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In the spring of 1996, a Labour whip was found sinking pints in a Westminster bar like a man trying to drown his conscience. His task that night was to force Labour MPs to support a Conservative measure which would allow police officers to search any member of the public they wanted without explanation. `Well, you don't think I could whip this vote sober, do you?' he spluttered. A few months later, the same whip had to persuade his admittedly flexible friends why New Labour loved Michael Howard's plan to give police officers unconstrained power to bug the conversations, burgle the homes, inspect the files, steal the property and read the correspondence of anyone they did not like, without going through the tedious formality of getting a warrant from an independent judge.
In the eighteenth century, the courts defied Hanoverian old corruption and said that a secret policeman breaking into a home was a trespasser and should be treated as a criminal: an Englishman's home was his castle. Overnight, an Englishman's home was to become a greenhouse. The Police Bill was emasculated, but only because Howard made the tactical mistake of introducing it in the House of Lords, where opposition could not be crushed. Tony Blair and Jack Straw were furious that the Conservatives' ineptitude prevented them from showing they were madder than George III.
By the time it came to power, New Labour had reconsidered the radical tradition, from which Blair claimed his ancestry at last month's Labour Party conference. Liberty was to be abused, equality was to be abandoned and fraternity was to be imposed on the Parliamentary Labour Party by the whips. These people really are terribly modern.
The scenes from 1996 come from Safety...