SOMETIMES you just can't get that tune out of your head. For the last few days - goodness knows what brought it on - I've been haunted by that little song, "Who do you think you are kidding Mr Hitler?" from Dad's Army.

Actually, during the Second World War Hitler's propaganda didn't kid many people in Britain and we had plenty of brilliant satirists, headed by Mr Churchill, to send Hitler up. We beat off Hitler's brand of totalitarianism and dictatorship. How strange that we seem to be adopting many of Hitler's policies nowadays of our own free will.

For instance, following the burning down of the Reichstag, the German parliament building, in 1933, Hitler abolished habeas corpus and instituted imprisonment without trial. Mr Blair's Government has effectively done the same to us by the Extradition Act of 2003 and by the Terrorism Bill, which allows for people to be imprisoned without trial for 28 days.

Hitler did away with free speech pretty soon after he took power. That's what's happened here through political correctness which doesn't allow us to state what is true - even when the truth is established. And it certainly doesn't allow us to speculate and suggest that certain things are true - if these things are politically incorrect. So while I am allowed, for example, to suggest that people of a certain race or colour tend to run 100 metres faster than people of a different race or colour, I am not allowed to suggest that people of a certain race or colour tend to be more intelligent than those of other races or colours. And the disturbing thing is that I wouldn't be allowed to say this even if it was true.

And then the freedom to organise and assemble was abolished by Hitler. Just as it is in our Serious Organised Crime and Police Act of 2005 which outlaws protest within half a mile of the Westminster Parliament. Hitler brought in his Law to Remedy the Distress of the People Act in March 1933. This allowed him to introduce any new law he pleased without consulting the German parliament. Snap! The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, proposed by Mr Blair this year, will grant his Government powers "to amend, repeal or replace" legislation - including the definition of new crimes punishable by up to two years in jail - and all without the approval of Parliament.

One of the glories of the British criminal justice system for centuries is the presumption of innocence. It means that if you are accused of a crime, then it is the responsibility of the courts to prove your guilt before you can be sentenced. But our new Extradition Act means that anyone suspected of a crime can be extradited to any one of 24 EU countries where that person can be imprisoned indefinitely and then tried by foreign courts where the presumption of innocence does not apply. In other words, that person will be presumed guilty unless he can prove his innocence.

Our unscrupulous Government of control freaks is using the terrorist threat to remove our historic freedoms. I'd like to remind them of what Benjamin Franklin said in 1759: "Those who would give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Who do you think you are kidding Tony Blair?

* Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, in the City of London and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange.