Stop & question, stop & search. The police need these powers. It's ridiculous not allowing the police to ask someone questions & not being able to do anything if they get no answer or are told lies. At present the police have to have a suspicion or reason in order to stop & search someone. If they were released from their manacles the public would be better protected & the offender would be less likely to try their luck. These laws are needed to get us back to the days whereby the risk of getting caught at it outweighed any advantage the criminal thought they had

Lynda Plum, London, england

Giving Police new terror powers? I hate to say this, but politicians have been assassinated for less.

I wouldn't do it, of course, because I can't bare to get my hands dirty!

My sincerest thanks to The Times for this article and to the readers who have commented and share many of my views. Don't worry - we will survive, but it could mean civil war!

Penelope, Godalming, England

10 years too late if Blair is actually serious which I doubt with only a few weeks left in Office.
Sounds like another John Reid headline grabber as he fades into the sunset at the expense of doing sweet Fxxx All to help any of us.

philip, Ipswich,

And very soon the boys in jack boots will be kicking down your door in the middle of the night and hauling you away,never to be seen again.Power corrupts you know.

ron, toronto,

What is interesting is that these same laws were used in N Ireland are now being rescinded, showing that the proposed laws, which I believe are needed, might also be rolled back when they are no longer needed.

Blair should do it now, he has no political races to win; were Gordon Brown or other (hopefully other) successor, might act to bolster his popularity, over national security.

Every country has its problems and those problems change, at the moment we are dealing with a terrorist threat that most people don't want to face. There are those who actively want and are working to change our way of life from the one we know to the one they believe we should have. And they are willing to use violence to achieve it.

Our laws, which are meant to protect us and do so very well, can also be used to protect those with terrorist intentions. So if we object to Blair’s choice, how then do we create laws which allow us to live free but also root out and deal with the terrorists?

R. Hall, LONDON, UK

I remember how labour fought so hard to abolish pass laws and detention without trial in apartheid South Africa. The worm has turned.

Roger, London, UK

As a serving Police Officer I see these stories and cringe. This will hardly help deal with terrorists but it wil further allienate sections of our society and wind up the civil liberty groups. Where we need more sense is in our everyday powers to deal with the currrent trend of youths carrying and using knives and guns. New forms being issued now are ridiculously lengthy and complicated and make it dificult to effectively deal with a group of youths who may be carrying offnensive weapons. A quicker stop/search procedure wouldnt be an ordeal for the innocent and would be a valuable detrerent to those who feel the need to carry weapons.

Centry, Oxford, England

What a surprise that it is a Labour government doing this, eh? As if.

Socialists have always been more authoritarian than Conservatives, behind Labour's liberal front.

Mark Griffith, Hebden Bridge,

For Blair to state that he believes security to come before civil liberties highlights the threat that he poses to the British people.
Wars have been fought to protect our nation's liberty. People have died to protect it. It would be sad if their descendents had become so cowardly, that they would voluntarily choose a semblance of safety over the rights that enable humanity to live with dignity and joy.
How much can one take away before there is no longer anything of worth to keep secure?

Kat Slowe, Dorchester, UK

What's next? Thoughtcrime?

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and the road to a totalitarian state is paved with control orders, tagging, stop and search, extraordinary rendition, ASBOs, detention without trial and 'anti-terrorism' legislation.

I'm off to buy a Guy Fawkes mask.

michael, manchester,

This would be a perfectly sensible law. No citizen of a free country should be embarassed about telling the police who he is and what he's doing. This would be fine if that citizen also had the right to ask of the government: 'How much did you spend on travel expenses?' and have the same right to an honest answer. Personally, I will (if ever asked for this information) refuse to co-operate in protest against the uneven flow of information in this country today, and would encourage everyone else who has posted to do the same.

KJ Keir, Aberdeen, Scotland

Who would have thought that one day a British Prime Minister of all people - the mother of all democracies - would suspend our centuries old concept of habeas corpus and be complicit in filling gulags abroad like Guantanamo Bay to bursting point; engaging in activity little different than a lesser degree Hitler.

Blair's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and on civil liberties, human rights and democracy at home has been a war OF terror. Let us all hope and pray that he can find the honesty and humility to admit it.

N Johnson, London, UK

Can anybody pose a simple risk assesment on this.

On one hand 100's or may be 1000's of inoccent people may well have there lives intruded upon to the tune of disclosing there identity, destination & home address. Which in real terms can happen now.

Or the flip side is 52 people can leave the house one morning to go about there business and be murdered for no reason at all, and the government that was elected to protect these poeple respond by doing nothing.

We are far from a police state as is shown by a judges capability to place the civil liberties of a few foriegn nationals over the safety of the general population.

While Miss Chakrabati's comment "hammer to crack a walnut" is to some extent true. Please remember just how deadly this walnut is.

Chris, Liverpool,

This is a great Law to prevent the likes of 7/7 9/11 hapening, I dont see any reason why we sould be stoped by the police, especialy if you have done no wrong, the people who the law will effect are illigal imigrants muslim bombers and the like, honest citizens will have nothing to worry about. Well done Tony

Michael McMahon, Moreton, Merseyside

"In Italy, the police have had these powers for years. You also must carry a passport or identification document at all times. It's the same in Spain. In both cases a legacy of our fascist past. When I tell my friends that 60 million people in the UK manage perfectly well without so much as an identity card, they find it hard to believe, but marvel at the freedom of the individual.

Ernesto Forchetto, Gijon, Spain

When a people are prepared to give up their liberty and freedoms so easily in the name of safety they deserve neither freedom nor safety.

Steve P, Leeds, England

I can't believe its only taken the idiots we put in power about 15 years to forget what the Soviet Union used to be like. My wife's family had to leave that country - where they were forced to carry round passports that showed they were Jewish, and were banned from various institutions based on their religion. Ironically, she ended up in the UK, which is rapidly deteriorating into a society reminiscent of Soviet-era Russia. If we don't reverse this course, history has a simple lesson for us - and our way of life is finished.

Steve, London, UK

To Rob Willard, Reading: Yes, I bet they will!

Carolyn King, Tonbridge, U.K.

Ah yes, the terrorism boogeyman, scare the populace into wanting more government control and snooping into the lives of citizens they are supposed to represent, not paternalistically pat on the back and tell us they know what's best for us. But if the general populace is allowing themselves to be treated like children then it's no surprise really is it.

Look at history, the people in power always want more power and control and what is passed and accepted as a fight against terrorism now can easily spread into other areas of life. The fear about general living here whipped up by the media doesn't help. They are complicit in helping the government gain these powers as the middle classes cower in fear of invented threats and are apparently more concerned with the frequency that their rubbish is taken rather than more important issues.

LM, Lincoln,

Those who are innocent have nothing to fear from the law, as long as the State is just and the Executive is honourable and trustworthy. Problem with this law is that I can't trust the executive, not since the they lied about the reasons we went war and then strong armed the BBC in to being nothing but a cowering mouth piece for its own propaganda. As a result of his crusade to destabilise the Middle East for next few generations Blair has become such a power crazed paranoid maniac that he has to introduce laws that could be used against that part of the population that strongly disagree with his actions and the actions of his government. Soon dissent will be treason and we will have troops in Iran. Anybody out still feel like they live in a democracy?

Alan, Bristol,

On the one hand Labour is allowing uncontrolled migration including from Terrorist states while adding laws to try and solve the problems they have caused by letting all these people with incompatible cultures in.

I would be happy to be stopped by a policeman, not that you often see one anyway.

mark, reading,

Pastor Martin Niemoeller wrote this in Nazi Germany:
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Liberties that have taken nearly a thousand years to be won are being taken away in a matter of months. People who think this does not affect them because they have nothing to hide are missing the point. These types of laws will make criminals of us all.

Chris, London,

The absence of a prefix in the headline inadvertently (or perhaps deliberately) says it all: Police to get tough new terror powers.

tatsy macfadden, Inverness, Scotland

It would be nice if we could define 'TERRORISM' so that we can all start singing from the same hymn sheet. I used to live on a council estate where i was regularly terrorised by gangs of white teenagers banging on my door, making so much noise that they could literally wake the dead, swearing and spitting at passers by, vadalising local facilities and making life in the area general hell. I was scared to go out, my neighbours were scared to go out, our children were too scared to go out and play and life became a living nightmare.

Oh i apologise... i am obviously talking about 'anti social behaviour' which Tony BLair has done a 'great' job dealing with!

I have no problem supporting laws which make it harder for visitors to our contry to do us harm, but before we try to 'fix them' can we please put a bit more resource in to dealing with those parts of our own society that regularly terrorise us on a daily basis and make life hell on earth for us?!

miffedcitizen, cambridge, uk

We are not moving towards becoming a police state. we are one.

oldasiahand, Guildford, UK

I totally agree with Ian Burgess of Bristol: this new law is absolutely outrageous and totally unjustified. The police should be concentrating on catching criminals, people who ARE acting suspiciously instead of bullying law-abiding citizens. If a police officer came to question me, I would be really insulted and alarmed because I am a law-abiding person who wouldn't dream of breaking the law . This new law will only sour relations between the general public and the police, and will not help to make this country safer at all. It is utterly pointless and what worries me is that the vulnerable and completely innocent members of our society, i.e. the disabled, the elderly and ill will be criminalised. I am absolutely horrified by the Governments plans, and I am not at all surprised that Blair and Read will be quitting soon afterwards. They are cowards who are to gutless to face public anger over this.

Carolyn King, Tonbridge, U.K.

Peter Barry, are you white? Your statement below, 'The only people who fear this are criminals, terrorists and the Tree Huggers whose idiotic Human Rights Bill got us into this mess in the first place', suggests so.

I am an afro-Caribbean professional male, with an exceptional degree that won me two awards, one an international award, and an extremely good job in, arguably, the nicest part of London. I have been privately educated throughout my life and have never been of any interest to the police. I got a parking fine once, years ago, but that is about it.

I have been stopped and searched under the terrorism laws, three times in the past 6 months. I fear this new legislation, as described, because it gives the police more of an opportunity to make my life miserable. NOT because I have anything to hide.

Ethnic minorities, such as myself, bear the brunt of this nonsense for now, so white Britons seem to wonder what the fuss is about.

Perhaps your turn, collectively, will come...

Arnold, London,

'Was not necessity the plea of every illegal exertion of power or exercise of oppression?... Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.'

While Pitt may have been referring to Fox's East India Bill some 220 years ago, Blair and the rest of the British population would do well to heed his words today.

We must all ask ourselves what Britain is fighting for in waging the 'war on terror'. It certainly can no longer be to uphold the rights and liberties of its citizens or to protect the
West from the oppression of radical Islam. In essence, we have lost the very rights we have been supposedly fighting to protect.

Alex, London,

Here's a good reason why this is dangerous:

I recently got stopped and questioned by two armed officers near London City Airport, my "crime" throwing a ball back across a fence to some children in a school playground!

I had a quick word with one of the playground supervisors (adult) and was just walking away when I was stopped. I was quite happy to give the officers my name and address and I explained what I was doing, but they wanted me to produce ID and held me there because I had none on me. I pointed out that I was a former local councillor and school governor of that very school and said they could check with the adult staff.

All the time they questioned me the kept fingering their side-arms. I t was really intimidating.

Mike, LONDON, UK

It is only people who have something to hide or who are up to no good, who should be worried by this legislation.

The police could stop me if they want and ask for ID as long as it makes the UK a safer place to live in.

AH, Newcastle, UK

This will certainly be a massive shift in the relationship between the state and citizens, who will be expected to be able to prove their identity at all times and that their activities are benign. I wonder if the days of just going for a walk are over.

mark johnson, Edinburgh,

I am personally very concerned about terrorism and trying to prevent it.
I am also equally concerned about the erosion of civil libities.
Once these are removed they will be very difficult to win back.
This current government has consistently displayed worrying authoritarian tendencies, and instead of wasting billions on the NHS and education which clearly need fundamental reform, they should allocate more resources to the security services and police, and indeed the armed forces, to enable them better to detect and prevent crime and protect us all, within the already more than adequate legal frame work in place.

JohnLewis, London, UK

And Liberty died to the accompaniment of the sheep bleating 'nothing to hide, nothing to hide, nothing to hide.....'

Last night, in a marquee on private property, my nephew was holding his birthday party with 49 other people. The police arrived and took all the music playing equipment.

This was at 9pm and the noise levels had been checked carefully to ensure that they were within reasonable (as defined by the local authority) limits.


There had been no complaints.

They told my nephew that they didn't have to -
-identify themselves (all badges stripped from their uniforms)
-Give a reason for their disruption of this private party
-Tell anyone what laws they were acting under
-Give an receipts for the equipment taken (stolen?)
-Give any other explanation or paperwork to anyone and if anyone caused any more trouble by asking questions, they would be arrested.

Welcome to our world. Police State? we've had it in Mid Wales for years.

jo, radnor, powys

This is just another attempt by a prime minister who is incapable to accept just how wrong he was to blindly follow bush to war for no good reason other than his own ego. We never had serious issues with anyone until, following his blatant lies as to the claim of imminent attack, the coalition turned an arab nation, living the way they had done for generations, into the bloodbath that is now Iraq. Now we have to suffer restictions on civil liberties in order to qualify his actions. WMD the biggest lie in recent history, but as with all liars the truth always defeats them in the end

Mark Devries , Bangkok , Thailand

If Blair and Reid seriously believe that the state's security has a higher call than civil liberties, then they share common ground with the Communist states or Nazi Germany. Millions of people died in the Second World War in order to preserve our civil liberties. What a smack in the face for them and their survivors.

Helen, Wokingham, Berks

I love how everyone here who is complaining about living in a police state can do so freely without fear of punishment or repression. I can only shake my head at such idiotic comments, which sadly seem to make up the majority here. You Brits have full freedom of speech (as long as you dont abuse this to incite hatred or violence), enjoy free and fair elections held in regular intervals, have powers to challenge the government between elections (e.g. Freedom of Information Act) - in short , you are able to complain about the lack of freedom in your country because of the very freedoms you enjoy on a daily basis...
Why dont people get a sense of reality - all this fuss simply because the police are given the right to ask you for your name. Stop whining - you do NOT live in a police state for god's sake!

Ben, Basel, Switzerland,

I thought the problem was control orders not being tough enough. I suspect this will go the way of other knee jerk legislation & be watered down or thrown out on human rights grounds.

I worry about people who say they have "nothing to hide". There are an awfully large number of laws & if the relevant people are determined they could easily find something to prosecute you for. For example the Police Federation raised several trivial cases, including someone cautioned for "having an egg with intent to throw". Does that mean we are only legally allowed to carry eggs in egg boxes?

I feel we face a continuing onslaught from Labour on our freedoms in the name of anti-terrorism. What will probably happen is there will be a storm of protest, but so as not to appear weak the opposition parties will compromise when they vote on the bill. I suspect very few terrorists will actually be caught through this, but protestors may find it used extensively against them.

Michael, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

If only the dogs of war would stop foaming at the mouth and think about it. They might see that all of our civil liberties stand to be abolished. Its not about stop and question me I have nothing to hide! it's about do that today and I accept what will you do tommorow? people wake up consider what we will lose if we allow this to go on, rather consider what we have lost already, laws get drafted we do not agree with them yet they are passed, without the police becoming the strong arm of the politician what will happen when they do. Any defiance will be seen as civil disobedience and crushed by then it will too late. If anyone wants to trust our intelligence hook line and sinker, let them remember our great intel. re: Mendez & the weapons of mass distruction. Are we soo naive as to believe the claim that the war was to end dispotic regimes when in fact it heralded despotism in our own shores... I'll be glad to see the back of the Blair Warlock Project but alas it maybe too late...

midnight sun , London , Expat

too many people with too much to hide. The scared few who think they speak for the people. The more Police powers to protect the public the better as far as i am concerned. Cant wait for the introduction of ID cards , then we can root out all the weeds who are ultimately responsible for all this legislation having to be put in place to protect the liberties of the masses.

toughtimes, london,

Many responders to this article take the view that "if you have done nothing unlawful, then you have nothing to fear". This is all very well for as long as the laws themselves are fair and just. The dangerous thing about these new powers is that they may be used to enforce future, less palatable legislation. I hope we do not end up destroying the very liberties we are trying to protect. And no I am not a tree hugging leftie.

Rob King, Norwich , UK

This is all to ''big up'' the threat and make him look like a big leader.
A leader that visits a cowboy ranch in the States and then walks like a gunslinger.
The IRA did far more damage on the mainland.
But Blair never fought a real war unlike Churchill.
He created his own war and lost it.

K Urban, London, UK

I've been stopped a couple of times by the police. On both occasions they'd asked for my name, where i was going and where i lived. They phoned somewhere to check if my car reg number, matched my name/address. This was a few years ago before this new law. The Police were very polite, i don't see any problem with this, it's nothing new.

Mohammed, London, UK

Paul in rochester.
You be a slave if you want to.Count me out.

Michael J Rigby, Chorley Lancashire, England

Reading this article from my hotel in Shanghai, I was left musing that in the 2 weeks I have been here, travelling around the city on a daily basis, that I have not seen one single surveillance camera.
The UK is held up as a free and Democratic society.
Having been arrested a few months ago for driving with a faulty tail-light, on suspicion of drink-driving, and (after being not charged due to the fact that I had taken some mouthwash just before the arrest) I was still forced to provide a DNA sample as I had technically committed an offence (said faulty tail light).
I think I'll stay here, its less of a Police State..

Tony, Bournemouth,

More tripe from someone who has obviously lost his grip on reality. The people wanting to attack Britain are not doing so because of weak judges, its because we have invaded 2 sovereign Muslim countries. Mr Blair has learnt absolutely nothing from our experience in Northern Ireland.

He is either blind or more likely, using this as an excuse to cover up the catastrophic mess he has made on foreign policy. Britain has no credibility left in both the Arab or Muslim worlds, and its all the fault of Blair, not our judges.

akram, London,

Those who thought that Socialism and Fascism were two opposites will discover from New Labour's legacy, that they are just two sides of the same statist coin.

D S A Murray, London,

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ingnorance is Stength

Ed, London,

Seems like New Labour is slowly but surely becoming the new Zanu-PF for Britain and are modelling their democracy along the lines of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe.
Looking further back in history the Nazi party established its dicatorship after coming to power by invoking special powers to protect the state inthe 1930's
The bigest threat to our freedom seems to be from those elected to preserve it, or has the war on terror become a war on the British public ?
Citizen Payne

Trevor Payne, Thetford, UK

Police do not have the power to stop and question without reasonable suspicion and do not have the power to compel someone randomly stopped to answer questions on pain of financial penalty. This is what is being proposed - what do you think about that, miffedplod?

Miffedcitizen, London, UK

I don't like this at all. I have nothing to hide, but that does not mean that I wish share information about what I do. My own sense of privacy prevails. I can see where this leads: I get stopped, I know I have done nothing wrong, therefore I refuse to reveal information, therefore I get arrrested and charged and punished. Now you have a perfectly law abiding citizen in jail, or at least life ruined, sitting there fuming at the state, the police, everybody... Now that's the makings of a terrorist... I'm already annoyed at the state because I can't challenge an unfair parking fine! Better bring in some more draconian laws then huh? WE need to be bigger than this. Start listening, start actually being positive and take brave moves to generate harmony instead of this reactionary idiocy.

Paul, Milton Keynes,

Let us only hope that Peter Barry and others of his ilk stay in Thailand or where they hang out, for it is obvious that back here they would encourage the police state that is rapidly emerging under New Labour.

Mike Mitchell, Spalding, England

How any party with 'Labour' in its title could contemplate such facist measures is beyond me. The likes of Kier Hardy must be spinning in their graves.

I would urge everyone to do as I shall do and refuse to cooperate with such measures - at the risk of their freedom if necessary.

John Lockett, Burnley, Lancashire

Will MPs vote to exempt themselves from being subject to this stop and tell-the-truth law?

Rob Wilard, Reading,

In Italy, the police have had these powers for years. You also must carry a passport or identification document at all times. Which do you think is a freer country, Italy or the UK?

James Brown, Milan, Italy

Peter Barry talks of the tree huggers who are responsible for the Human Rights Act. What he forgets is that Blair was entirely responsible for the Human Rights Act, one of his first acts following the 1997 election. Blair has introduced this Act and how criticises the judiciary for following his own legislation. You can't have you cake and eat it too.

Jo, Cambridge,

“Think back” said Tony recently “No – REALLY think back!” But I say: “Think today – NO REALLY think today.” Blair presents himself as a Christian believer yet this pronouncement about “sending them back to take their chances” smacks heavily of “Not doing God”. Is it possible some absent, yet persuasive, devil is still whispering in his ear?

barrie singleton, newbury, uk

Not too long after Ted Heath ceased to be prime minister, I asked him what his biggest fear for the future was. He said that Britain would become "the first police state in the so-called democratic world."

Should any of us be surprised by your front page lead story today? (For which thanks).

I hope that ALL newspapers will campaign against this new fascism.

Will the Conservative Party? We'll see.......

Alan Hart, Ashford, UK

Why not stop and quiz / search just those who look like suspected islamic terrorists and yobish criminals instead of extending these powers to the indigenous respectable population with the resulting police state?

George, London, UK

Surely wartime power must mean we are now at war? Any politcos want to stand up and admit a covert civil war with Islam...

Colin Soames, London,

These feather ruffled 'PC Tree hugging lefties' posting here would be the first on their hind legs complaining about the lack of Police vigilance and protection when (not if) the next bomb explodes and kills and maims the innocent. What possible reason can an innocent person have for not giving information on his identity and address to the Police. The only people who fear this are criminals,terrorists and the Tree Huggers whose idiotic Human Rights Bill got us into this mess in the first place. Islamic terrorists can and will strike UK again,nothing to do with Afghansistan or Iraq or Palestine or Isreal they just hate us please get that through your thick heads.

Peter Barry, Bankok, Thailand

People are dying for freedom and democracy around the world. Meanwhile in the UK we are giving blanket laws for the police to do what the hell they like, to whomever they like. These proposed laws are the EXACT same things used to control the populations of Stazi East Germany, Soviet Russia, and North Korea. We have now joined these illustrious countries in total control of their populations under pretext of terror laws. No wonder people are leaving the UK in droves.

Bernard.F, Bristol,

Once again BIG BADDY BLAIR is shooting from the hip.... as he walks out the door..........
He has had plenty of time and reason to do this over the past ten yrs
As the officer above makes 100% clear- it would need the to have the right of silence removed to make this 100%!!
he should just shut up and go- enjoy the junket as his freind Precott is doing....another revolting individual....
The best thing the press could do is to just ignore Blair

mike, oxford, england

I am quite happy for the police to have the power to stop me, search me and ask me questions which I have to answer on pain of a hefty financial penalty. Actually, I'd be quite satisfied if, in the name of the fight against terror, they were given additional powers to enter my home without reasonable suspicion and search through my personal possessions. After all, if I have done nothing wrong - and, indeed, given no one any cause reasonably to suspect that I have - why shouldn't I submit to whatever questioning and searching anybody feels like carrying out? (It's not as if I'm in any of the categories of people likely to be affected by all this, after all). In fact, I would accept any and every restriction on my civil rights and liberties in the name of the fight against those who do not believe in these basic foundations of freedom and who would rather we live in a repressive and unjust society where they can be curtailed and removed at the stroke of a pen. Er... wait...

M. Niemoller, London, England

In the UK cameras are monitoring you everywhere. The government already monitors traffic, through out the country. Police now will have the power to stop you when ever and for what ever they want. These powers are on top of having to register wherever you might live. Terrorists have become the ruse for an even greater power grab.
I think England needs to be an example to other countries of what happens when its citizens fail to protect their rights. I hope those reading this; remember "Those that give up freedom for safety shall enjoy neither”. Fight for your rights or you to could end up in a police state like the UK.

NIck Knight, Dublin , Ireland

The police barely have time to solve the vast majority of crimes committed in this country, and when they do eventually catch someone they're released back on to the streets anyway. This seems to be another law passed under the smokescreen of protecting us from terrorism whilst actually being a state mechanism to harrass and terrify our own citizens.

Jose, London,

Somebody said "our civil liberties", can anybody tell me what civil liberties we have left?, i think thieve covered (taken away) them all.
Remember the old USSR took to putting away dissidents in mental institutions, nasty people such novelists and musicians, at least Gulags where more honest, if you survived you had some chance of getting out.
Of course this is all our fault , we have lost faith in the Messiah and must be punished for our own good. Mr Blair when he's completed his last spiteful antics will be sunning himself on a beach in the Bahamas (no doubt surrounded by bodyguards at our expense). Blair's legacy and his epitaph will be: R.I.P. Democracy.

Phil.M, Leeds, U.K.

There is no security reason to do this. This looks like yet another step towards turning the police into the uniformed arm of the Labour Party. Bad news for British freedom- bad news for the British people.

Doug, Glasgow,

I am quite happy for the police to stop me in the street and question me in a civil manner. Why? Because I have done nothing unlawful and nor do I intend such in the near future..... Those that object can only have something to hide!

Shaun Fetzer, Stara Zagora, Bulgaria

Its outrageous. Doesn't Blair realise that passing powers such as this enrages people so much that they may actually become exactly what he is trying to prevent?
The police in the UK have a track record of abusing powers such as these against minorities whom they selectively target.
I'd better start learning French so I have a place to go when the Uk finally becomes a police state.

Mike, Wolverhampton, UK

I agree with miffedplod, the police already have the power to stop and speak to you. Getting pulled into a layby for a routine check (so no suspicion) to be asked for name, ID and destination is not uncommon. What is worse it then means a visit to a police station within 7 days to produce other documents that a person does not generally carry.

miffedcitizen, West Wales,

For a while now I have thought of England as a police state. If anyone needs any further proof this is it.

Barrie Redfern, Krsko, Slovenia

I can't remember the last time I saw a police officer on foot patrol in our local area, so I'm hardly likely to be constrained by such legislation.
Craig, Cambridgeshire

C.Rattigan, Huntingdon,

Absolutely tyrannical and egregious. Blair really shows his true colours this time. Who doubts now that our civil liberties are dead? Your papers, please? I suppose we prefer life on our knees, eh?

Nick, Gateshead, UK

Erm, I'd just like to point out that we can stop and speak to anyone we like, and also ask their identity and movements. How do you think most policing gets done? Since when did we need reasonable suspicion just to talk to people? Stop/search and arrest powers would require suspicion of wrong doing. Speaking to someone does not (although there often is).
In most circumstances, people stop and talk to us, but there is no obligation for people to answer the questions. Unless there are plans to remove the right to not to say anything when questioned under caution, this is unlikely to change much.
The law is complex in this regard and your article is over-simplistic and misleading to the general public. This will not help your average bobby go about their everyday work.

miffedplod, London,

Are there still some people who don't believe we are moving to a Police State? The 'chattering classes'/champagne socialists of Hampstead/'Uslington' perhaps? I'll be interested to see how many opposition MPs as well as Labour MPs support this. This is simply outrageous - the sooner this man goes the better. Blair and his acolytes (especially Reid) are a danger to democracy and our civil liberties.

Ian Burgess, Bristol,

This may turn out to be the only sensible thing Blair has done during his 10 years in office.

Paul, Rochester, UK