By any measure, we’re beating terrorism in the UK. In the western world, the number of terrorist attacks has been falling since the end of the Soviet Union. In the UK there have been just a handful of attacks over the last few years. Across the whole world, with the exception of Israel, an individual’s [...]

Try to imagine a law that said “you can watch this film totally legally at your local multiplex, but it’s illegal to possess a still image from the film and you could be imprisoned if you do.” Sounds a little odd?
How about a law saying “you can engage in a wholly legal activity and take [...]

I wonder whether it was incredible chutzpah or mere ignorance on the part of our Chancellor Alistair Darling. On the Today programme, he suggested that the loss of records on half the population was an argument IN FAVOUR of ID cards.
The reasoning goes something like this: OK we might hand over all your person details [...]

Books and newspapers are filled with news and debate about crime. As far as I can tell from the evidence, crime in the UK peaked in 1995, dropped sharply up to 2000 and has dropped more slowly since. There are variations for individual categories of crime, and the whole business is complicated by changes in [...]

The Sir Bufton Tuftons of this world hark fondly back to a golden age when you knew what was what with people’s sexuality.
Sex within a good Christian marriage was acceptable. Any other sort of sexual activity - from masturbation to homosexuality, sex before marriage to flagellation - was an excellent indicator that someone was [...]