As I was saying, now is the time to keep our heads. Max Hastings, alas, has lost his:

Our principal weapons against terrorists are not tanks, Typhoon fighter jets or warships, but instead intelligence officers using electronic surveillance.

Much cant has been peddled recently about the supposed threat to liberty posed by government eavesdropping on our lives.

Such people as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Edward Snowden (the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor turned treacherous fugitive), who have broadcast American and British secrets wholesale, are celebrated as heroes by some people who should know better, many of them writing for the Guardian or broadcasting for the BBC.

In truth, Assange and Snowden have damaged the security of each and every one of us, by alerting the jihadis and Al Qaeda, our mortal enemies, to the scale and reach of electronic eavesdropping.

Eh? As Caspar Bowden tweeted, “culprits of Paris, Woolwich, Boston not just all known to police, already jailed/ wiretapped for terrorism, or failed double-agent recruits”. So where does Snowden come into this? Answer: nowhere.