Our attentions are rightly focused on the brutal, unjustified and relentless assault on the freedoms of the Ukrainian people, however, this is just one manifestation of a wider picture of assault on our mutual liberties that would have bemused and appalled the great Edmund Burke. It was Burke who is credited with defining the ‘Totalitarian State’, saying that “when individuality is left out of their scheme of government. The State is all in all… It is military in its principle, in its maxims, in its spirit, and in all its movements. The State has dominion and conquest for its sole objects – dominion over minds by proselytism, over bodies by arms”. He could have been describing Putin’s Russia. As Chairman of the UK’s Freedom Association, with its long heritage back to pre Thatcher times, and a fine range of Lords, MPs and distinguished members, I have set out 10 freedoms for our times, and look forward to speaking to these under the important session ‘The Future of the Nation State in E...