Stories of my life: Dominic Raab

Which books are you reading at the moment? Over the Christmas break I got through The Hot Topic (David King and Gabrielle Walker) and An Appeal To Reason (Nigel Lawson), which make for an interesting overview of the contrasting views on global warming. I also read Alan Greenspan's fascinating memoirs. And I have just picked up Generation Debt (Anya Kamenetz), which is pretty sobering in the current economic climate. Which book would you recommend to everyone on Earth? Tolstoy's War And Peace - well worth the candle.

Which writer lived the life you most admire? I'm not sure who comes top, but Alexander Solzhenitsyn would be up there. He was formidably brave in blowing the whistle on the Soviet Gulag at great personal risk. When he died last August, I bought a copy of A Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, his stark account of the denigration of the Russian people, especially peasants, in labour camps. For me, he stands out despite the fact that - or perhaps because - he wasn't a liberal campaigner siding with the West in the cold war. He was just a straight talker who loved his country, with the moral clarity and courage to puncture communism's lingering pretence to legitimacy. With which literary character did you first identify? Fantastic Mr Fox was an early hero. Still is. Do you have any rituals or superstitions as a writer? I don't know whether they count as rituals, but I try to stick to the three Es: write early (in the morning), wear ear plugs and ignore emails. What was the first thing you wrote that you were proud of? As a student, I wrote the odd letter to The Economist to practise writing short essays. I was always quite chuffed - and surprised - if they were published. Who or what would you regard as your biggest political influence? Watching the Berlin Wall torn down on television when I was 15. It sparked an interest in foreign affairs. It was the culmination of such a long and historic struggle, and I was intrigued to see what we would find on the other side, once the Iron Curtain was peeled back. There was also a family interest, since my father fled Czechoslovakia as a refugee just before the second world war. What is the most urgent issue regarding the issue of liberty that needs addressed in this country? The problem, at least as I see it, is the compound effect of the accumulation of security powers, the expansion of the reach and control of the state, and the scope for abuse of power - both trivial and serious - that almost inevitably follows. The point I make in the book is that we are being conned, and are slowly ebbing the basic freedoms we as a country have struggled long and hard for. We need to rediscover our liberty reflex, so that the government knows that it cannot pull the wool over our eyes so easily. One reason I support a bill of rights is to bolster the protection of our most fundamental freedoms. If you ask me to pick a particular area of concern, it is the expanded interpretation given to surveillance legislation. The fact that council spies are now using powers - designed to deal with terrorism and serious crime - to follow paper boys (to check their permits), dogs being walked (to check where they foul) and even trail children home from school (to check they meet the catchment area) is deeply disturbing.