The Government would like to apologise but 1984 is running a little late.

In the UK, we now live in the most comprehensively surveilled society ever. It is something even George Orwell didn't fully foresee. In his book, The Road To Southend Pier, Ross Clark sets himself the challenge to travel from his home in East Anglia to the end of the eponymous pier, avoiding, if possible, the all-seeing cameras which now pervade our lives; a journey of about 50 miles.

He fails, quite comprehensively. And he fails because it is now almost impossible to go about out daily lives, our innocent daily lives, with being caught on CCTV many times.

Of course, we are told that crime is being prevented, and criminals are being caught as a result of this increased intrusion into our private lives. Whenever questions are raised as to the efficacy of the burgoning CCTV culture, the grainy, low quality footage of Jamie Bulger's kidnap is rolled out and paraded as a trophy to assure us all. But unfortunately, it is not reassuring. If the only piece of evidence of the effectiveness of increased CCTV is video footage from February 1993, then we are in deep trouble.

The very fact the whole TV programs are now being produced, for our delight and delectation, from CCTV footage, is proof, surely, that CCTV is not reducing crime. Rather it has made thugs, vandals, and the anti-social into TV stars, albeit anonymous ones because they are rarely caught.

So, what then is the point of all this expensive hi-tech equipment? Well, it is proving its worth, but not in catching thugs and criminals, but in reaping large financial rewards for local councils who are using it to catch motorists parking illegally. Yes, you will be pleased to know that while many of our city centres have become virtual no-go zones at certain times, the forces of law and order and catching errant car parkers. It makes it all worth while! Doesn't it? Well, no it doesn't.

Why doesn't it? As a society we are being routinely spied upon by our government, and its various agencies. Those who were traditionally there to protect us, are now those who are watching our every move, not for our good, but because we are all now regarded as potential criminals, and worse, as potential and possible terrorists.

Section 44 of the Anti-Terrorism Act is now, routinely and on a daily basis being evoked against the innocent citizens of the UK for all manner of minor things. For instance, point a camera at a building in London, and there is a very good chance that you will be approached by the forces of law and order and challenged under Section 44. This is happening regularly. Watch this video from the BBC and wonder what is happening to this country. You will note in the video that the Police Officer states that they had stopped lots of people.

So, next time you are snapping a few photos for the family album, be aware that your government, and the forces of law and order, will now be regarding you as a possible terrorist.

The final irony in all this is that anyone planning a terrorist attack has no need to wander the streets with a camera. They have only to go online and all the major cities can be viewed in excellent detail, with photo-quality images and in some cases, stunning 3D, on the internet.

Expect the government to announce very soon that, because anyone using the Internet could be a potential terrorist, it will be monitoring Internet usage on a daily basis.

Oh, wait a minute, they already do that.

Do We Live In A Christian Country?

Do We Live In A Christian Country?

I have a confession to make: along with a significant number of others, I have for a number of years accepted a premise. That premise is this: that because we have become an increasingly secular society, that because only a minority of our citizens regularly attend a place of Christian worship and that because a significant number of those people who have come to live in this country share non-Christian belief systems, we have become a non-Christian Country.

It is understandable that we have fallen into this premise.

Since the mid-1960s, when there were huge cultural shifts in our nation, and the established church system in the UK began loosing its way, we have become, as a nation, far more secularly orientated.

Also, over the last 50 years, large numbers of people have come to live in the UK who do not have a Christian belief, but have beliefs that are totally non-Christian. These communities have grown not only in number, but in political and social power, to the point where our traditional lifestyle is now lived in the context of the opinions of these other beliefs.

So it is understandable that we have accepted the premise. It is, however, a false premise. It is a false premise because who we are as a country is not based solely on how many people go to church regularly, not on how many citizens have no belief, not on how many people have different beliefs.

Our whole way of life in the UK; our laws, our justice system, our democratic style of Government, our ethical beliefs, are based on traditional Judeo-Christian belief and have been for hundreds of years. This may not be a country where enormous amounts of people still attend church regularly, but we are a Christian based country.

What, therefore, are the implications of this?

In a nutshell, those of us who do share a Christian belief should not, any longer, accept that we now live in a non-Christian country. We should not accept that, increasingly, our society will devolve into a totally secular society, nor that we are going to evolve into a society where Christian belief becomes marginalized beyond other beliefs simply because they shout louder or because they instil fear of opposition into their fellow citizens via threats of orchestrated violence.

Rather, we should remind ourselves what the Christian mission truly is: to go into all the world and make disciples, to live our lives as Christ wants us to live them, and that sometimes that may involve turning over metaphorical tables in metaphorical temples and driving the metaphorical money-changers away.

How those metaphors work out in actuality has yet to be seen, but if we surrender the Christian legacy of this country too easily, we, or our children, or their children, may regret this, deeply.

My Life Is Your Responsibility

Let me ask you a simple (possibly hypothetical) question. If you go out drinking one evening, and you drink so much that you have difficulty walking, and in you attempts to stagger home you trip up the roadside kerb, fall over, and injure yourself. Is your first thought to sue the council? If you answer, 'yes', then you are like a significant number of people in today's society who believe that their actions, and the repercussions of those actions, are not their own, but someone else's responsibility.

Another question. You are a 15 year old girl. You go out one evening, drink alcohol, get a bit merry, have casual sex, get pregnant and have a baby. Is your first thought going to be: what council house would I like and, what office do I go to for benefits? If you think this is an acceptable line of thought, then you may well be someone who has difficulty accepting responsibility for your own actions.

Personal responsibility is the acceptance that my actions, and the consequences of my actions, are my responsibility. This simple premise forms the very bedrock of our justice system, and as such is a cornerstone of our society.

However, over the last 30-40 years a serious faultline has opened up under this crucial foundation. This faultline has been created through a number of socially seismic disturbances. The removal of discipline in the raising of children is one. The creation of the monster known as the 'Nanny State' is another.

Let's look at the former for a moment. It is a cliché to say this, but 30 years a go, if a policeman told you off for riding your bike on the pavement, and you took no notice, you may well have got a clip round the ear. If you were rude or disruptive at school, you might get the slipper (this writer got several slipperings during his secondary years).

In other words, there were repercussions for bad behaviour. In our 21st century society, discipline has been removed, and with it the vital learning experience that if I do something wrong, there will be repercussions, and sometimes, unpleasant and possibly painfully so. Please don't think that the threat of exclusion is a punishment. It is not, it is a gift. Neither are ASBOs punishments. They are rather badges of honour among a certain social class.

Let's look at the 'Nanny State' for a moment. The 'Nanny State' really came into being on the 5th July 1948, with the creation of the NHS (National Health System). It is not unreasonable to say it was possibly one of the most momentous social changes for the population of the UK. For the first time UK citizens could look to the State for provision of vital health care regardless of their social or economic standing, and let's not deny that this was a very good thing.

But it fundamentally shifted, within society, the fulcrum of responsibility. No longer was the individual responsible for their health care - if they had the means to pay for it - but now the responsibility fell to the state. Of course, every working adult contributed to the NHS in the form of National Insurance and general taxes, but nonetheless, we now looked to the state to look after us.

Nationalisation (euphemistically referred to as, Public Ownership') of industry was a central policy of the Labour government in 1945 and very quickly became more and more of a creeping menace which saw the nationalisation of the Bank of England, and the coal, aviation, telecommunications, Transport, electricity, gas, iron and steel industries, and has continued through to the part-nationalisation, in 2008, of the Royal Bank of Scotland and the newly merged HBOS-Lloyds TSB.

What this has meant is the de-empowering of the individual in favour of an all encompassing enrolment of the state as protector, benefactor..... Nanny.

Thus has our individuality, as citizens of a democratic country, become eroded, and left behind the overwhelming misconception, in the minds of many people, that it doesn't matter what I do, the state (or someone else) will 'pick up the tab'.

So now, children are growing up in a social climate which tells them either explicitly or implicitly, that it doesn't matter what they do, how they behave, who they hurt, who they disrespect, who they rob (and even, increasingly, who they kill) that it's not their responsibility and there will be little, if any, punishment or repercussions.

That is totally unacceptable and is leading us to complete social breakdown.

ID Cards And The Database State

There is a prevailing thought amongst some people that there is nothing wrong with the idea of ID cards for all, and the inevitable 'database state' that goes with it. The argument usually runs along the lines of, 'if you done nothing wrong there's nothing to worry about.' This does sound seductively logical. After all, that argument can also be used concerning the burgeoning surveillance society, and the Government's plans to monitor all (repeat, all) of our Internet traffic including emails, and snoop on all out web surfing.

Of course, we have every faith in our Government don't we, and know that they have our best interests at heart? We know this because that is what they tell us.

Pause for a moment to think of Germany in the 1930s. No-one imagined then, the horrors that were to be unleashed by the Nazis upon their own population. But horror did descend upon them, and none more horrific than the 'ID' that Jewish people were made to carry; the yellow stars marked, 'Jude', and the highly involved administration of the suppression that went with it. As we know, this led to one of the greatest human tragedies in history.

Now, imagine that in the not to distant future, our own Governmental system were to suffer a similar radical change for reasons, at present, hidden from us.

Suddenly, because we are all compelled to carry ID cards, our movements are severely restricted; where we are allowed to travel is limited, who we associate with is proscribed.

If you think that this is far-fetched, it isn't. There are already sufficient laws on the statute books to usher in such a regime. If you want to know what this might be like, try to get hold of the BBC series, 'The Last Enemy' on DVD, and then remember how the recent G20 demonstration was Policed. We may not be as far from a Police State as we would perhaps like to think we are.

On 21st October 2009, it was reported that an extra £200,000,000, every year, will be used to monitor all internet activity of UK citizens. This is on top of the current annual expenditure of £11,000,000 used to monitor emails and telephone communications.

Of course this is a huge subject, and you could do worse than go to NO2ID's own, stop the database state, website. You can subscribe to their newsletter on the website as well.