Richard Tyler reports on the recent High Court ruling that the British government must disclose information that could support the claim that torture was used to extract confessions from Binyam Mohamed, a former British resident who has been held in Guantánamo Bay since September 2004.

According to some reports, up to 800 state bodies and agencies can now seek access to telephone records, including all of Britain’s local authorities and even such quasi-non-governmental organisations as the Scottish Ambulance Service Board or the Food Standards Agency, writes Richard Tyler.

The moves to have the killer of Philip Lawrence deported once his prison term expires would in effect punish him twice for his crime, writes Richard Tyler.

With tacit support from the Labour government and Conservative front bench, a bill has been tabled that would exempt Parliament and MPs from Freedom of Information (FoI) legislation, writes Richard Tyler.

The British state is developing the means to monitor the movement and whereabouts of any individual at any time, virtually at the press of a button

Government seeks wide-ranging powers to bypass parliament.

The introduction of control orders is a wedge that will be used to launch further attacks on democratic rights both in Britain and throughout Europe.

Like Oceania in Orwell’s famous novel, it appears that Britain is now in a perpetual state of emergency necessitating all kinds of draconian laws.

With a British general election expected in May, New Labour and the Conservatives have gone head-to-head in a reactionary skirmish over which party would impose the most oppressive immigration and asylum policies.

With the new measures proposed by Home Secretary Clarke, the British state will enjoy draconian powers to detain its subjects without recourse to due process.