John Rentoul has a wonderful habit of curteously destroying an argument. His latest post is a typical example, exposing poor Adam LeBor's piece in The Times for the Henry Porterism (to use John's phrase) it is:

The
birthplace of political liberties, the home of the Magna Carta, is now
one of the most intrusive democracies in the world. Labour governments
have introduced surveillance and monitoring systems of which the
communists could only dream.

Give over. The feebleness of the analysis is exposed by this classic conspiracist formulation: LeBor says that Labour ministers

would
never say openly ... “We intend to privatise formerly public spaces and
hand over state functions of public order to armies of unaccountable
security guards.” Instead, changes are introduced stealthily, rarely
debated by Parliament and are nodded through with the acquiescence of
the Opposition, in the name of that useful catch-all “security”.

Whether by design or not, that seems to me to be happening.

Well,
is it by design - or not? Because if Labour ministers mean to take away
our liberties by scaring us with "terrorism", you have to answer the
question: why? And if they do not, then all they need is to have their
unintended errors drawn to their attention.