Somebody should inform the Government that The Trial was meant as a warning, not a New Labour manifesto


James Slack writes in the Daily Mail:

Labour has passed law after law which has been used to strip away our most fundamental rights and freedoms. Today, Lord Steyn, a retired Law Lord, gives his own accurate and withering summary of some of them.

The former judge warns that ID cards, and the national identity database which will store the personal data, are steps towards a ‘Kafkaesque’ society and that there is ‘absolutely no evidence’ the cards would protect the country against terrorism.

Also in his line of fire are the DNA database – the world’s largest, and which even after inadequate Government reforms will still contain samples taken from entirely innocent people for up to 12 year – and the presence of CCTV cameras on every street corner.

‘The Home Office now proudly asserts that comprehensive surveillance has become routine. If that is true, the resemblance to the world of Kafka is no longer so very distant,’ he says.

Hear, hear. And how depressingly true. Yet we do already know about these infringements on our liberties. It’s just that we must keep repeating them, in order to have any chance of making a mulish Government actually take some notice.

An abridged version of Lord Steyn’s speech is available via the Guardian’s Comment is Free site.