But was it really Cameron pushing it, or Theresa May in her previous capacity as Home Secretary? The position of Home Secretary has a way of dehumanizing every

But was it really Cameron pushing it, or Theresa May in her previous capacity as Home Secretary? The position of Home Secretary has a way of dehumanizing everyone who does it for a significant length of time. That is perhaps understandable and unsurprising if you look at what the job involves: they reportedly spend many hours every day reviewing files about the worst of our society and requests by the police and other services for authority to do various things with those people that they aren't otherwise legally allowed to do. That's probably enough to turn almost anyone into an authoritarian, and sure enough, it is often current or former Home Secretaries who are the ones proposing draconian, one-sided measures that tip the power balance far towards the government at the expense of freedom and civil liberties. We're in an unusual situation at the moment, because for the first time in as long as I can remember, our current Prime Minister is also a former Home Secretary. Given her weak position generally and the poisoned chalice of Brexit that she was handed when she took over, it's not a big surprise that she continues to support these kinds of authoritarian measures, and those who want to keep her in power fall in behind. Whether that support will be as strong when May goes is an interesting question. Many of our political leaders, including a lot of MPs from both of the two biggest parties, have quite authoritarian attitudes anyway. But there are also some from those parties, and more in the smaller parties, who do seem to value civil liberties more highly. Some of the more authoritarian proposals of recent years have ultimately been defeated or even wound back after coming into effect (ID cards, various things about DNA records...) so we may yet see a more balanced approach after Brexit if May has gone at that point.