JACK Straw got a predictably sceptical and hostile response to his article in yesterday’s Guardian defending the government’s record on civil liberties.

I didn’t even have to read more than three or four of the responses in the comments thread to be able to recite the litany of grievance: RIPA, ID cards, CCTV, no protest without authorisation within a mile of parliament, etc.

But Jack’s argument needed to be made, and the strength of feeling against his case doesn’t detract from the truth that Labour’s record on civil liberties is a good one. He cites the Human Rights Act, which is just as well, because none of our opponents ever does. Left-wing critics ignore it while right-wingers whinge about it and want it abolished altogether.

Then there’s the Freedom of Information Act, which is only grudgingly acknowledged by our detractors as a significant achievement. Undoubtedly there are those who claim that the government is itself undermining its own legislation by, for example, refusing to publish the Cabinet minutes concerning Iraq. But since no government could ever satisfy every “FOI campaigner” (is that actually a job these days?) — there are often very sound reasons for not publishing every single piece of information held by the government — then I hope ministers won’t be losing any sleep over that particular source of criticism.

But surely the fundamental point to make is that virtually none of those who blog about our alleged decent into a police state has experienced any perceptible diminution in their own personal freedoms. Libertarians screech hysterically across the blogscape about it with all the relevance of those blokes who wear those “The end is nigh” sandwich boards.

Who, exactly, has suffered unjustified intrusion into their private life through local council monitoring of their emails? Who has been prevented from discretely pursuing their day-to-day business because of the presence of CCTV cameras? Even the extension of detention without charge to 28 days has not resulted in the legions of innocents behind bars which were predicted by the likes of Liberty.

Whatever the alleged misuse of anti-terrorist legislation, no responsible government could do anything but respond in legislative terms to the threat from islamist terrorism (and usually when a politician says something along those lines, they are met with the response: “The islamist threat is no worse than the threat we faced from the IRA.” Just because those who repeat such nonsense actually believe it does not make it any less nonsense).

So isn’t it odd that when the subject of civil liberties in this country arises, the self-appointed guardians of our liberties (and thanks, by the way…) almost never voice a word of criticism of those who planned and supported the 7/7 attacks, reserving their most trenchant criticism instead for the efforts of our democratically-elected leaders to try to prevent further tragedies?

UPDATE at 12.05 am: So far we’ve got the expected themes in the comments thread — “first they came for…”, council officials using terrorism legislation, Walter Bloody Wolfgang… And who knew that photographing police officers was such a popular pastime?

But why is it that this subject ignites the blogscape while in the non-virtual world so few people seem to be concerned? I know I’ve received the odd letter of concern from constituents on the subject, but probably fewer than five in the last eight years, and none in the last year.

Anyway, I think I’d better get to bed: I can hear a humming, droning noise in the sky outside and I haven’t drawn my curtains yet…