A tyrant's rationale

Tony Blair is endeavouring to engage in debate with critics of his invasion of our liberties in The Observer today, exposing himself even further as an intellectually and morally defunct despot.

Among readers' responses to the interchange, Gavin Bullock says:

There are two things which concern me about Tony Blair's views on civil liberties. First, his thinking seems to be getting increasingly extreme - even hysterical. His reaction to opposition is not to reconsider his position and ask if the other voices could be right. It seems to reinforce the certainty in his own infallability to the point of abnormality. This worries me a lot.

"Secondly, he lacks rigour in his thinking. He is the past-master of the false dichotomy. It is crack down on crime and protect the victims. Who would disagree with that? But that position appears to lead to a view that suspected criminals should lose their protections (right to silence, juries, revelation of past criminal convictions at trials, abolition of double jeopardy). Now wrongly convicted and imprisoned people are to have their compensation capped. He seems to think people are guilty until proved innocent. If proved innocent after a bit of porridge, tough. So he will do all for victims but disadvantage anyone who has been collared by the police even if their arrest was erroneous.

"My own view is that the intelligent thing to do is to protect society from crime and also make absolutely sure the justice system is fair. British justice (the best in the world, my dad would tell me) has a pretty bad record in locking up innocents and then deducts board and lodgings from the compensation.

"The governments view on civil liberties is shown clearly in the new bill that was drafted to 'tidy up' unnecessary business regulation but could be used to pass virtually any law by decree of the executive. The minister responsible could not even understand what the fuss is all about, yet, as it stood (it has been amended) is virtually did away with the need for parliament. This reveals a deeply malign government. Just ask yourself why they did it.

"Blair seems disinclined, or is perhaps unable, to debate in a rational way. He 'argues' solely by assertion. He never demolishes arguments point by point. It is just, 'I passionately believe what I say. Let history be my judge.' His intellectual bankcrupcy is strange in a former barrister but it is, combined with his messianic certainty, one of the greatest threats to our democracy since the WW2."

The sooner Blair is a part of our history, the better.