ARE we slowly being turned into an almost totalitarian state?

Why do I ask this?

Well, think carefully about the personal freedoms that we’ve lost over the last couple of decades; they’ ve been subtle, creeping, insidious and I think that has been deliberate, so that we should barely notice until they have all gone.

We are intimidated by the race relations people, so that any doubt or questions we may have about the vast changes that unlimited immigration has brought to our towns is stifled, whereas we know that the problems could and would be sorted by an open and honest debate.

Open and honest debate! There’s a laugh! When was the last time any of us spoke freely and without fear in public?

We are constantly having to watch what we say, how we say it and to whom we say it.

Freedom of speech? Yes, that went a long time ago.

We have to account to the state for almost everything we do, when we should only have to do so if we have done something wrong.

They have made us all child molesters, assuming that if anyone is nice to a child, they’re behaving in an unnatural manner.

This is leading to a dearth in leaders for playgroups, guides, scouts and other youth bodies and — can you believe it — you can’t even photograph your own children in the school ground! Oh – and where are all our Nativity scenes?

Then there is inequality. with such things as a Black Policemen’s Association — to my mind, you’re either a policeman or you’re not.

Health and safety has hone so far that it is robbing people of their sense of responsibility, of the right to think for themselves.

There’s a danger lurking in most things, but facing and accepting that fact makes us careful and that’s how we and our children learned to take care.

Then there’s the welfare state, a wonderful idea, but it’s been carried too far and we now have an underbelly of people to whom it is a way of life and look on government benefits as a right.

Work? Well, that’s for the poor devils who pay the taxes that support them.

Perhaps I look on the more innocent days of gobstoppers, hopscotch, post offices, pubs, trusty neighbours, keys left on a bit of string through the letter box and a strong sense of pride.

I ask ‘Is it gone for ever?’ Well, I don’t know, but it was a good world and I belonged to it and, I suppose, so did you.