So the Government knows when I drive to the shops or visit relatives - so what?If I have an argument with "law and order government" it is that ministers talk tough about cracking down on terrorists and criminals, but seem to fail to put up the resources their promises (threats, if you prefer) require. If I were a parent, I think I would worry less about my children being subject to state surveillance than about them falling victim to terrorism or random crime.Mr Blair may know more about me than Mrs Thatcher did, but cannot think of a single activity I indulge in which has been proscribed by Mr Blair's laws. Where I have to query Henry Porter is over his proposed responses. An audit of liberties? A commission? Who will do it, and who will take any notice of the outcome? Certainly not the Home Office on either count. Pester MPs? But he himself admits that a majority of them are part of the problem. More have no interest in such matters; and most have safe seats.
So, if we are not to be the "co-creators" of an ever more monstrous society - what next? B J FEARNLEYDEBENHAM, SUFFOLKSir: Henry Porter's article was thought-provoking but not wholly convincing. If there is no threat to the people of this country, then we need no security measures; 9/11 and 7/7 suggest that there is a threat. Labour must bear as heavy a burden of guilt as the Conservatives for this feebleness of our institutions and safeguards; after all, they both want unlimited power. I think careless or stupid rather than grotesque, but either way, my apologies.b.viner independent.co.uk More from Brian Viner. Sir: Henry Porter is to be congratulated on his article "We're all suspects now" (Extra, 19 October).
The nightmarish situation we now find ourselves in is of course the result of the practically non-existent restraints on government in this country and could be seen coming for the last 30 years or more. Scores of you wrote in to put me right and I hope that I have replied to everyone, even to those Manchester United supporters with such a persecution complex that they thought I was somehow trying to diminish the tragedy with an error that one person referred to as "grotesque". I've always known that the date was 6 February, so I can't explain why I got it wrong. Frankie Howerd played Lucio, slave to a senator called Ludicrus. Other characters included Lecherus, Bumshus, Nefarius, Odius, and Ambi Dextrus.