A book review by King Temujin I.

Over the last 10 years the Labour party has held office, and the spectre of global terrorism has been raised. Impressively, the government has managed to bow to terrorism whilst giving the impression that all those who disagree are 'soft'.

This book details the rolling back of ancient liberties under Blair's watch. English common law meant everything's legal unless it's specifically banned, but now you can be given an ASBO for any behaviour which might cause alarm or offence. A Tourette's sufferer was given one banning him from swearing in public.

Fixed penalty notices (on the spot fiens) are decided on by policeman as and when, without recourse to a court or anything tricky. Like evidence.

Torture abroad is condoned, and in the case of Sandy Mitchell (tortured by the Saudis) the British government intervened to prevent him gaining recompense from the Saudis!

The book has a good overview of various areas of concern, including ID cards (a pet hate of mine), torture abroad, limiting of freedom of speech (a couple were arrested for reading out the names of the dead at the Cenotaph), the totally one-sided extradition treaty with America (even Latvia and Estonia have better) and house arrest (aka control orders).

Now, I've personally complained about almost all of the above at one time or another, so I rather enjoyed reading this, even though it varied from the absurd (Walter Woflgang's unceremonious ejection from the Labour Party Conference for heckling) to the extremely worrying (ID cards and the lack of protection for British citizens from torture abroad).

The tone of the book tends to be as lighthearted as reasonably possible, regularly taking pops at Blair, Reid and Blunkett. There are many quotes from people such as Shami 'makes good points but is quite annoying' Chakrabati, Boris Johnson and Tony Benn. There's also a very large number of references at the back.

My only quibble would be that the What Next? chapter contains only two real suggestions (solo protesting, to give the police more paperwork as we now have to gain permission to protest outside Parliament) and a large list of organisations that may be of interest to readers.

I think the book could've been longer (it was only around 290 pages) but that might've reduced readability. I'd definitely recommend it to the politically interested, especially those who dislike the thought of this government ramming through ID cards.