Tony Blair touched Labour's internationalist socialist heart last Tuesday. He knows only too well his party's instinctive pacifist tendency. And he braced the comrades for the imminent military strike against international terrorism with the promise of "a fight for freedom" and "a fight for justice too" in a newly-empowered global community.
But where stands personal liberty in the schematic for the Prime Minister's new world order? Libertarian alarm bells here would have been ringing almost as the first images of the American atrocities flashed around the world.
The Blair government's authoritarian instincts are widely suspected. No matter that last year's Terrorism Act gave ministers the most effective and wide-ranging anti-terrorist powers imaginable. The events of September 11th would surely produce clamour for more.
So it proved. Within days Home Secretary David Blunkett was anticipating "tensions" between the Human Rights Act and the protections he would now seek, and floating the possibility of compulsory identity cards. He stressed there would be no question of police demanding production of such cards, which should be seen rather in the context of his ongoing debate about citizenship and "entitlements".
However former Home Office minister, Mike O'Brien, warned their introduction would mark "a victory for terrorism" and confirmed ministers had previously dismissed the idea as of no use to the war against terror. At an estimated cost of £1 billion, former Health Secretary, Frank Dobson, suggested the money could be put to more effective use. And prominent Tories and Liberal Democrats, leaders of the Muslim community, the national black police officers association, and trade union leader Bill Morris weighed-in behind a Charter 88/Liberty cross-party campaign, which by this week had the government in retreat.
On Labour's conference fringe, Lord Rooker - believed to be one of the ministers most enthusiastic about ID cards - said there was no consultation paper and no plan.
Instantly translated for the evening news, the idea was at least on the back-burner. Civil libertarians were quick to claim victory.
"There is no doubt this was a government initiative and we have won," John Wadham of the human rights group, Liberty, told The Irish Times: "The government has conceded the card would be no use against terrorism. That's the campaign we have won."
The qualification is important. While not part of his immediate response to the Washington and New York attacks, Mr Blunkett made it clear on Wednesday that he has not decided against identity cards, and that consideration of the issue is ongoing.
In the meantime Mr Blunkett's officials are preparing two emergency bills for presentation to MPs over the next four to six weeks. His declared commitments so far are to: oblige financial institutions to report transactions known or suspected to be involved with terrorist activities; give law enforcement agencies full access to passenger and freight information which air and sea carriers will be obliged to retain.
He also wishes to extend existing race laws to include incitement to religious hatred, and amend the Immigration and Asylum Act to ensure persons convicted or suspected of terrorist involvement can not apply for asylum in the UK.
In addition, legislation will be required to introduce the new European-wide arrest warrant, and implement the proposed "fast track" extradition procedures already in the EU pipeline before September 11th, as part of the establishment of a common legal area in Europe.
Mr Blunkett, like Mr Blair, is extremely sensitive to the charge - by the Egyptians, Saudis, French, Israelis and others over the years - that the UK is a "safe haven" for international terrorists. And the government can count on popular support for moves to stop terrorist suspects stringing-out extradition proceedings for as many as seven years.
However Stephen Jakobi, founder and director of Fair Trials Abroad, warns that Europe's new laws - coupled with the proposed power to detain asylum seekers suspected of terrorist involvement and deport them without right of appeal - could see thousands of Britons face arbitrary arrest and "disappear for long periods of time because it is easier to issue a warrant than bother to make sure you have decent evidence."
John Wadham says Liberty has "no objection" to speeding-up the extradition process, providing standards are maintained. However essential to that is the provision for judicial review. And it is Mr Blunkett's outspoken attack on judicial review which has again set the alarm bells ringing. Venting his frustration with the judicial process in terms which prompted one newspaper to wonder whether the Home Secretary actually believed in the rule of law, Mr Blunkett told the Labour conference on Wednesday: "In seeking justice - not just the justice for a small few who use our democracy to hide in, but the justice that comes in ensuring protection for all - we need to remember that it is justice we seek, not just the primacy of jurisprudence."