Of course, there is no policeman standing in the little cabin now, partly because the IRA are no longer active and partly because the bobby has been replaced by large cameras.

The relentless reaction politics isn’t likely to destroy liberty (the law is too cumbersome for that) but it just reinforces to the public that “Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.”

Well that depends on the degree of sin and repentance. I think the idea is that if the sin is pretty bad, the repentance - the full realisation of what you have done - is vastly worse. That is, if it is true repentance.

If it’s not true repentance, it doesn’t count and there’s no rejoicing. I think…

As for Davies, that’s a good spot. I offer the following, very hesitantly, in his defence. I suspect that, at the time, the Tories were at a relatively low ebb, without the benefit of a decent lead in the polls, without the benefit of facing an entirely hollowed out PM, and without the confidence that the general public really worried about it at the bottom end. Thus, whilst they could be confident that 90 days would fail at the top end, they couldn’t be nearly so confident that they would be able to encourage the kind of serious labour rebellion at the bottom end. Thus, be pragmatic, show that you understand the gravity of problem so as to appear reasonable in order to paint the 90 days as outrageous, thereby giving cover for it to fail.

The problem is that this leads to frog boiling. However, now that they DO have all the circumstances they lacked in 2005, they still failed to stop this in its tracks. Now is the time, then, to turn up the heat and show exactly what this government has done to us in our name.

The thing is, these liberty vs security arguments are as old as the hills (or at least, as old as the Magna Carta). Its not as if some new twist on the issue has come to light that would explain the change.

Nor is he claiming a Damascene conversion. In fact, he’s being quite sanctimonious about it.