Nick Clegg has publicly deplored the orders, which can use secret evidence to place people under house arrest, force them to move home and decree whom they may see. Punishing suspects over unspecified allegations without giving them the chance to defend themselves has appalled MPs of all parties. None has been more outspoken on this "fundamental" breach of liberties than Mr Clegg.  Meanwhile Jonathan Evans, the head of M15, deemed the control-order regime vital to guaranteeing public safety. Theresa May is said to have swung, as is the way of home secretaries, behind the security services. This impasse will shortly be tested by the six-part national security review, which is being drafted by a Home Office team for publication next month.  Its overseer, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, the former Director of Public Prosecutions and a Lib Dem peer, once described control orders as "a hopeless device in a modern democracy" and "a small gasp of defeat". Alas for Mrs May, his role is not, contrary to her recent assertion, merely that of a procedural referee. He must also declare that the conclusions are just and balanced.  He will deliver his verdict in a command paper to be put before Parliament at the same time as the review is published. Should the latter recommend that control orders be retained, Labour sources think it likely, if not certain, that the highly respected Lord Macdonald will produce a devastating minority report.  Mr Cameron, no diehard fan of control orders, is trying to pre-empt a potential collision before the next meeting of the National Security Council, which he chairs. One newspaper report has suggested that MI5 may simultaneously be softening its line. Whether or not that is true, and many are sceptical, attempts are certainly being made to "rebadge" the orders and dress them up in more liberal packaging and with a nicer name.  It seems unlikely that such a ploy will disarm opponents – Lord Macdonald included – who claim that the measures are not only illiberal but also ineffective. No evidence, critics argue, can be gathered against a suspect deprived of contact with the outside world. Much better to mount surveillance operations and impose a travel ban on the handful of individuals thought to pose a clear menace to the state, while allowing the intercept evidence that should enable more suspects to be brought to trial.  Informed sources say that, despite growing protest, the odds are still 60/40 in favour of control orders being retained. Revolting students and the mauling by the Lords to plans for constitutional reform and the AV referendum will seem mere pinpricks in comparison to the humiliation coming Mr Clegg's way if he backs down on the principle of liberty, on which the Coalition is founded.  The fiscal shockwaves used to justify his U-turn on tuition fees would not wash, and no lame Euroduck, such as Greece, could be cited to explain any change of heart. Other common law countries protect their citizens without draconian means. Aides to George W Bush, the defender of water-boarding, are astonished that the UK passed a counter-terror measure that would have appalled US legislators.  If ever the Labour Party had an open goal, this is it. The hardly airy-fairy figure of Tony McNulty is not alone in confessing that Labour got it wrong on terror. In his conference speech, Ed Miliband declared that "British liberties were hard-fought and hard-won over hundreds of years. We should always take the greatest care in protecting them."  This pledge sits oddly with Labour's current stance of wait-and-see. Those in the Coalition anxious to discern the Opposition's policy may be reassured to know that there isn't one: the shadow cabinet has yet to debate the party line. The shadow home secretary, Ed Balls, is intent on saying nothing until the review is published. While he is speaking to key players on both sides of the argument, he has adopted a tougher line than Mr Miliband's. On security, Mr Balls's friends describe him as "a realist".  In the leadership campaign, he distanced himself from Gordon Brown's doomed and wrong-headed attempt to increase the detention limit for terror suspects to 42 days. Mr Balls is not, however, certain or even likely to subscribe to the view that the current 28 days should be cut to a non-negotiable 14. Instead, he may back the compromise said to be favoured by Mrs May, under which suspects can be held for a further 14 days under highly restrictive bail conditions. It remains to be seen whether Lord Macdonald, or indeed Mr Miliband, share this view.  If a rift in thinking exists between Eds M and B, the leader should not defer. Labour, whose shameful record on justice drove voters into the arms of the Lib Dems, needs to prove that it has abandoned the statist impulse of over-subservience to the security services.  Fear and economic blight are enemies of freedom. Despite the need to reform legal aid and Ken Clarke's correct insistence that poorer people continue to get funding to fight serious cases, yesterday's Green Paper inevitably shrinks citizens' access to the law. On terror, real and serious threats blind too many politicians to Thomas Paine's warning that "he who would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from opposition".  It is easy for some in Labour to think control orders a side issue, under which not very many (currently nine) people are held in conditions that make Belmarsh look like Pontin's. Such misconceptions ignore the threat to British liberty. As Roger Smith of Justice, the law reform and human rights organisation, says: "If control orders stay this time, then we've got them permanently."  The presumption of innocence, due process, open justice and the rule of law are not giveaways in a political tombola, but the four pillars of this democracy and any other worth the name. Aung San Suu Kyi's walk to her ring-fenced freedom should remind the citizens of more benign regimes how dearly freedoms are bought and how cheaply sold. Control orders threaten all our liberties. Labour should condemn them now.
The retention of control orders poses a lasting threat to justice and civil    liberties, says Mary Riddell.