Tom Griffin (London, OK): Over at Comment is Free, OurKingdom founder Anthony Barnett reflects on the lessons of the 42 day debacle:
There is an authoritarian cancer in the British system that has metastasised. From the Treasury-inspired "transformational government", to local council CCTV, to the interception modernisation programme that proposes to "live tap" all electronic communication, to ID cards – you name it, it seems, and they will be onto it – an official will is at work to police, control, arrest and expel. It regards restraints, from the Human Rights Act to parliamentary scrutiny as "old thinking". And it is turbo-charged by the huge funding opportunities that "new thinking" permits.
However, I also think that even if we do not have a healthy body politic, we do have a healthy public attitude which can purge the cancer and cure the patient.
