Jonathan Sacks' defence of religious freedom in today's Times provides a neat definition of personal freedom, I urge you to read it. The Chief Rabbi compares the English and French version of human rights - but subsitute 'Labour' for 'French' and 'Conservative' for 'English' in the following extract, and you will have a pretty neat encapsulation of why the Blair/Brown government has got 'freedom' all wrong:
"The English version saw rights as defining the space in which governments may not intervene. In the social contract, we hand over some of our liberties to government for the sake of law and order and defence against foreign powers. But there are certain rights — such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — that are inalienable, meaning that we do not and cannot sign them away. They define an area of freedom by setting limits to the power of the State.
The French approach was to see rights as an ideal description of humanity that it is the task of politics to enforce. Politics is about the transformation of society by the force of law. English liberty sets limits to the State. French liberty is imposed by the State. That is the difference."
