Innocent until...oh sorry, just guilty

And so it was that a leader of 'steely integrity and subtle discernment' became an outright demagogue:

'I would widen the police powers to seize the cash of suspected drug dealers, the cars they drive round in... I would impose restrictions on those suspected of being involved in organised crime. In fact I would generally harry, hassle and hound them until they give up or leave the country.'

Hooray! Yet more powers to the police. Another eye-gouge for the due process of law and a veritable castration for the notion of innocent until proven guilty. Perhaps more depressing was my own apathetic greeting to the news. These incursions on our liberties risk becoming so much background noise, Blair/Clarke issue a decree, Shami Chakribarti pipes up, the same old bloggers get in fits (with, I might add, not a small amount of eloquence).

It is most pleasing, therefore that the Tories are getting their act together by creating Conservative Liberty Forum. The more civil liberties become an election issue, the greater our ability to give Blair a bloody nose - even if it's only by consigning him to the history books as 'the man who sunk labour'. It will, of course do nothing to damage his speaker's fees.

UPDATE: For those who need a spoonful of vitriol with their politics, go to the Fiskmaster General for a whole shovelload!