Within the past fortnight, we have seen contrasting demonstrations both of the totalitarian ruthlessness of the contemporary British state, in one set of circumstances, and of its abject impotence, in another.
The first, abusive exercise of power was exhibited when seven West Yorkshire police officers invaded a private house and dragged a terrified autistic teenage girl from a cupboard where she was cowering, to spend twenty hours in police cells; the second, pathetic demonstration of powerlessness was the revelation that the court that had convicted mass murderer Lucy Letby did not have the authority to compel her to return to the dock to receive her sentence in public.
