Sharpe's Opinion

It Doesn’t Mean They’re Not After You

The ever-unpredictable Liberal Conspiracy have a rather excellent piece by Laurie Penny on paranoia, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the unique nature of the British character.

It is no accident that, as recent studies have shown, paranoia has become the national disorder of 21st-century Britain. It’s not an accident, not when we have been let down too many times by governments that just didn’t listen, governments that justified their indifference claiming that they had our best interests at heart, governments that then screwed us all over just as the previous regime had, only worse this time. Now, when a high-profile columnist writes they do what they want, these people, that call is repeated – not because it is astute, and certainly not because it’s responsible, but because it expresses something we feel in the meat gristle of our political hindbrain. Big Brother is watching us. Down with Big Brother.

I’ve written before about why I think 1984 is a very bad model for describing the Labour Government so I won’t go into it again. What Laurie Penny is getting at here, though, is not whether we are in a police state, but whether we feel like we’re in a police state.

It’s quite plausible that feeling like you’re being watched is as bad or worse than actually being watched. And that’s a striking thought; one which Parliament should consider.