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The Road to Southend Pier

A criminal waste

Ross Clark
Harriman House, 168pp, £9.99,

Graham Stewart

Wednesday, 28th November 2007

Graham Stewart

With an estimated one surveillance camera in Britain for every 14 Britons, reality television has never been more invasive. The reason Big Brother has been allowed to watch its citizens so comprehensively in this way rests with the claim that CCTV is a protection rather than an intrusion. Only the guilty should fear the all-seeing eye. Those with nothing to hide have nothing to worry about. It is tempting to imagine this is what Calvin’s Geneva might have been like if only the technology had been the equal of the theology.

Except, of course, the inner cities of 21st- century Britain are patently not where the Godly Elect hang out on a Saturday night. The creation of this surveillance society shows scant sign of making us conform to the orderly sobriety of the Swiss. Indeed, the extent to which we have come to accept constant monitoring may be part of the reason it has so little effect on our behaviour.

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