The Snoopers’ Charter. I ought to care about this. I’m a sort of libertarian. I believe in personal freedom. I’m a trustee of Index on Censorship. The state as Big Brother is everything I’ve always fought in politics. So why can’t I quite summon the requisite indignation? Why do I find all this Edward Snowden stuff vaguely irritating? Why does the crusading column for the Times, railing against state surveillance, somehow keep failing me, though time and again I’ve opened my laptop and tried to make a start?

Partly, I think, because as a longstanding and vehement opponent of British military...