in the words of Mr Michael Stipe, its the end of the world as we know it (but im not all that happy about it).

thanks to those wannabe orwellian's in charge of anti-terrorism legislation we have finally drop-kicked any pretense that history is more than a crudely constructed narrative to keep the powerful, well, powerful.

i think nosemonkey puts it pretty well.

It also - again, technically - for the first time creates the concept of "official history" as historic groups who used tactics which could be considered "terrorist" (the chartists etc.) would now only technically be considered such if they were on the Home Secretary's official list. A perfect cop-out for any history students presented with "Were the Suffragettes' tactics terrorist in nature?" type questions - just put "No - because Charles Clarke says so".

nothing like the shameless abuse of language by those in authority to really kick the day of with a smile.