"Blair might destroy our constitution and turn the UK into a police state" but that somehow doesn't matter? Because of the big picture? Well how big do you want this picture to be? As big as Napoleon? As big as Hitler? Like, maybe, the Wehrmacht? Or the Luftwaffe? Or the KGB? Or thirty years of the IRA actually killing people, hundreds of people?

Because we faced all that without destroying our constitution and turning ourselves into a police state.

"Free the world first, then free ourselves" ? I thought we were free already, and had been since 1215 or 1688 or whatever date you want to pick. Until, maybe, last week.

Expedience is ever the excuse of tyrants. We didn't need it, or them, any time in the last 800 years, and we don't need it now.

Andrew, if you're seriously suggesting that the wars against Hitler and Napoleon were won without swapping some of our freedoms for bits of tyranny, you're deluding yourself. You have heard of rationing, right? And income tax?

Apart from that, you seem to have misunderstood almost everything I wrote. Just to be clear: at no point did I mention or imply expedience in the context you're using it, or excuse tyranny in any other way.