David Blunkett: Politicians living in fairyland forget their top priority must be to protect the people

But in the long term, nothing can hide the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister's desire to remove every vestige of preventive security from the population as a whole is a recipe for disaster.

From Nick Clegg's obsession with removing CCTV to the new Government's pulling back on the retention of DNA samples, we can see a touching belief that society is not the one in which people actually have to live their lives and look after their well-being.

Rather, we are resident in some sort of fairyland in which, if only we are really nice to those who are intent on criminal activity – or even worse – they will be nice to us.

This is astonishing behaviour on the part of the Conservative Party which, after all, was once known as the "law and order" party. Goodness knows how long those who used to write to me when I was Home Secretary, demanding even tougher action, are going to put up with this lot.

Yet, here we are. A Conservative Party whose libertarian wing is in the ascendancy; and a Liberal Democrat coalition partner which sees bogeymen round every corner – not, that is, in the neighbourhood or housing estate, but rather from the "Big Brother state".

Part of the difficulty – and I plead guilty over the years to having dabbled with this – is believing one's own rhetoric! The hyperbole, the adjectival experimentation, of Nick Clegg and some of his colleagues has carried the Lib Dems' new coalition partners with them.

Take the issue of identity cards. Whether you like the idea of a card or not, there is no doubt that second generation biometrics are here to stay.

The rest of the world is debating how best to develop these in terms of travel arrangements – and, as anyone visiting the United States knows, you have to give your fingerprints if you want to enter the country. Presumably, those who are now intent not simply on doing away with "the card", but also with the new biometric passports, will be happy to present in the United States what they are afraid to deliver back home.

Here is the underlying nonsense. The one big change from traditional passports to biometrics is the authentication of the individual and the verification of their specific identity.

We have a passport register already, in an attempt to avoid people fraudulently duplicating other people's identities. But as Frederick Forsyth brilliantly outlined in The Day of the Jackal, there is no secure check under the present passport arrangements. New biometrics provide as much certainty as possible and allow a clean register to avoid fraud and duplication.

The cost is not borne by the public purse, but by the purchaser of the passport. Which is why that other myth has suddenly been revealed

for what it was – fraudulent – in that the 2.5bn that was, we were told, to be saved from the public purse and spent on thousands of police officers, turns out to be 86m over four years.

Some of us did try to spell out the truth; but we live at a moment of maximum influence by those who see the erosion of civil liberties everywhere.

Despite the promises from both of the coalition parties about increasing police numbers, we are faced with a cut of almost 3m to South Yorkshire Police's budget in 2010-11 – and a cut of 5m to that for West Yorkshire Police.

Couple these cuts (which, let's remember, must be made this financial year) with the notion of police commissioners politicising the independence of Chief Constables and the touching belief that we can all "have a go" in tackling wrongdoers – and the "Big Society" starts to look like a return to the do-it-yourself Wild West of the past.

I hope that I am wrong. I do sincerely wish that common sense will prevail – and that the new coalition, perhaps with the influence of Ken Clarke, will recall what the basic tenet of any government really

is: to protect its people.

David Blunkett is the Labour MP for Sheffield Brightside. He was Home Secretary from 2001-05.