Anthony Barnett (London, OK): A hideous headcold has laid me low, and my brain can't take looking at the light of the screen, emails, other blogs and life on line. But I'm dragged back to the mac by Polly Toynbee's column today. I admire Polly hugely, she works hard, she holds her nerve, she advocates a coherent social democratic socialism, she is grotesquely traduced by guardianistas. But this time she has got it wrong. She argues that Henry Porter and his vigorous alarm call over the fate of our liberty is fashionable because it allows the middle classes to pretend to be victims. I am delighted to know that this is now "fashionable"! I recall meetings with him last year when the main issue we discussed was why are we alone, and are we square? Now, according to Polly, Henry's agenda is popular - also potentially right-wing, anti-state and virtually neo-con.
In a way I am relieved, as the argument has really been joined. Polly completely ignores the distinction Helena Kennedy insists upon of the difference between human rights and civil liberties. We need both. Instead, Polly argues that "the Porter view turns the state into public enemy number one. That is the traditional rightwing view, but many on the left are buying into this creed of individualism against the collective." She fails to see that the outrageous and squalid treatment of illegal immigrants, asylum seekers and prisoners (see her wonderful recent attack on Straw's "Titan" prisons) come from the same mind-set that is creating the database state: indifference towards the citizen as a sentient human being. It is shocking that she should drive a wedge between social democracy and civil liberties by painting the latter as individualism.
