MAIL COMMENT: Smith's Stasi are a menace to freedom

Lovers of liberty will instinctively recoil from the Government's drive to arm private security guards, council officials and car park attendants with sweeping police powers over ordinary citizens.

Why should free-born Britons be obliged to give their names and addresses to this rag-tag army of snoopers and busybodies, with their licence to impose fixed penalty notices, stop cars and seize alcohol?

No wonder members of the Community Safety Accreditation Scheme  -  with their badges mostly bought for under £100  -  have already been dubbed Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's 'Stasi', after the dreaded East German secret police.

In a disturbing document, the Home Office makes clear it is deliberately using CSAS members to do jobs deemed too petty-minded for properly trained police. Could anything be better guaranteed to breed ill-feeling against the new force?

As Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve says: 'The public want to see real police on the streets discharging these responsibilities, not private firms who may use them inappropriately  -  including unnecessarily snooping on the lives of ordinary citizens.'

But then it often seems this controlfreak Government, with its batteries of databases and CCTV cameras, won't rest until it has set the entire population spying on each other and feeding information to Whitehall (which civil servants promptly lose).

True, petty offenders  -  from litter-louts to cyclists who ride on the pavement  -  are a menace. But by setting neighbour against neighbour, Smith's Stasi are more menacing still. 

Union blackmail
After lying dormant for decades, the spectre of militant trade union power has returned to haunt Britain.

With utter contempt for our democracy, Labour's biggest paymasters are exploiting the party's financial troubles by trying to dictate how the country should be governed  -  and by whom.

A secret briefing note reveals that the leaders of Unite have warned Gordon Brown there must be 'change at the highest level'  -  or else.

The threat could hardly have been clearer: unless the Prime Minister installs more union-friendly ministers and yields to public sector pay demands, he can expect no more money from Unite, which has kept Labour afloat since 2005.

Mr Brown has a solemn duty to resist this outrageous blackmail.

If he shows weakness now, he will risk dragging Britain back to the days before the Thatcher reforms, when the unions brought the country to its knees.

And if Unite really does withdraw its funds? Far better to see Labour driven to bankruptcy than sell our national interests for union gold. 

Terror in the sky
For five terrifying minutes, passengers on Ryanair flight FR9336 to Barcelona were offered not a word of reassurance as the plane dived tens of thousands of feet and icy air rushed into the cabin.

Grappling with oxygen masks that many believed were not working, some were convinced they were about to die.

Yesterday, Ryanair chief Michael O'Leary declared the proper safety procedures were followed and the masks were functioning. The crew couldn't make announcements, he said, because they had to wear oxygen masks themselves.

He may be right. But no-frills Ryanair is all too happy to subject its passengers to recorded announcements advertising scratchcards and duty-free bargains.

Is it really beyond Mr O'Leary's resources to offer guidance and reassurance in such terrifying emergencies?