I thought of having two titles for this particular entry in my blog. The first is "Them and Us?" and secondly "The most spied on people in the world?" The first title I thought of because it is true. This is the age of 1984. Everything Orwell though of for that novel is becoming true. We are becoming the most spied on people in the world. I will give an example. I have a friend who lives in town whom I visit to give welfare rights. This entails visiting during the day. If I visit first thing in the morning, the wardens in the block will wait until I come out from the lift and will keep on saying "Hello?" "How are you?" I will be pursued like this whether I want to speak or not. Generally I will say "Hmmm...." and pass on without making any sort of comment. One wonders whether thet write it in a book which then goes to Council headquarters, entitled "People who have visited these prenises". Also, there is a closed circuit television camera in the lift. I dont quite know what kind of criminal offences this particular council think will be committed up and down between the floors.
There have also been tales of other councils employing private detectives to see what people are up to in various flats, as part of the process of evicting them from their properties. Thats all very well if people are committing anti-social behaviour but my point is that most ordinary people are also be spied on and "shaken down". And it does not matter how old they are; this process seems to be virtually universal in this country. We are becoming extremely paranoid. Is it not enough that pensioners have mostly given their whole lives to the service of the United Kingdom without being spied on. We have paid our taxes, our VAT, our National Insurance Contributions; most of us have clean criminal records all our lives and have done nothing wrong. So I would say, as a matter of politeness to these local authorities, stop spying on us and stop getting your staff to spy on us.
Them and us - whilst all of this is going on, the most corrupt government and House of Commons carries on virtually unscathed from the expenses scandal and the leading light in the affair, speaker Michael Martin has been given a Peerage. Whereas the rest of us would have been locked up. One law for them and one for us. The major reason why they dont look at their own glasshouse is because they are too busy deferring the madness and badness on to us. I think they should all be looking in their own direction and if at all possible, booking in for mental health assessments very quickly.
