Don't Say They Didn't Warn You

In a tradition going back so far that its origins are lost along with those of well-dressing and Terry Wogan's weave, every Home Secretary introducing legislation designed to restrict the liberty of Her Majesty's subjects will spend at least 20 minutes of his(*) time appearing on the Today programme denying that the powers granted by that legislation would ever be used save in the most serious circumstances. Those attacking the new powers on the grounds that they represent yet another abrogation of our civil liberties are pooh-poohed as "loonie lefties", "civil rights nutters", "rabid libertarians", "friends of the terrorists" and the like. So, for instance, we were informed that powers under s44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, permitting police officers to stop and search persons on the grounds that those officers believed that to do so was necessary to prevent an act of terrorism, would never be used to stifle legitimate dissent. Taking it for granted that our past and previous Home Secretaries have all been men of probity (notwithstanding any involvement they may or may not have had in, say, their lover's nanny's visa applications), I can only assume that Walter Wolfgang, who was arrested under s44 after committing the outrageous offence of shouting "nonsense" at Foreign Secretary and quondam Mr Magoo impersonator Jack Straw, was a dangerous terrorist posing a threat to the very life of the nation's democracy and not, as reported in the Times, Telegraph, Guardian et al merely an 82-year-old Labour Party member. Indeed, I can only dismiss as ludicrous the idea that ill-thought-through and heavy-handed legislation, empowering even more unthinking and heavy-handed police should have been used against a man who, as a Jew, was forced to flee the paradigmatic police state that was Nazi Germany.


(*) still no female Home Sec's yet.