The government’s recent behaviour over the anti-terror bill has been even worse than normal. Their attitude, as expressed in various interviews over the last couple of days, is that the House of Lords’ decision to amend and filibuster the government’s legislation is disgraceful.

"How dare you tell us what to do?", say Tony Blair, Charles Clarke, Hazel Blears and the other faceless minions. "Don’t you know we’re in charge? You might have a constitutional right to do this, but stop it at once, and let us do what we want". They don’t even understand the concept of checks and balances: judges and Lords are merely anachronisms in the way of their project.

Tony Blair isn’t so much a king (as this worthwhile article maintains) as an emperor. Like Julius Caesar, he believes his own vision is more important than the processes and institutions of the Republic. It must be, because he’s a Good Man with the world’s best interests at heart. Anyone in the way is a either a Bad Man who seeks to destroy us, or a Foolish Man who fails to understand the realities of the situation.

I despise almost everything about the Conservative party’s policies, leadership and supporters. However, they are actually a political party, rather than a concerted campaign to destroy the British political system and replace it with something weird and Imperial. I’ve seriously almost reached the stage where I’d prefer a Tory victory to a Labour victory, and that’s something I never thought I’d say.

If that fails, then persuading Gordon to stab Tony to death might just about be feasible…

(read also these fine pieces on the subject. Meanwhile, Stephen Pollard demonstrates his unique gift to be amazingly and incredibly wrong about any randomly selected issue).