The cold British air hangs thick with irony this morning.

Yesterday, World leaders marked the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s fall variously stating how the fight against injustice around the world must continue. Presumably they consider freedom of speech and protection of civil liberties to be part of that equation.

Funny then this morning’s news reveals how our very own Government plans to store information about every phone call, email and internet visit in the United Kingdom have only just been abandoned (at least until after the election anyway). And yet more tales of ‘law abuse’ trickle into the press; from the Mail:

A council which used controversial laws to spy on a mother and her family 21 times in three weeks insisted today that its actions only ‘minimally’ invaded their privacy.

Poole Borough Council had also used Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) legislation on two other occasions to determine whether families were living in the right school catchment areas, a landmark hearing was told.

And the problem is not limited to petty councillors abusing terror laws to spy on bin offenders and school catchment area breachers. Earlier this year Dame Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, accused the Government of exploiting public fear of terrorism to restrict civil liberties. The former MI5 chief chose to air her views in the Independent on the same day as a three-year study called for urgent measures to stop the erosion of individual freedom by states and the abandoning of draconian measures brought on with the "War on Terror".

Whilst today’s Independent reports :

Secret inquests which will bar bereaved families and the public from attending hearings into controversial deaths were forced through Parliament last night.

The Government narrowly defeated opposition to the new powers by a majority of eight MPs in a highly charged vote in the House of Commons. Under the measures ministers will be able to order that an inquest is replaced with a secret inquiry whenever they deem it necessary.

And from another angle it has become clear that super-injunctions are increasingly popular (for those that can afford them) for surpression of embarrasing details about individuals or businesses. And our libel laws are attracting and array of powerful interests from overseas who come here to threaten those that criticise them.

And the list goes on.

So, all in all then, a growing divergence between what laws we stand for and the laws we implement in the UK. And there’s no big pile of bricks and concrete to help you see where the oppression begins and ends.

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