A failed attempt at a British Fahrenheit 9/11, Chris Atkins’ documentary outlines the erosion of Britain’s civil liberties since the 1997 Labour election victory.
Explicitly partisan, Atkins’ polemic gives little or no voice to its opponents and borders on agit-prop in its desire to expose, for example, police over-reaction to peaceful protest, our threatened loss of privacy in the face of ID cards and the systematic undermining of habeas corpus.
Making droll use of archive footage, Taking Liberties comes across as over-earnest and sometimes wilfully obtuse in its desire to hammer home the thesis that Britain is becoming a police state. The body of evidence on display makes a sinister case, but it’s too flawed to convince.