Coming towards the end of the year I felt it appropriate to comment on where we are with the battle against the UK’s surveillance state. However, Henry Porter of the Guardian hits the perfect note in his Christmas Day blog post which is essential reading for all.

The advance made in Britain in 2008 is that hundreds of thousands of people – maybe millions, given the sudden concern of columnists on the Sun and Daily Mail about the police state – have become aware of the threat of an over mighty state. Just a year ago, people who talked about our slow descent into an authoritarian wilderness were dismissed as the paranoid fringe. Now members of all political parties, ethnic groups and generations have become concerned about the construction of the database state, the government’s sidelining of parliament and the remorseless attack on personal liberty.