I was carrying out some research over the weekend on the status of the attempt by the House of Commons MP’s to except themselves from the Freedom of Information Act (pleased find out that they failed) when I came across this article on the Times Online web site.
It’s really an essay by Philip Johnston (home affairs editor of the Daily Telegraph) who is this year’s winner of the annual Charles Douglas-Home Memorial Trust Award.
It’s a great article that discusses and shows how under the Blair government our civil liberties have been eroded more than under any previous government (WW1 & 2 periods excepted) of modern times.
The opening sentence gets you easily into the rest of the article…
“In his first statement to Parliament as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown said that “Britain is rightly proud to be the pioneer of the modern liberties of the individual.”
Other introductory paragraphs include…
“If Clement Attlee is remembered for post-war welfare provision and the NHS, Harold Wilson for Sixties optimism, Edward Heath for joining Europe, James Callaghan for the Winter of Discontent, Margaret Thatcher for reducing the size of government and John Major, however unfairly, for sleaze then we will look back on the past ten years [under Blair – my insertion] as marking a serial assault by the State on the civil liberties of the citizen.”
As the essay points out, individually the changes that have been made have been accepted as needed. However, when viewed collectively, we are now have much less liberty than we had before Blair and his legislative onslaught on our freedom.
I am sure that even George Orwell would not have envisaged such a state of affairs even in his wildest dreams. I also remember watching a Tom Cruise movie a while ago called Minority Report, I did not rate to highly at the time, but the more that I think about the film in light of the current situation, the more I think that we are not far away from the main thread of the movie being a reality.
But back to the essay; I may be behind every other blog post about it, but it is worth a read even though you have to move over ‘nine’ pages to read the whole thing. It make for very interesting reading.
Link to the main article is here
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