It’s taken them a while to catch on, but finally a group of MPs have noticed that it’s a bit extreme to claim that we’ve been in a state of emergency for 8 fucking years.

All counter-terrorism laws passed since 11 September 2001 should be reviewed to see if they are still necessary, says a committee of MPs and peers.

They questioned whether ministers could legitimately argue, nine years on, that a “public emergency threatening the life of the nation” remained.

I’d go further: all counter-terror laws should be written with a sunset clause, and therefore need to be passed by Parliament every year. Not passed by a committee, not just signed off by the PM, actually debated by the whole House and passed only if necessary.

Because it’s beyond ridiculous to claim that we’re in grave national danger, and have been for most of a decade. There have been less than a dozen attempted attacks in that time; in Norn Iron in the 80s you got more than that in a month and it still wasn’t used in the same scary manner by the government.

Granted, this is only the committee on human rights, which I doubt Downing Street has ever listened to in anti-terror discussions. But hopefully the message seeps out a little bit, and we can move on from this stupidity. Because the threat, if it was ever really there, has effectively passed. Move on.