The Prime Minister on Sunday claimed that the government's recent raft of reforms do more to uphold than undermine liberties, as academics struggled to draw the public's attention to a recently proposed bill which has already been dubbed the "Abolition of Parliament Bill".
While the public eye was fixed on the heroic band of MPs frustrating the government over the Terrorism and ID cards bills, just a week earlier a grey-sounding "Legislative & Regulatory Reform Bill" received its second hearing in parliament to a muted reception.
Created for the apparent purpose of cutting regulation for businesses, the bill represents, for many constitutional experts, the greatest threat to face British democracy in many years — since it effectively enables ministers to amend or replace any major law without needing parliament's consent.
David Howarth, Liberal MP wrote in an article in the Times in that "all ministers will have to do is propose an order, wait a few weeks and, voila, the law is changed".
A letter signed by six Cambridge professors of Law, also to the Times , argued that the bill gave ministers the power to abolish jury trial and place citizens under house arrest.
If the bill becomes law the only restrictions on these newfound powers will be any new crimes invented by ministers will be not be able to have sentences of longer than two years, and that ministers will not be able to impose new taxes.
Mr Howarth argued that the bill was paradoxical in that it also gave ministers the power to amend the bill itself, so once brought in, ministers could remove these restrictions and give themselves unlimited powers. One blogger likened it to the "Enabling Act" brought in by Hitler, which he used to dispense with democracy altogether.
The six professors wrote that they "hope that other MPs, on all sides of the House, will recognise the dangers of what is being proposed before it is too late".
The government however is said to have claimed that the bill is merely for tidying up existing legislation rather than for bringing in controversial new laws. However Mr Howarth claimed that this "tidying up" could take the form of making ID cards compulsory, banning smoking in one's own home, and "the definition of terrorism altered to make ordinary political protest punishable by life imprisonment".
In an article in last Sunday's Observer , entitled "I don't destoy liberties, I protect them" Tony Blair promised that ID cards would not be made compulsory.