As an example of gobsmacking candour from an establishment grandee, it ranks alongside former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan’s startling assertion that the Iraq War was ‘largely about oil’. Former MI5 chief Stella Rimington this week accused the government of exploiting the fear of terrorism to curtail civil liberties.

Dame Stella is in good, if unexpected, company. Her comments coincided with the publication of a devastating study by the International Commission of Jurists accusing the UK and US of undermining the framework of international law (see news).

‘Governments have allowed themselves to be rushed into hasty responses to terrorism that have undermined cherished values and violated human rights,’ the commission stated. ‘"Temporary" counter-terrorism measures are becoming permanent features of law and practice, including in democratic societies.’ We hope this report convinces those who are complacent about the ever more intrusive and authoritarian nature of the state that ‘terror-creep’ in all its malign manifestations must be addressed – and, ideally, reversed. As the commission pointed out, the present political climate may provide one of the last chances for a concerted effort to take remedial measures.

As for Dame Stella’s contribution – when even the spooks are spooked, you know there is good reason to be deeply worried.