COMMENT Johor Baru MP and chairperson of the BN Backbenchers Council Shahrir Samad was indignant.

Handed a memorandum aimed at halting the country's drift to dictatorship, Umno's vanishing remnant of liberalism reacted angrily to the suggestion he did not care for the people if he did not heed the memo's purpose.

Parliament was debating the National Security Council Bill 2015, a piece of legislation whose sweeping provisions imply that the country is faced with a clear and present danger to its security.

All the danger the memo's authors and their legion of supporters perceive that the country is facing is connected to the still unexplained donation of RM2.6 billion to Umno that wound up in Prime Minister Najib Razak's personal bank accounts...