Jon Bright (London, OK): As Anthony wrote yesterday, Polly Toynbee has come out criticising the Henry Porters and No2IDs (and, to an extent, OurKingdoms) of this world. Worrying about CCTV and creeping restrictions of liberty are just "fashionable" ways of the middle classes pretending to be victims. The state isn't the enemy.
What will things look like in the world of the future, watched over by our benevolent, all powerful state? Chris Schuler at Open House digs up this interesting story:
If you’re planning to stop off for a few pints on the way home from work tonight, watch out for a beady-eyed bloke nursing a Diet Coke in the corner. Every Friday and Saturday this month, plain-clothed police will be posing as drinkers in the nation’s pubs, waiting to slap an £80 fine on anyone who appears to be drunk. The scheme, to which the Home Office Minister, Vernon Coaker, has allocated £180,000, is intended to clamp down on drink-related violence in the run-up to Christmas...
...It is a relatively trivial example, I know, of this government’s creeping tendency to blur the distinction between the law-abiding and the criminal by treating all of us as suspects; and its desire to want to regulate private behaviour that should be at the discretion of the individual. Which raises an interesting question: if you get fined for being three sheets to the wind, will you have to give a DNA swab and find yourself on the national database?
