Let's be clear, most UK Home Secretaries of the last quarter century have been blatantly ripping away hard won freedoms. Even David Blunkett, once famous for "

Let's be clear, most UK Home Secretaries of the last quarter century have been blatantly ripping away hard won freedoms. Even David Blunkett, once famous for "the people's republic of Sheffield" ended up slightly to the right of Attila the Hun. The Daily Mail has played the because terrorism, think of the children cards for 100+ years, but now every kneejerk campaign results in equally kneejerk legislation. I'm old enough to remember some of the IRA activities. They did far more than ISIS and Al Quida put together, and it was ongoing. The political reaction was always "we will not change our society, or they win". The few pieces of legislation, even the kneejerk ones, were aimed squarely at them - remove the right to appear on TV, occasional internment. We didn't have to get half undressed to get on a plane. FFS I spent one night driving around London because I happened to be staying in a hotel near Heathrow the night the IRA decided to mortar bomb the runway. Didn't result in strip searches or armed police on a regular basis. (Aside, that's the only occasion I've had a gun pointed at me - the Police who were turning away traffic trying to get to the hotels were all carrying MP5s, and carrying them as though they were about to use them).