Frightening People Into A Police State

Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, has said that "we risk a police state" with the climate of fear sown by the government.

Rimington, speaking to La Vanguardia, said: "It would be better that the Government recognised that there are risks, rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism: that we live in fear and under a police state,” she said.

Her intervention comes just as the Home Office is about to public plans for the police and security services to monitor all of our emails, as well as telephone and internet activity. Since leaving MI5, Rimington has also spoken out about ID cards and on 42-day detention.