Have the English lost their historic love of liberty?

Imagine, for a moment, you are an international terrorist. Not a leading one, mind you, who might have his picture on cigarette cards if such things still existed, but your ordinary, bog-standard warped fanatic who can’t get a girlfriend and who is therefore looking for something to spice up his life. Having joined the freemasonry of random murderers, you find yourself in Great Britain a few years hence, and are about to strike.

Listen, as the robot-staffed phone lines say, to the following two options. First, if you are not a British subject, press ‘hash’. Second, if you are a British subject and will be deterred from planting a bomb because you have an identity card, press 1; if you, even despite having an ID card, will plant the bomb anyway, press 2, light the blue touchpaper, and retire. Of course, 100 per cent of international terrorists like you will take the final option.