Our Gov't repackage the fear we are supposed to have as control and surveillance. God forbid with these structures in place we ever get less than benign "leaders"
I'll take the risk, like my forefathers, like most others would do too I'll wager.
Tom Taylor-Duxbury, Ludlow, Shropshire
I feel very ambivalent on this issue.I know all about habeas corpus,civil liberties,etc. but also fear another terrorist attack here .(Seems to me that terrorism goes into a crime category of its own).The security services must have a strong idea that these people should be arrested and held.We can surmise that Al Q.and followers employ sophisticated methods which take ages to "crack".(I wonder if the extreme "Civil libertarians" would feel so liberal if one of their nearest and dearest was maimed or killed in an attack?) Hold these wretched people till all the evidence has been gathered.(No need for awful,harsh conditions whilst being held(or for any other prisoners in the UK for that matter)We are a civilised country.Let the Security Services do their work to keep us all safe.
HD, WsM, UK
Excellent. One has to ask what is the agenda behind turning Britain in to a police state? It seems Orwell was correct, just a few years early in his prediction.
The British public are sleep walking in to an Orwellian state.
John, Reading, uk
Every single person Briton should read this article.
But then agan, the deadheads will mumble, 'if you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear...'
Great article Simon, keep it up - for all our sakes.
Mark Bullen, Kiama Downs, NSW Aus
Is'mt it ironic that this same Labour government that wants to strip Briotons of their age-old liberties can't protect our borders from invasion by illegal immigrants, some of whom have criminal intent to cause explosions. What a complete and utter shambles Labour really are. What a useless prime minister Gordon Brown is turning out to be.
Adrian Gilbert, Tonbridge,
The Peter principle's alive and kicking. The everyday examples of idiocy and moral corruption that we see every day in the UK's high places are just the tip of the iceberg . . .
Andrew Perrott, London, UK
So those of us who have been saying that this Labour Gvnt are a bunch of facists are right.
Shame you're waking up so late, perhaps too late.
fnusnuank, Gen., Switz.
What happened to 'tough on terrorism- tough on the causes of terrorism' ? - to paraphrase one of NUlabs catch-phrases.
The uneven-handed policy of this government towards the Middle East has been responsible for fulminating hatred. This has radicalised the Muslim world by giving a patina of justification for their cause. Take away the cause and the fundamentalist doctrine of those who spread the call for violence will be far easier to combat.
Tim Black
TMJ Black, Southampton, U.K.
What sort of article would you have written for this morning's paper if we had had more suicide bombers last week?
We are merely in between attacks from people who are not open to reason or logical discussion. I look forward to reading your column following the next pointless loss of life in our country carried out by fanatics using our freedoms to express their hostility to a thousand years of progress in the arts and science.
They want us to be like them.
KG Brown, Brighton, UK
It's an issue of control. Keep the public afraid and they'll remain submissive and compliant, happy to swallow any measures passed by this control-freak government provided they believe it's being done "in their interest".
Britain has already become a police state - just look at the ridiculous measures at our airports. When challenging a security guard at Gatwick recently I was told that "liquid explosive is the current threat", yet we are allowed 100ml of liquid onboard. Is that any less dangerous than 200ml of "liquid explosive"? It is a nonsense excuse for creating a climate of fear.
This climate also provides employment for thousands "safeguarding" the public, not only directly but as experts and advisors.
The more articles we have like this the better chance of the British public waking up from their apathetic stupor and questioning the reasons for this lying government's actions.
Wake up people! Start believing less and thinking more. It's your freedoms at stake.
RW, Madrid, Spain
Al Qaeda. Good for business. Isn't it?
Mark Gobell, Ware, Herts,
I couldn't agree more with Simon.
In the name of 'security' and 'equal opportunity' (the two seem to go hand in hand in newlabourspeak), the drift toward a neo-Soviet statist society is shocking. The electorate has become so docile in so many ways, perhaps enfeebled by a diet of reality TV, drink, drugs and political correctness that they do not realise what has happened and is happening to their way of life?!!!
Mukesh Shah, Dubai, UAE
Unfortunately, this article is so true. The country is being turned into a gulag. 911 has been the biggest boon to the security mafia with its programs of infrastructure hardening and huge official data bases for the use of these services. Rather than increasing security in a proportional manner to the billions spent, they have become a public trough at which party supporters can enjoy lucrative cost plus contracts.
It will take another generation to disasemble the monstrosities erected by Nu labour.
oldasiahand, Guildford, UK
I strongly believe that ideology should be the primary concern, not tons of security measures. The main threat resides in the minds of wrongdoers. if there are "vulnerable" portions of youngsters who might fall under extrimists' influence, all the effort should be on "snatching" them away from "preachers of hatred". I guess that even "downright" brainwashing into western culture would do some good. Security is something that can be achieved by ideological means rather than more CCTVs on the streets. The roots of the problem should be tackled and taken more seriously than just a bit of "dressing up".
Pam, St.Petersburg,
Mr Jenkins,
A very good article. Many of us, irrespective of our political outlook, are extremely worried about Nu Labour's fixation with police statism. I am glad to read journalists of your calibre fighting the good fight, but I would say to you enjoy your freedom of speech while it lasts, no doubt legislation is being prepared to muzzle inconvenient press comments "in this time of dire national emergency".
Big Gordon is watching you. Now would be a good time for everyone to re-read Orwell's 1984, I have a nasty feeling we are the generation he was writing to warn. The Nu Labour vision is of perpetual terror war justifying any excess of power. Our liberty is at threat from our own government, not Bin Laden.
David, Brighton, UK
Henry Porter says almost the same thing in todays Observer.
It is indeed strange that the biggest defender of civil liberties in this country going forward will be the Tory party both in Opposition and in Government
Paul Anthony Allkins, Chelmsford, Essex
These latest "fortress Britain" moves terrify me about where we are heading. Since the initial domestic overreaction to September 11, the Government has become drunk on terrorism. The threat, which in this country at least was more akin to the Baader Meinhof or Red Brigades problem, has been drummed up out of all proportion by policitians and security apparatchniks who have loved the sense of importance it gives them. Yet it is their actions that have fuelled the very thing they were supposed to be fighting, giving it credibility and motive. It needs saying again and again that terrorists only win when a free society responds to them by giving up its freedoms. If we didn't need a police state when the IRA was waging a real war against us in the 1980s, and if we didn't need one a century ago when anarchists were exploding more than a 1,000 bombs a year (1892) in Europe - and 500 in the US - then why do we need one now? We are in real danger of sliding towards totalitarianism.
Anne Murphy, London, UK
yet another step in the erosion of "democracy" - thanks to the Govt , the poor old brit is now a pressumed criminal in his own land...constantly wilting under a barrage of cctv, signs telling him or her thats "its a crime to do this or that" frm smoking to protesting against a poor service. We are not generally a confrontational society but where our voices of complaint are not listened to and we not allowed to be angry as a result, our frustrations when finally vented are likely to be louder and more agressive than they should be.. this is human nature.. but in Orwellian Britain human nature and freedom of expression, thought and deed have been left torn and bleeding under Blair and are being crushed still further into the gutter by the great clunking fist in No.10 today. Given that he was the sneakiest chancellor in memory and now is PM the slightly ammended quote applies "taxation/government without representation is tyranny"
well, guess what we have ?
zugerman, zurich, switzerland
Simon - it is a moot point that the politicians are not up to the job, nor are the hordes of boneheaded civil servants that advise them - hence the mess we are in now. The culture in the establishment is one of intrusion, control, punitive taxation and gagging. A change of party would probably not improve anything without a root and branch review of government agencies - all 528 of them.
George Orwell was so visionary with 1984......
glynn, Horsham, UK
Frankly, Britain is fast becoming a pretty awful country to live in under this 'New' Labour government . It beggar's belief that a government that has been so, shall we say 'relaxed', over the number of foreigners coming into the country (legally or otherwise) has the neck to then claim that we need to tighten up security because there may now be a significant number of 'terror cells' already established. I for one do not wonder at the numbers emigrating. I felt Blair was totally untrustworthy and now the situation has become immeasurably worse.
P Kelly, Beverley, UK
First they came for the Muslims and I did not speak out because I was not a Muslim.
Then they came for the National Front and I did not speak out because I was not in the National Front.
Then they came for the speeding motorists, the tax evaders, the lonely perverts on the internet, those with too much household waste, those who did not cross the street at the safest place,those who heckled at party conferences,and I did not speak out because I was not one of those either.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Tom Sykes, Huddersfield,
The tories wouldn't be different, wasn't it them that came up with the idea of ID cards.
The latest Muslim women to be prosecuted for writing non sense on the back of a till receipt is surely a sign the the state is challenging free thought.
The fact is we don't live in a democracy, we can't strike, can't protest and our vote is worth nothing unless there is a political party that offers something different.
Richard Walker, Nottingham, UK
I find it very ironic that the very same labour government who accused us in the "old"South Africa of human rights abuses and not upholding laws when we instituted 30 and 60 days imprisonment ,are the very same people who are now facing the same situations that we did. They are instituting the very same laws that we had ,in order to protect themselves.
Well as the saying goes,"the wheel turns".We will look at your efforts with a quiet & detached amusement .Unfortunately you have allowed the politically correct idiots to ruin your country.
God Help you because no one else will.
Robert Steenkamp, Johannesburg, South Africa
What to do?
Admiral Lord West should have resigned. He didn't and now his credibility is shot.
The cabinet outside what the FT described on Tuesday as Gordon Brown's "bunker" should not make the same mistake. They should learn to say "no" or to resign. Especially David Miliband.
The same applies to the Permanent Secretaries of Whitehall. They should threaten to resign en masse. That would be a political act, normally to be eschewed by civil servants. These are not normal times.
And the unions should refuse to continue funding the Labour party. It is no longer anything like the party they created 100 years ago. There is no reason left for them to support this party which has been invaded by body-snatchers.
David Moss, London, UK
C'mon Simon puleeze!
Do you think that the Tories would do it different? Perhaps. Only tougher. A little reality ........national security should be non partisan.
Jo Geoghegan, Brisbane, Australia
Thank you for the fine article.
I am an Englishman who has been living abroad for many years, but who still feels a great affection and love for England. On a recent visit, I landed at Stanstead and showed my passport to the official. Behind him stood a black clad man holding a black sub-machine gun. He was a policeman. I am a law abiding person who respects the police but I wanted to ask him if it were not true that the last place to look for armed people is a line of passengers who have just emerged from a plane. I didn`t ask him. ... because I was frightened to ! I felt as though I had landed in the wrong country.
Keep up the good work, we need you !
John., Berlin, Germany
Blair and Brown are destroying the traditional freedom of the British people. Not Saddam and bin Laden, Blair and Brown. This is one of the worse sins ever committed by British politicians. It is a disgrace, and is unforgivable. Why has the media done so little to try to stop them? Why have the other parties been so supine? I am a patriotic Englishman, but my pride in my country, in its historical distinctiveness and hard won values, is being crushed into dust. I feel helpless and hopeless about England's political future.
Oliver Chettle, Bedford,
I have one small disagreement with Simon Jenkins: we are already some way into a police state, as I seem to remember was written by the DCC of Hampshire a couple of months ago. This is the clear desire of the police forces of England and Wales (I know not about Scotland and NI). Their actions show it, to give one example, in the way they ever increasingly arrest people "On Suspicion" with no evidence whatsoever for a whole range of supposed offences and indefinite police bail to follow with no scrutiny placed on that bail. This does not apply purely to terrorism; practically everything that ACPO or the Police Federation have asked of New Labour in the last 10½ years has been granted; hence over 3,000 new offences in that time. To say that ignorance of the law is no defence is already a patent nonsense as a result.
If I were younger I would join the Hampshire DCC in saying that this country that I once loved is rapidly becoming a place in which I would rather not live.
Richard Kent, SPALDING, England
wow....
a frankly chillng piece, which if used to predict the future paints a very bleak picture....
when will we realise that the more inocent people we kill unjustly and illegally in places like Iraq in the name of Freedom, and the more we marginalise the moslem community , the more we put ourselves at risk as more people become angry enough to give their lives to defend their religion, and avenge the lifes of the ones they have lost!
when is the next election? Look at Spain, the people voted with their heads, and pulled out of the ilegal war that is Iraq, why didnt our new PM do the same.
I had hoped that Gordon Brown would usher in a new era, but he is simply lacking in strength of character and good judgement, and is leading us all down the path to oblivion much as Blair began doing, when he fastened us all to the lead of Bush, the worlds most wanted criminal.
i fear not just for us in the UK, but those all over the world, as there are darker days ahead.
joseph alex, london,