Much hope in today's news

In today's Guardian, David Cameron quotes Tony Benn, although it is slightly disingenuous as we all know that Dave and Tone are not talking about the same kind of things: I suspect that the reasoning is more akin to "What Tony Benn wants is, at points, laudable, but his methods are not at all." Even Conservatives, as a rule, want wealth to be spread more widely; the point is that free markets and free trade are actually the most effective means we know of in achieving this. The Economist recently reported that sometime in the last couple of years, the middle classes (defined both economically and sociologically) became the majority population in the world; this is plainly a good result of globalisation and free trade.

So when David Cameron says that he wants to devolve power down to people, I hope that he not only means it (I believe he does) but that he is not only able to achieve his modest goals, but also more ambitious ones. It would be great to see local people exercising choice in health and education services, encouraging excellence through competition.

In other news, Dame Stella Rimington's interview with the Spanish La Vanguardia has hit the Telegraph; in it she warns that we are on the way towards the aims of terrorists who seek to force us into a police state. It is very interesting to hear a former head of MI5 saying that she fears that the Government is doing terrorists' work for them and that she thinks we have to defend liberty to protect against terrorists. One hopes she had some leeway to express those views in office, and that her successors think and speak similarly.

And on the theme of civil liberties, the Westboro cult is coming to Basingstoke this week. I hope they are not banned from entering the country, and I hope they find no support whatsoever from local people. In particular, I think we can all hope that local churches find some way of dissociating themselves from the cultists: it might be hard to attend a counter-protest given that our position is more nuanced than, say, Stonewall's, but there must be some means of doing it. Perhaps something practical, like passing round hot drinks and biscuits for the protestors? [EDIT: For the avoidance of doubt, I mean any counter-protestors who turn up, and not the Westboroists.]