Primary school students in the 1990s, despite being young and blissfully unaware of politics, did know something of their homeland. “It’s a free country,” we used to say. We didn’t know about communist China or Saddam Hussein, but somehow, we knew this about our own homeland.

Sadly, I doubt very much if primary school students of today say the same thing. The latest in a long line of concerning cases is that of grandmother, Helen Jones, who was visited by the police after saying on Facebook that her local councillors should resign.

Many commentators have taken issue with the police action, claiming that it represents a waste of time, when other crimes like theft and burglary go unsolved.

This is not true. For our current crop of authorities, intimidating concerned citizens and possible dissidents is the best possible use of police time! 

What other explanation can there be, given the facts? The councillor who Jones called upon to resign was involved in a WhatsApp scandal that involved Labour politicians making derogatory remarks about their constituents. Did the police knock on their doors? Of course not.

It’s a perfect example of what has come to be known as 'anarcho-tyranny' of the kind that was practised in the Soviet Union. What does this mean? It means 'tyranny' for those who commit 'political crimes' but a lax attitude (anarchy) to what might be called regular crime.

It is why, for example, during the Covid lockdowns otherwise law-abiding folk were too afraid to go for a walk to the shops or to church, and yet Pakistani rape gangs were for years able to operate with impunity despite the full the knowledge of the authorities of what was going on.

This is not just about Keir Starmer’s Britain; this has been going on for a long time now and the Tories did nothing to stop the rot. Things could be a lot worse, but one thing's for sure: we are no longer the “free country” we knew as children.