'Mother, should I trust the government?'

When I saw Pink Floyd's The Wall live about a squillion years ago, that line from Mother earned a resounding 'noooooo' from the audience - quite justifiably, given that it was in the early stages of the benighted Thatcher era. Whatever else stank about that period of British history, though, information technology, as the phrase is understood today, had virtually no impact on the everyday life of an average person - no internet, no mobile phones, no toasters controlled by microchips. How different things are now, 35 years on, so that when the current Home Secretary says, as she did today, that 'we must widen surveillance powers', anyone with two brain cells to rub together ought to be extremely concerned. Especially if you actually read what's proposed. The claim will be made, of course, that it's only to combat crime and terrorism, but when our elective dictatorship gets to define what is a 'crime' and who is a 'terrorist', as much on grounds of political expediency as any realistic threat to 'society', I can't help but believe the end of 'private life' and 'free expression' are coming measurably closer.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B