People who worry about the introduction of ID cards are reassured by supporters of the policy that "Those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear". The same can be said of the CCTV cameras that spy on us all, recording our movements scores of times a day as we go about out business.

That's also the main plank of the argument of supporters of the plan launched by lame-duck Prime Minister Blair and his scaremongering sidekick, semi-resigned Home Secretary John Reid, to allow the police to stop, question and search any one of us just because they don't like our face and fine us £5,000 if we refuse to co-operate.

I'm as concerned as anyone about the threat of terrorism and the rise of crime. But I think we've probably reached the tipping point at which that concern starts to be outweighed by worries about the loss of civil liberties and the theft of privacy.

Soon those who monitor our movements will know where we are and who we are with almost every minute of the day and night, and will have the right to demand that we tell them where we were during those brief interludes when they failed to have us in their sights.

Like the vast majority of people in this country, I have nothing to hide. But I do have something to fear: the loss of privacy, which is a precious thing. Blair and Reid have a grand plan to take it away before they bow off the political stage, without bothering to ask our elected representatives in Parliament whether or not they agree.

Small wonder there's been a rumpus. This is the latest policy dreamed up off-the-cuff by a Prime Minister who has led one of the most inept, incompetent, initiative and target-obsessed, dangerous, disastrous and just plain stupid governments I can remember in my lifetime.

Those who support it urge us to look around at the good things we all enjoy. And certainly, a lot of people appear to be better off in material terms - particularly if they're higher up the pile.

Those who rely on public services, though, have different tales to tell. Take, for instance, the shameful case reported in Wednesday's T&A of 81-year-old Mrs Miranda Butterfield who was discharged from hospital following a cancer operation without any advice being given or support offered and apparently fell through the buck-passing gap which exists between the health and social services.

Despite the illusion of private affluence created by a Chancellor of the Exchequer who chooses to ignore growing public squalor, it's all been done on borrowed money and the chickens are about to come home to roost.

Stop and silence

If Blair wants to achieve some great, lasting, social good during the last weeks of his premiership, he'd do better to abandon stop-and-search in favour of stop-and-silence. He would win the eternal gratitude of the beleaguered non-chav section of the British population if he banned the playing of music on mobile phones in all public places, but particularly on buses and trains.

This harsh, tinny background racket is infuriating and is rendering public transport a no-go area for many people. Small wonder they prefer to sit in long traffic queues in the peaceful privacy of their own cars rather than join selfish, thoughtless strangers in a travelling version of Bedlam.

Mind your grammar

David Cameron, the Blair clone who the Conservatives for reasons they might already be regretting have chosen as their leader, has set his heart against the restoration of grammar schools.

He's right, but not for the ideological reasons he claims. It would be wonderful if the clock could be turned back to the pre-comprehensive days when each year thousands of bright youngsters from working-class homes were given a chance to benefit from the sort of education which used to be available only to the toffs.

The state grammar schools carried on many of the traditions of the public schools and fee-paying grammar schools, the most important of which was a tradition of excellence.

Because they were there, several generations (including my own) enjoyed an upward social mobility that had never existed before. They were able to rise above their beginnings despite their families not having much money.

The comprehensive system put paid to all that. What was supposed to encourage the less academically-minded to strive to do better by placing them in the same classes as high achievers turned out, on balance, to be an exercise in levelling down. The social ladder became the social snake.

Quite how that process is now to be reversed is beyond my powers to suggest. But it won't be done by trying to create, out of the dumbed-down shambles of the modern state-education system, the fine traditions of the grammar schools.

They're gone for good. Those who gleefully waved them goodbye (I'm sure for the best of motives) must shoulder much of the blame for the present parlous state of British education.

So is enough really enough?

Why all the fuss about the price of tickets for Barbra Streisand's world-tour concerts?

Yes, they're certainly expensive. London fans can expect to pay between £100 and £750. But nobody's forcing them to.

A ticket to a Streisand concert isn't a matter of life and death. It isn't a cost that's imposed from above, like council tax or gas prices. It's voluntary.

If you think it's too expensive, don't go. It's as simple at that.

If enough people decide it's something they can live without, the prices would soon come down.