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- guardian.co.uk, Saturday 19 September 2009 15.00 BST
It is much easier to take issue with the adversary than the ally, particularly if the ally has been warm in his praise. My problem with the otherwise excellent post here by Henry Porter is that it describes me and others who think like me as libertarians. This is done, I am sure, with the best of intentions, but in doing so it gives succour to the other side.
In my book, Freedom for Sale, I look at why people around the world over the past 20 years' obsession with consumerism have willingly traded certain freedoms in return for the lure of prosperity and the promise of security. In my chapter on Britain, I argue that New Labour and the broader left, of which I count myself an ardent member, have all but given up on civil liberties. They have done so for a number of reasons, some principled, some not. It is one of the axioms of socialism or social democracy to believe in the benevolent role of the state to deliver more equitable outcomes. The problem is that this government interpreted its role in a cowardly way. Frightened to tackle the received wisdoms of the era of globalised glut, it raised the white flag in securing fairer macro-economic outcomes. In so doing, it flailed around, looking for areas where it could make a mark. One of those was regulating people's lives, literally, at the street level.
Porter has highlighted on many occasions the unhappy legacy of CCTV, identity cards, the national DNA database and telephone and email surveillance even by local authorities, long periods of detention without charge and many other areas of growing authoritarianism. His scorecard is spot on. His lament I share. I do not know his views on other areas of public policy. For my part, I do not support the small state as an ideology. I do not believe it should "get off our backs". I argue passionately for an interventionist state, but for a different kind of intervention.
Conservatives have artfully hijacked the civil liberties agenda. Left-liberals have allowed themselves to be outmanoeuvred. More fool them. Theirs was the politics of civil liberties, constitutional reform, ethical foreign policy and a more enlightened approach to criminal justice, a politics represented by people like Robin Cook, but long since sidelined and dismissed.
That is the politics the left has eventually to regain, and I am keen to engage that debate.
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