One of Churchill’s mistakes in the 1945 election campaign was to argue that no socialist system could be established in Britain without a form of political police, a British Gestapo. He should never have used the g-word: it struck the electorate as excessive. But reading the Sunday Times this morning, I could see what the old man was getting at.
The enemy Britain was fighting was not just Germany, but the way of life that National Socialism in Germany represented. Britain had stood apart from the big government sweeping first Russia, then Italy then Germany. The British way of life was different: respect for liberty and freedom. The nightmares about this intrusive state were taken to one extreme by Orwell later, in 1984. Churchill was trying to make this point, but did so too crudely. For all its faults, there is a difference between big government and a Gestapo.
Anyway, further to the Sunday Times story, the Tories have drawn attention to the details Labour-run Rotherham Council released after an FoI request saying just how council tax-related surveillance was used. Its response includes:-
“Surveillance to take place in order to establish if vehicle registered to partner at address on two or more occasions… to substantiate the allegation of living together.
Surveillance to take place to establish if alleged partner leaves the property each morning. To establish if customer’s partner is living at the property.
Drive past surveillance at property each morning and evening to see if vehicle is outside the property. Evidence to substantiate claim that customer may have landlord living with her.
To establish if partner living is property. To establish if customer has undeclared partner living at property.
Surveillance to take place to establish how often the customer’s partner’s vehicle is part at the property over a two week period. To establish if customer’s partner is living at the property.
To establish if partner living at property and working. To establish if partner living at property as husband and wife.”
As Eric Pickles says, “Day by day under Labour, the country is sleepwalking into a surveillance state, where spying on citizens has become the norm. Laws which were originally intended to tackle the most serious crimes and safeguard the public are now being deployed routinely and without hesitation.”
Churchill was in 1945 trying too early to say that a big state means a spying state.
If they take the Sunday Times in heaven, the Great Man will be able to think to himself “I told you so”.
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