Is the government losing the plot? First came the Prime Minister's 12-point anti-terrorism plan, most of which has left lawyers, civil libertarians and formerly supportive opposition parties reeling in disbelief. Next, the Crown Prosecution Service decided to discuss with police the possibility of using the Treason Act against three Muslim preachers. How better to promote our values of tolerance and modern democracy than by charging, for example, Abu Izzadeen ("the bombers were praiseworthy") with giving "aid and comfort" to the Queen's enemies, under a law whose origins predate democracy by centuries?

Wisely, Lord Carlile QC, independent reviewer of the new anti-terror legislation, instantly warned that such a move would not be sensible, because no lawyer in the country had any experience in handling charges of treason. With luck, but we should not bank on it, that will be the end of the matter.

Tony Blair's 12 initiatives, on the other hand, are certain to cause anxiety for rather longer. He announced them shortly before going on holiday, in a new "I'm getting a bit angry" style that earned him the admiration of the right-wing press. But praise from the Daily Telegraph does not relieve him of the duty to announce far-reaching policy changes, some of which he hopes to see in place without legislation within two weeks, in a more formal and accountable way.

The measures include deporting foreign troublemakers, creating new offences of condoning or glorifying terrorism, detention without charge for up to three months, and powers to ban groups as well as close down places of worship and bookshops. Some of the measures will gain popular support. It may be right, for example, to examine the use of intelligence evidence in trials; and daily appearances by extremist clerics on TV news programmes, asserting that all Britons are legitimate targets of terror, will have intensified popular support for harsher laws on deporting foreign terrorists.

However, plans to amend the Human Rights Act to facilitate this risk ending up in another damaging battle with the law lords over Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. And proposals to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir (which has unpalatable beliefs but no history of violence), to make it an offence to "glorify terrorism", or to refuse entry to clerics "not suitable to preach" (who determines that?) break new ground in thought-policing. They also raise questions about the government's commitment to equality before the law. Asked on Radio 4's Today programme whether George Galloway would fall foul of the offence of glorifying terrorism, Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor, cheerfully replied: "I think we know who we want to target in relation to this."

Admittedly, the government's task is not simple. It may have decided that it prefers to deal with the complaints of civil libertarians now rather than the accusation later that it failed to prevent a catastrophe. But it should think again. Scatter-gun solutions stand little chance of preventing terrorist acts. If gaps in the existing legislation are hampering vital anti- terrorism efforts, we should fill them. First, however, we need to know why these laws have failed. Labour has enacted three anti-terrorism laws since 2000, all encroaching on our rights and all apparently impotent in the face of the current threat. As a priority, the cabinet must examine its record and, in the light of recent reports that there were indeed warnings about the July bombings, the record of its intelligence agencies.

Encroachments on our freedoms may be necessary, but we need more convincing reasons than Blair's theatrical exasperated parent act. Most importantly, we deserve a full and transparent debate in parliament.

That missing voice of the future

The untimely death of Robin Cook provoked reminiscences and appreciations of a kind usually reserved for a head of state or former prime minister. But from the moment of his principled resignation from Tony Blair's cabinet on 17 March 2003, over Britain's decision to invade Iraq, Cook was as exceptional a backbencher as he had been a cabinet minister and opposition spokesman. Many have paid tribute to his outstanding career. He was, as the appreciations have almost unanimously acknowledged, an outstanding parliamentarian and one of the most potent, if abrasive, political intellects of his generation.

The tragedy of Cook's death to many New Statesman readers, however, lies less in his illustrious past than in the missing future. As a backbencher, he had reinvigorated debate on causes and principles that Labour had neglected or long abandoned. Unlike former colleagues, he had no squeamishness about values condemned as "old left". He spoke unasham-edly of the importance of democratically controlled public services, and he never abandoned his insistence that the military occupation of Iraq was wrong and dangerous. He became a vocal critic of "triangulation" - Labour's policy of ignoring its core voters in order to strengthen its hold on the centre ground. A lucid journalist (he wrote occasionally for the NS and had a column in the Guardian), he argued forcefully for Labour to address the growing dissatisfaction of its missing millions of voters.

Cook's history as an NS journalist goes back some decades. In the late 1970s he was a regular columnist, writing powerfully persuasive pieces in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament. His articles of that time on official secrecy, intelligence and arms sales remind us that Cook, perhaps uniquely among his peers, remained remarkably true to his early ideals.

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