To your last point: no, surely not. I think it's a failing of our current public view (daily news cycle perhaps?) of politics where politicians always have to b

To your last point: no, surely not. I think it's a failing of our current public view (daily news cycle perhaps?) of politics where politicians always have to be seen 'doing things' about all this evil lurking about, and if they aren't, then should anything happen, the blame lies squarely in their lap. This, I'd argue, leads to it always being essentially career-wise risk-free to be more tough/stringent/et c. on <evil thing du jour>. And why not? There's hardly any downside. It's all unfortunately about optics. EDIT: re-reading your comment, I realize I'm just stating in more words your salient point. It is, however, a particularly difficult hole to dig ourselves up from though.