Letters From A Tory Daily views on British politics and the Conservative Party from a centre-right thinker who writes letters on his blog to politicians, journalists and many others.

Dear Simon Milton,

I think that a reality check is in order.  As Chairman of the Local Government Association, I was hoping that you would be as angered as I am about the news that local authorities abused anti-terror laws to launch almost 10,000 spying campaigns last year and also lodged over half a million requests for personal communication data.  To say that I was ‘disappointed’ by your response has got to be the biggest understatement I have ever produced in a letter.

Far from criticising the councils, you have insisted that the powers were necessary to deal with legitimate concerns from local people, and that ”without these powers, councils would not be able to provide the level of reassurance and protection local people demand and deserve.”  Reassurance? REASSURANCE? Are you out of your mind?  Who on earth is going to be “reassured” that you are spying on our telephone calls and emails to investigate crimes as petty as underage smoking and dog poo?  Well?!  Needless to say, our pathetic Prime Minister has bottled it again and launched a review of the situation (to be completed in the Autumn, when he hopes everyone will have forgotten about this) instead of going in front of the media and immediately repealing the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) until such time as the powers given to deal with terrorism and serious crime are restricted to precisely those areas and nothing else.

It is terrifying to think that these “directed surveillance authorisations” can be approved by a junior town hall official instead of a judge.  In effect, unqualified idiotic bureaucrats determine whether your stupid local authorities can spy on people.  It’s not often I find myself agreeing with the Lib Dems, but Chris Huhne got it spot on when he said that this was another example of “the creeping Orwellian state” introduced by Labour, and “measures that were intended to be used to fight terrorism and organised crime have instead been used to snoop on ordinary people’s children, dogs and bins.”  For you to also expect sympathy towards local councils is absolutely unbelievable.  I don’t see you can defend local councils by saying that they are “between a rock and a hard place” when they are so openly abusing powers that were never intended for them in the first place.

Honestly, the dismissive approach of this government towards civil liberties is getting too much to bear.  Bring back David Davis.

Yours contemptfully,

A.Tory