OK but flawed - Rated 
Most of this text just states the bloody obvious about the liberal malaise afflicting Britain today. Like many reformed Marxists, Hitchens has a hysterical undertone and is not intellectually at ease with right wing ideas, though he strives to advance them.
Two core ideas inform all his work, and both are of questionable validity. The first of these is that the 1960s ushered in all the problems that afflict Anglo-Saxon cultures in general, and Britain in particular. The second error lies in assuming that mass immigration from non-advanced, non-Judeo Christian cultures has NOT been a major cause of recent social problems in the UK.
Moving to the former point, the British Establishment has a long history of pandering to non-whites' 'rights' at the expense of the white working class. This tendency antedates the Victorian period, though Dickens famously lampooned it. While British white working class children were being ruthlessly exploited in unregulated working conditions, Anglican hypocrites were 'freeing the slaves'. The origins of the uproar surrounding Stephen Lawrence (along with arid indifference to white, working class victims of crime) lie deep in the British patrician psyche, NOT the 1960s. My guess is the elite still smart over sturdy white working class cultural autonomy (Unions, emigration, community schools and resistance to the coercive fairy tales of Christianity) more than anything else. Blacks are seen as more culturally malleable - hence the preferential treatment afforded them.
Moving to point two, Hitchens continually turns a blind eye (both in this book and the Abolition of Britain) to the role of mass immigration in rising crime rates. All studies show that certain ethnic minorities are overrepresented in British criminal activity. The origins of this are complex: undoubtedly a legitimate feeling of social exclusion plays a big part. Whatever, to blame all problems on the liberal elite while ignoring such a major factor that coheres seamlessly with rising crime (and increasingly limited freedoms)is frankly ridiculous. Ultimately, a society that becomes too ethnically diverse has no shared values or ideals in which a benevolent 'Common Law' can operate. The unwritten altruism of the Common Law cannot function when large sections of society resent or hate their fellow citizens and the country they live in. This, of course, is now the case.
So although the book makes some good points it must address pro-immigrant British paternalism and the clear link between immigration and crime in order to fully discuss the problems of crime and declining liberty. This, as ever with Hitchens' work, it fails to do.
An invaluable, albeit disturbing read. - Rated 
In my personal opinion, Peter Hitchens is one of very few political pundits today that couples the facts with common sense and logic to drive his arguments. If you are someone who is looking to gain insight as to why Britain is in continuing decline as a nation and culture, then this book is for you.
The book provides a detailed account of numerous factors that have contributed, and still contribute to the collapse of the criminal justice system in the UK. The main sections on review are; ID Cards, Narcotic-tolerance, Jury Trials, Prisons, and our current Police 'Service'.
Hitchens describes and dissects how traditional British institutions that once defended and upheld law and order, and the law abiding, have been hijacked by a liberal-left elite and transformed over a period of 40+ years into the apparatus of a totalitarian state.
This book is well researched, and the author expresses the facts and his opinions coherently to the reader.
Informative - Rated
This is a well written and researched book explaining the key differences in continental, English and U.S. law and policing. This is backed up by a wealth of statistics to quantify how the expansion of crime without consequences to the career criminal has been facilitated by the growth of politically motivated policing in the UK, and England in particular.
At the heart of the problem is the moral vacuum of socialism which considers everyone to be criminals and, as a consequence, the career criminal is simply no different to anyone else and must be saved and reformed at any cost financially, and to the detriment of everyone else's life and liberty. Except for the enlightened elite at the heart of government and its institutions, that is.
The ID card is little more than the yellow star pinned on Jews in Nazi Germany. Criminals in Northern Ireland can now freely attack pensioners with hammers and guns, in the dead of night, in pursuit of small amounts of money and can reasonably expect to never be caught or punished. And they can also freely indulge in the tiger-kidnapping of the families of bank and business owners in order to gain ransom money, with detection, prosecution and punishment unlikely in case terrorists and paramilitary groups will be offended, or not be available to bolster the propaganda of the-war-on-terrorism.
Peter Hitchens suggests how many current failings of the law and policing could be addressed so that crime is prevented and criminals are punished. But this can only happen in a free society which has a government and legal system dedicated to upholding freedom and recognising that career criminals do not have more right to the expropriated resources of the state than the victims of crime.
Thought-provoking - Rated 
There can be little doubt that this is a well-argued and thought-provoking text. Anyone with an interest in the criminal justice system, or matters of modern politics, would do well to read it.
That said, the argument can at times seem a little one-sided. For example, the author argues vigorously against the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, without pausing to consider why it was enacted in the first place eg. the Confait case. Therefore the reader must take care to critically analyse the information presented.
Potential readers should also note that the text contains very little on civil liberties. I had purchased the book on the basis that it would be discussing the recent legislation affecting civil liberties in the UK. There is a well-written and informative section on ID cards, and a short section at the end of the book which covers some civil liberties cases. The majority of the book relates to matters of criminal justice.
In short, taking account of the points above, this is an interesting and thought-provoking read.
Wake up Britain! - Rated
How did you people ever win not one but TWO World Wars?
This book is an excepional insight into exactly what is wrong with Britain today. It isn't just Tony Blair and his cronies, this decline has been happening insipidly since the enlightened liberals took charge in the 60's.
Hitchens takes the reader through the history of the many facets that have accounted for the fall of the Great British ideals, how we've all been suckered by well meaning do-gooders and social engineers. From Police to prisons, drugs to juries, he covers the lot in well referenced historical fact. You can relate to everything he writes about. It's staring us all in the face but we've been politically correctly coshed into accepting it.
Communism's not dead, it's been taking the slow boat from Russia and has arrived on our shores. Get out now before it's too late.
Would the last decent person leaving please turn out the lights!
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