It's like a cancer that we can battle against but never truly defeat. As it creeps purposefully through our national lymph system some of us can summon up the courage to fight it back and, for a while, it can appear as if we are in remission. But then comes the hoping and the praying for the final 'all clear' that signals a rebirth and a new lease of disease-free life.

It never comes. The cells are corrupted again and the cancer returns to devour us:

Sweeping powers for Government agencies to carry out covert surveillance, run agents and gather the telephone data of private citizens were contained in legislation published yesterday.

State bodies ranging from the police, intelligence services and Whitehall departments to local councils, the Postal Services Commission and the chief inspector of schools will be able to authorise undercover operations.

The measures were activated by David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, under the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which became law three years ago. They need to be approved again by both Houses of Parliament before they can be used.

These horrors first made their appearance about a year ago and set off a call-to-arms that, in turn, caused the Home Office to drop the proposals. Or, at least, they made an appearance of dropping them because, like that lurking cancer, they never really went away. They were merely stacked neatly in the pending trays until an another opportune moment presented itself. Seems that the moment is now.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said the British people were "the most spied upon in the Western world".

I reckon that's a pretty fair prognosis. But why? Why are our political elites so determined to construct this panopticon? Why are they so single-minded about this project that they appear immune to sweet reason, protest or appeals to decency? What exactly is driving them? Are they so riddled with paranoia and insecurity that they see monsters and assassins lurking behind every curtain? Is that how they see us? I cannot think of any other reason why a democratically elected government would come to think of themselves as colonial occupiers of their own country.

What has led to this calamitous collapse of trust? Is it repairable? I rather fear that it is not.

Questions, questions. Answers may come in due course but I suspect none will be satisfactory or stop the cancer from spreading. Time for palliative surgery?

[This has been cross-posted from Samizdata.]