When the subject of freedom of speech in the UK comes up on Reddit people always seem quick to talk about the concept of individual liberty in a universal sense, and liberally throw around Orwellian allusions willy-nilly.
While I am no fan of Cameron, he's not impeding on our rights in any particularly radical way; Blair, Major and Thatcher before him proposed much far more stifling, unimplementable laws. The overdubbing of all IRA members on TV in the 80's and 90's comes to mind, as do Maggie's futile attempts to suppress the Miners.
What i'm trying to get at is that the 'OMG THE UK IS BECOMING A POLICE STATE' argument is stupid; Despite being traditionally a 'big government', the government has held virtually no sway over the will of the people since time immemorial (I hate to state the obvious but I feel I should specify that i'm talking about the UK itself and not our former Empire). We've had complete freedom of the press for more than two centuries, and I don't know when martial law was last declared but its probably equivalent.
Now, as much as I hate it, i'll be the one to make an Orwellian allusion: He was a British writer, and 1984 is not about a dystopian police state, its about a dystopian Britain and what could be if government power went unchecked. But at the end of the day, that will never happen because we're a nation of Winston Smiths, always undermining and mocking the establishment. The UK won't ever be a 'Police State' because the British people wouldn't allow it, and no government is ever going to be strong enough to establish one. We are, naturally, far too sceptical and far too violent.
What the Tories are proposing is not any more an extreme legislature than those that were created in the wake of The Troubles in the 70's. However it is as stupid and impractical, and will obviously never work. If Nick 'Judas Cunting Iscariot' Clegg wants to make a difference then why doesn't he resign from, and thereby dissolve, the government? Because obviously the Lib Dems have a chance to get back into government with the Tories in May if the vote isn't decisive, and he doesn't want to alienate himself. So he and the Lib Dems can do the same thing again for another 4 years, which is precisely nothing, other than making jingoistic statements every couple of months and become even more despised, possibly more than Cameron and his ilk, by everyone under the age of 30.