dreamt that people were getting man-handled on flights by vicious Marshals, for making certain gestures or stooping to tie their laces, as this was suspected of being ‘signals’ to fellow passengers, co-ordinating an imminent terror attack. Some of the offenders were whisked off to detention by snatch squads, while others were taken to correction centres for daring to question the veracity of these crimes and penalties. When I awoke, I realized that this nightmare is reality, as a sixty-year-old woman discovered on a journey from London to Washington.

At first I thought this creepy dream was a result of my over-active imagination, but it was due to the over-reaction of security services. As I lay there, clammy and panicky, like the lady on United Flight 923, who was escorted by two US Air Force fighter jets for violating news laws, by carrying hand cream and matches, I was relieved that I do not possess a passport! Unfortunately, that will not prevent me from having my house raided, my assets frozen and my belongings confiscated, for something I may have posted on the internet, or texted to a friend.

Twenty-four respectable Muslims of Pakistani origin found this out to their cost, after the alleged ‘liquid bomber plot’ that never was. They are currently detained at Paddington Green Station, without charge. We have had the ricin plot, that wasn’t, explosives in Seattle that weren’t, and a terrorist who isn’t, on a transatlantic flight diverted to Boston. However, if anti-war protestors can board Hercules military aircraft at Prestwick Airport without difficulty, ferrying WMD’s to Israel, why would unconstrained ‘al Qaeda’ bomb commercial planes?

It is against the edicts of Islam, which means peace, to murder innocents, but Home Secretary John Reid, hoping for promotion, told EU officials that this religion is subverted and faces the world with “a form of intolerant and violent totalitarianism.” War is peace! Conversely, the evil ‘arc of extremism’ never seems to target them… The Commissioners concluded that “a united Europe will win the battle with the terrorists” and we will share a common policy in intelligence and surveillance and crackdown on internet sites; a form of totalitarian intolerance.