Talking to the English

Clearly, comment writers are feeling -- as well as they are experiencing and writing about ? constrictions on traditional political liberties in the UK.

Fair enough.

But in the case of the Straw article it certainly seems as though readers' feelings are especially aggravated by who the author is, rather than what he is saying.

That, too, may be fair enough, but as a matter of political discourse, readers perhaps should be careful not to spill out the baby along with the bath.

Setting aside (the deep and clear and obvious and longstanding and evidently for many, the aggravating)identification of Mr. Straw with Labour, and splitting off whatever disappointments or betrayals comment writers have experienced at its hands or at the hands of its leadership, how could you ever quarrel with Mr. Straw's thesis?

Why shouldn?t the UK advance its obvious heritage as the polity which, after all, effectively invented Western political liberty should now be celebrating it? And why shouldn?t it be used as an instrument of national unity?

Perhaps this is just further cyncial, small p-political manipulation by a worn and overused political operative in the form of Jack Straw. But even if it is, won't the

And perhaps its own propaganda will blunt or temper the current government's impulse or the impulse of any future government to constrict freedoms on other occasions in the face of other threats, real or perceived.

Most of the time in political discussion as well as practice, humankind is prone to shoot the messenger. But it may be wise for us to be just as certain we are not careless enough to take aim at the message as well, and commit a double homicide.