Crime and liberty

An article by Libby Purves in the times is on the crime figures that New Labour and the police would rather not be talked about

statistically speaking we are now safer than before in our houses and cars — largely because of sophisticated new alarm technologies that we pay for ourselves — and less safe out on the street, which it is their job to police.

The New Labour solution has always been to trade liberty for security, and we have traded away a lot of liberty.

Government keeps chipping away at it. CCTV watches us everywhere (though without actually reducing the muggings). We now know that 24,000 children never charged with a crime have their DNA kept on permanent record in case the police ever want it, without any decision by Parliament that we should all be on a DNA database

Benjamin Franklin said

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety

and thanks to New Labour's fascist instincts forever prompting it to destroy more and more of our libertes we have tried the experiment of exchanging liberty for security. The result is we have got what we deserve, neither.