The Big Brother world of UK 2008

Many years ago, when the Soviet Union still loomed like a malignant mushroom over much of Eastern Europe, my wife and I went on holiday to the Black Sea coast of Rumania. Still in the grips of the Ceaucescu family, Rumania in those far off days was a model of Soviet idiocy. It had no unemployment because anybody caught walking the streets during the day was simply rounded up, thrown into a lorry and taken to the nearest road works or collective farm.
There was, officially, no poverty or hunger. This was due less to the triumph of socialism over starvation than the fact that all of the peasants who worked the collective farms also grew their own fruit and vegetables on private 1/2 acre plots. It was the bounty from these plots - which contrasted strongly with the arid inefficiency of the huge collectives - that not only fed them but also provided some of the small extras that made life bearable.
Locals sold plums, berries and vegetables at the side of the road, at small street markets and direct from their small holdings. If they could sell to a tourist, so much the better because they could exchange the hard currency they received for up to four times the official exchange rate and that would enable them to buy proper leather shoes rather than the plastic creations that were the regulation issue to the state shoe shops. With a bit of luck, the money might also stretch to a pair of tights for their wife or daughter.
There was no homelessness because, everywhere one looked, blocks of identical, slab-sided apartments were being thrown up. Apart from their monotonous ugliness - imagine Sixties Council architecture and then brutalise it even more - what was most striking about these flats was the fact that, at one end of each storey, there was one unit that was considerably larger than all of the others. I asked our Yugoslavian tour guide if these apartments were for larger families. He laughed at the idea that any such level of human consideration had gone into their construction.
The answer was much more prosaic - and infinitely more sinister.
Our guide explained that the larger flats were for the Government informers who were installed on each floor of each block. Their job - i.e. that of the whole family - was to keep tabs on their neighbours and report any infractions, such as complaints about food shortages, to the authorities so that the miscreants coud be dealt with in the appropriate way. Sanctions included being re-housed in inferior accommodation, the loss of job or travel privileges or, in severe cases, breaking the family up and sending its members to different re-education camps scattered about the Rumanian countryside.
At first I thought it was odd that the government seemed happy for everyone to know precisely who and where the spies were in each block of flats. It was only once I thought about George Orwell's 1984 that I appreciated the sophistication of the methods that the Rumanians - in common with other Socialist Republics - employed to terrorise their citizenry into meek compliance. It was the very visibility of the spies that lent real menace to the arrangement. The knowledge that whatever you did or even thought was being monitored and reported back. I can remember the shudder which greeted this dawning of understanding. It was Big Brother made flesh.
I experienced a similar feeling of revulsion the other day when I read about an ordinary family in Poole, surely the epitomy of Middle England, who had been systematically stalked, shadowed and reported on for three weeks because some busybody in the local council thought they migh be trying to pull a fast one when it came to schooling for one of their children.
I tried to picture some minor council clerk, who years ago would have settled quite happily for totting up how many childen were eligible for free milk, spending his days in some sub-James Bond role, shadowing the family as they moved through their sinister world: from school to Tesco, to work, back to school, to piano lessons after tea, back home and finally to pick up the oldest child from pony riding lessons.
How did this fantasist feel, writing things like, "female subject and three children enter dwelling,. Lights on"? How did his, presumably, intelligent manager keep a straight face when he signed his expenses? The whole scenario sounds so farcical that the temptation is to laugh it off as yet another example of institutionalised stupidity.
But, that would be a mistake. This is much more sinister than that. It is evidence of a fundamental shift in our society. Once we were served by Public Servants whose role, at a local level, was to maintain the roads, dispose of our rubbish and ensure that the streets were kept clean and reasonably well lit. It was never a part of their remit to spy on us, whether in person or via an array of cameras and other electronic gadgets.
Now, the relationship is much more that of the Governed and the Governors. In this new arrangement, it is the State, in all its forms, that regards itself as the font of all our needs. It is the State that decrees not only what those needs might be but who will or will not be entitled to them. And it is the State that demands to kknow everything about us the better - according to its propaganda machine - to protect us from the 0.00001% of the population that wants to blow the rest of us up; or, at the very least , steal our identities and rip off the benefits system.
In the early days of this administration, the Press ran regular stories about our being the most surveilled country in the world. Government ministers poo-pooed the idea while secrectly, I suspect, waiting for the backlash that was certain to come from an enraged and outraged populace demanding an end to the surveillance society. It didn't happen. The famous British hatred of Government interference turned out to be a myth. Cruelty TV shows such as Big Brother, helped to feed our newly-found appetite for nosey-parkering and, no doubt, encouraged the state to extend its own use of electronic surveillance whether through CCTV cameras on every street corner or Gatsos on every dual cariageway and motorway.
Now, the government - whether local or National - makes no attempt to deny that it wants to tag and track the population at large. The idea of a national ID Card hasn't gone away, simply been put on the back-burner until the army of beaurocrats and expensive consultants enlisted to run the project can come up with a system that might actually work. Just today, another little story crept into the broadsheets about the DOT inviting tenders for the development of a vehicle tracking system that would log every car journey made within the UK. The offical line is that, at this stage, it's just an exercise to find out what sort of tracking equipment is currently available. However, there was nothing vehement or even defensive about the disclaimer.
Just like the Rumanians all those years ago, this government has discovered the virtue of letting us all know that Big Brother really is watching us.

The Humming Chorus

Despite the title of this blog it has nothing to do with Puccini or opera - unless you regard the long-running saga of the Brown administration as a soap opera in itself. Personally, I am more inclined to regard it as a cross between a Farce and a Tragedy.

The Humming Chorus refers to those old stagers on the Labour Front Bench - Straw, Harman, Brown, Browne, darling et al - who really, really know the game is up but stubbornly refuse to accept the fact. Every time they get caught in a lie or face a difficult situation,they behave like children; hugging their knees and humming loudly to shut out an awkward parent or teacher. Yesterday, for instance, a group of fairly savvy Peers with not inconsiderable experience of running companies and countries, delivered its verdict on the net effect of immigration on the UK. They did so having studied the subject in some depth for the previous six months and taken evidence from various groups, officials and academics who specialise in immigration. Their considered view was that immigration has zero beneficial effect on the economy of this country; that, indeed, for many working people it has a negative impact because it is their jobs and small businesses that the flood of cheap labour threatens. And that, contrary to the government's claims that immigrants contribute £6 billion to the economy, once the cost of housing,educating and caring for them is factored in, we are probably paying them for the privilege of their being allowed to live and work here.
Guess what. No sooner had the report been published than up popped Liam Byrne on the radio to provide the government's answer. He did so in the now time-honoured fashion of any Labour minister caught out being economical with the truth - he put his hands over his ears, refused to answer any direct questions and then repeated the self-same £6 billion claim that their Lordships had so comprehensively demolished in their report.

Little Liam was followed by Hummer Number 2; that venerable bass baritone Jack Straw, of whom it has frequently been said that no man was more appositely named. Straw was there to put the government's position on law'n'order. A stream of callers made it clear that they were both frightened and bemused by the levels of violent crime in this country. Straw's response was - you guessed it - to clamp his hands firmly over his ears and start humming a string of statistics that proved the complete opposite. It didn't matter which part of the country the caller was from, Straw had the statistics to prove that their town, parish, borough, manor, demesne or county had never been so crime-free;its citizens able to walk the streets in perfect safety, leave their front doors unlocked and their children unguarded.

That this was utter bollocks was proven most effectively next day by pictures of Harriet Harman (or should that be Harperson?) walking the streets of Peckham, accompanied by a set of beautifully diverse police officers, but still sufficiently frit to be attired in a Kevlar stab vest. This act, surprisingly enough, did not have the reassuring effect her advisers had told her it would. In fact, many Peckham residents probaly wondered where they could obtain their own police escort and stab vest so that they could stroll just as insouciantly through their native borough. Of course, once the idiocy of this stunt had been explained to the dim-witted Ms Harman - presumably by another adviser with more than just pea-soup for brains - she hurriedly did the rounds of the radio talk shows to explain her actions. When it became obvious that she had made a prat of herself and no one was going to be persuaded otherwise, she did the hand over ear thing and started humming somewhere in the register between alto and tenor.
By the end of the day,there was such a hum coming from my radio that it had started to sound more like an old crystal set than a state-of-the-art DAB digital. Fortunately, the whine disappeared altogether once the last politician had gone about their business.

Sports journalism

I spent the whole of Saturday watching Rugby. First I watched Wales outplay Ireland at Croke Park. Then I watched as England and Scotland give Rugby Union an d the Six Nations a bad name at Murrayfield. Finally, I rounded off the day with a Premiership match between Gloucester and London Irish.
Almost six hours of continuous telly watching invariably makes me grumpy. But my grumpiness was stoked up considerably by the dross I had to watch - and listen to - on the BBC.
Wales versus Ireland was no classic. In fact, given the dire nature of the first half the Gaelic Sports Association might have felt vindicated in their decision to ban Rugby Union from Croke Park for all those years. Fortunately, the rugby improved considerably after half time. Unhappily, the same could not be said for the commentary of Nick Mullins. If ever there was a commentator who needed to be taken to one side, beaten soundly and then forced to listen to tapes of Bill McLaren commentating on Rugby or Richie Benaud on cricket, it is surely Mr Mullins.
His non-stop verbalising almost ruined the game. If he wasn't explaining, for the most part incorrectly, what caused a breakdown leading to a scrum, lineout or penalty, he was filling any tiny breaks in the soundtrack with factoids of unrivalled vacuuity. At simes, he sounded so much like the bloke that does the voice-over to the National Lottery draw that I fully expected him to tell us just how many times Ronan O'Gara had been selected by Guinivere this season.
From Dublin, we moved to Edinburgh where Brian Ashton produced a game plan of such mind-numbing stupidity for England that they managed to get beaten by the weakest team in the Six Nations. Admittedly, Jonnny Wilkinson had probably his worst game in an England shirt. But, the fact that Toby Flood followed his example and kicked any and all posession straight down the throats of the Scottish back three would seem to indicate that they were doing it to the coach's orders. That it wasn't the right strategy should have been patently obvious to everyone concerned after about fifteen minutes. Phil Vickery didn't react, but he at least has the excuse that he spends most of his time with his head shoved up other people's arses. Neither Wilkinson or Flood tried to vary the approach or try anything as outlandish as move it through the Backs' hands. Given that they are considered two of the more tactically-aware players in the team, this would seem to indicate that they were sticking very strictly to an agreed game-plan. So, that just leaves the coaches, all three of them, watching the game from the stands.
Hang on though. I only saw two coaches. Brian Ashton and the forwards coach, John Wells. And they weren't talking to each other. In fact, from the body language you could have, quite reasonably, assumed that they were supporting different sides. Where Mike Ford, the third member of the triumvirate was, is anybody's guess. Perhaps he was in the changing rooms polishing up his application to join Gatland and Edwards in Wales?
Whatever, the team and the game drifted. The Scots gratefully accepted the ball from England's wayward kicking and returned it with more accuracy, generally probing deep into England's territory in the process. When Ashton did decide something had to be done, it was as if he had been taking lessons from Gordon Brown. The changes were eye-catching in that he removed both his captain and chief play-maker at the same time but they achieved nothing of note. The fact that Charlie Hodgson - another player noted for his intelligence - kicked the ball, and England's last chance for meaningful posession, away with just thirty seconds remaining on the clock indicates that he was also sticking to the same dis-credited game plan.
Ashton has been bad for England. His approach is amateurish at a time when Rugby is becoming ever more professional. Had it been Wasps and not England involved, you can bet your boots that Cipriani would not have been caught out in the same way. Wasps, in the shape of Ian McGeechan and Shaun Edwards would have very clear policies in place; curfews even. As would have England during the Clive Woodward era. By contrast, Ashton leaves everything vague and wooly and then throws a hissy fit when Cipriani misinterprets or misjudges the boundaries.
After England had given the Jocks another twelve months' worth of celebration, I switched over to Sky Sports to watch Gloucester play London Irish at Kingsholm. What a revelation. The game was played in exactly the same conditions as the two Six Nations contests. The rain slashed down. The wind drove it almost horizontally and the pitch looked as if a flock of native porkers had been rooting around on it. No matter. Passes were made and caught. Kickers took account of the conditions and restricted themselves to clever little grubbers and chip kicks into open spaces. James Simpson Daniel used the dodgy conditions underfoot to slice throught the London Irish centres. The conditions became part of both team's experimentation. They were not used as an excuse for arid conservatism and lack of ambition. In fact, the game was a refreshing antidote to the turgid stuff that had been served up in the name of International rugby ealier in the day.
And, to cap everything else, the commentary by Will Greenwood and someone whose name I have, shamefully, forgotten, was sharp, incisive without being intrusive and thankfully devoid of Nick Mullins and his statistically fixated colleagues at BBC Sport.