Are you saying the ID card system promoted by wacky Jacqui is a good thing? If you are then I think you should re-evaluate that – in all seriousness.

The whole thing is flawed from top to bottom.

The government, this one, follows on from Thatcher in her over-bearing, get in the public’s face, and their bedroom, control all they are doing and cripple them as much as possible with idiotic, un-thought out legislation.

This “Labour” government has lied to the British people for an age! Why should anyone believe them at all?

We are more than the queue-forming, forelock-tugging, tea-sipping, biscuit-eating, pet-shop-boy-listening people of popular mythology. We are, at the root and bone, a nation of king-killers.

Have you passed that note on to Mr Brown?

I’ve had similar feelings revisiting The Prisoner as a tribute to the late Patrick McGoohan (and Network’s remastering is pretty awesome, by the way): there’s a tradition of distrust of authority which crosses the boundaries of ‘Left’ and ‘Right’, and which chimes with the British character.

We don’t do space opera half as well as we do dystopia.

Laurie,

That is a great post so it is.

Sadly, I have less conviction that the state is as vulnerable now as it was then.

For instance, Thatchers’ head still being attached to her body. It suggests that there is little or nothing that people are willing to get het up about nowadays. I refer, of course, to the miners strike. Where state power, via the Police, trumped people power.

And most of us didn’t care.

@Will Rhodes – I think the ID card system could be a good or a bad idea, depending on how it is used. I certainly don’t see it as a useful siphon of public money.

@Shatterface – sort of. The British are not explecitly anti-authoritarian – they just have the (right)idea that authority is only a good thing when they have a stake in it. This goes all the way back to the Restoration, when we made it clear to the incoming King that we owned him and could cut his damn head of too if we wanted to. The British people are capable of letting some incredible cruelties happen if they feel that they, personally, have sanctioned them through the proper channels. The problem with Iraq is that we very expressly did not sanction any of it, and nor did our parliament, except under duress. No, I wouldn’t say that the British absolutely distrust authority – on the contrary, we adore our archaic systems of command and control -but I think we do have a strong urge to keep it at arm’s length, and keep it working for us.

Of course, that ‘us’ and ‘we’ depends entirely on who we feel is actually being worked for, here, and that’s where issues of racial, class and gender inheritance come into play when we analyse our ownership of the state.

@ Laurie

I can certainly see where siphoning 25 billion quid into the ether is a waste of cash – if you can’t then I cannot argue with you.

If you have the time, as I know you will probably be busy, let me know what good they would be – you could add to that all the database crap that this shower of shite have come up with as well.

If this, or any other government (British especially) can lock down and not lose one single name, address, DoB, plus all other private information for the next 25 years – I think I could be persuaded that there may be a change of keeping things safe.

If this, or any other government (British especially) can lock down and not lose one single name, address, DoB, plus all other private information for the next 25 years

But why do they need this information anyway? They’ve admitted it won’t stop terrorism and I can’t see it having any effect on limiting immigration, not that I think this government should be doing that anyway. Given their shoddy record on data protection (I have all the relevant links if you want me to post them here), all I can see is a huge potential for data theft and fraud. I can see no reason for ID cards other than state and media paranoia, which feeds into public paranoia.

If the British character (whatever that is… are you nationalist?) exists, what evidence is there that it’s anti-authoritarian, that we’re any more a nation of “king killers” than anyone else?

Because, and forgive me for saying, this Government piles on the authoritarianism because they know that the tougher they look, the more ‘in control’ they appear, the more the swing voters are impressed, reassured and feel cared for, and so the accumulation of Government power is a virtuous circle.

They’re goaded on by us: The Government must do X! The Government must stop Y! This shouldn’t be allowed! That should be banned!

Orwell couldn’t possibly predict that we would willingly vote for – and encourage – Big Brother, that our legacy of civil liberties would be swept away with threats of horrific violent deaths at the hands terrorists and knife wielding psychopaths, and taunts of, “soft on crime! soft on terror!” thrown at all who oppose.

We wanted tough? We got tough. Welcome to Tough Government.

Of course the individual Government can – and will – be thrown out when it becomes clear they’re incapable of living up to the responsibilities they’ve taken upon themselves, that they cannot deliver what they have promised. Will people want a less authoritarian Government? I doubt it. They’ll just want a version of Labour that’s competent, that can deliver. Polling shows that a lot of Tory and Lib Dem voters would be willing to switch back to Labour if the economy shows signs of recovery in time.

Sheesh.

“Orwell couldn’t possibly predict that we would willingly vote for – and encourage – Big Brother, that our legacy of civil liberties would be swept away with threats of horrific violent deaths at the hands terrorists and knife wielding psychopaths, and taunts of, “soft on crime! soft on terror!” thrown at all who oppose.”

Arguably thats almost exactly what he predicted, Charlotte: a Government basing its power on the paranoia of the population. In 1984 the paranoia is produced through constant surveillance and the idea of there being an unending war with a very hazily defined enemy. Isn’t that pretty much the situation we have now with the “war on terror”? Like Winston Smith at the end of the book, we’ve learnt to love Big Brother.

I think you’ve missed the basic point Orwell was making in 1984, Laurie. Winston Smith was virtually alone in his opposition to the system. Almost everyone else accepted it and got on with their lives. That is why he was so prophetic.

I won’t tarry over your reading of 17th century English history – suffice it to say that if Charles I had offered to abdicate in favour of his son in say 1648 (when he was a prisoner) he would have saved both his head and the monarchy.

I’m also not sure it’s right to say that most countries have an ID card system such as is being proposed/implemented here. Many have ID cards, yes, but many of them are not backed by a vast database recording all sorts of bits of information about their citizens. They’re not part of the sinister sounding “transformational government” agenda.

This is a mantra the bureaucracy has been pushing for decades – ever since the WWI identity register was disbanded. Michael Howard agreed to it in 1994 and it is only their electoral rout that kept it from happening back then.

However what is sinister and worrying about this government is its attitude to technology – that the great liberating phenomenon that is the internet for example makes it possible to track and spy on vastly more numbers of people than old analogue communications systems and so they should. If they were proposing opening all our snail mail before it got to us we’d be horrified, but simply because it’s digital communications and it is possible to snoop on it surreptitiously we seem willing to let them on all sorts of excuses.

“We are more than the queue-forming, forelock-tugging, tea-sipping, biscuit-eating, pet-shop-boy-listening people of popular mythology. We are, at the root and bone, a nation of king-killers. I think they’d better watch out”.

Great line(s)!!

Would that we *were* all “pet-shop-boy-listening” – we might have caught on to the dystopia growing around us before now…:)

Ms Gore:
‘If the British character (whatever that is… are you nationalist?)’

Christ no, I’m not a nationalist. I’m a patriot. That’s different.

Orwell was against tyranny be it from the left or right. Therefore apart from I Berlin and Muggeridge, he was critcal of communism prior to the dealth of Stalin or or the invasion of Hungary in 1956.

Laurie is right about privacy . In France under Louis 14 , the minister of the interior boasted that where every 3 Frenchmen met , one was an informer. It was the information on the card registry fro the ID cards which were captured by the Getapo in the HQ of the Suretee in Paris which meant controlling France was made so much easier. The Prussion secret police dates back to the 1680s and could be said to the forerunner of the Gestapo.

We in Britain have been fortunate in not having a secret police until 1909- MI 5.

I would suggest the monarch of England and Wales has replied upon the loyalty of the people ever since the mainstay of the Army were free born archers and not the usual continental mix of aristocrats forming the cavalry and mercenaries being hired as archers.

The fact that so much of our wealth and freedom depended upon the sea, meant that people had to work together, be good at their tasks and trust each other otherwise the ship would be lost. The term “shipmate” indicates the loyalty and trust which binds people who work together on ship and cuts across rank. Need to work together and trust each othe is common factor in many dangerous heavy industries/construction activities.

The fact that Britain has has greater freedoms and rule by law for longer, than any other country in continental Europe appear to have have been removed from the history syllabus. In the Middle ages the Magna Carta was read out once a year in villages to ensure people knew their rights.

It would be appear that Governments wish remove our collective memory of our historical freedoms. The concept of ” Fair Play ” has long been part our traditions which tends to stop extremism and misuse of power. Kiping refers to in his poem about the Saxons and Normans.
The rewriting of history which seems to be a regular function of government has become very like 1984- inorder to remove our memory of the traditions of privacy, freedom of speech and rule by law, not diktat of the monarchy or government.

Govenments try to look tough because as individuals, politicians are not. Since about 1990, it is the first time that we have had a H of Commons with no members who have experience of war. If an MP has won a medla for gallantry( Whitelaw, Pym and Carrington all won the MC in WW2), then they do not need to appear tough. The only politician who does not need to appear tough is Asdown; consequently he can decide on the merits of the case and can ignore calls to be tough if these are inappropriate without being accused of being personally soft. If Labour had a Home Secretary who was actually tough and whose bravery had been proven, then they would not have to worry about being criticised for being soft by newspapers. As Mark Twain said “Someone who has the reputation for getting up at dawn can afford to get up at middday”.

Ah, Laurie, I’m just being an arse really

I believe that you can no more tell the character of an individual from their nationality than you can from their race, their sex or anything else.

Laurie, you might also like to re-read Brave New World.

I think it is worth emphasising that the UK’s ID card scheme is a world leader in terms of how much information it is to collect. Indeed, the French Government proposed copying it.

‘I believe that you can no more tell the character of an individual from their nationality than you can from their race, their sex or anything else.’

– sort of. However, I do believe there’s such a thing as a collective character, something that expresses itself most clearly in group contexts. I don’t think nationality is an accurate predicter of character. I think that where you grew up sometimes. is

ukliberty: I have also just re-read Brave New World.

Then we have the theocratic slant of the Handmaid’s Tale, of course – I’m sure there must be other good novels in the “dystopia” genre.

No matter how many snazzy new technologies emerge 20th centuary writers seem to have little faith in the ability of governments to use them wisely.

I must admit I can’t think of many influential literary “utopia’s” though.

Well there was Moore’s Utopia (‘no place’) but utopias are inherantly undeamatic.

I’d recommend the Kropotkin-inspired anarchist utopia of Le Guinn’s The Dispossessed, Samuel R Delaney’s ‘ambiguous heterotopia’ Triton or Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy as attempts at utopian world building.

As to dystopias, there are any number but Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We is a classic (apologies for probably misspelling his name)

Sorry, ‘undramatic’.

Huxley pickers could do a lot worse than “Island”, in my view.

Nationalist. Patriot. All just as bad as one another. Have some respect and love for your tribe and you forefathers, by all means, but leave any love for a flag and the state at the door.

Nationality has always been about rule and obedience. A bullshit construct.

Charles was overthrown by the establishment – not the rebellious masses. The humble Brit just had to decide who he died for. Crown or Parliament.

Also, what they got when they butchered their king was a religious nut-job dictator. Be careful what you wish for, huh?

Ms. Gore is right. The British generally do as they’re told. Even if it means suiting up and going off to die.

Thanks, Shatterface – I may have a dip into some of your recommendations (during a blogging lull, perhaps).

I suppose I meant to imply that utopias do not have quite the same dramatic possibilities as dystopias (as you have already suggested).

It’s hard to think of a book that has entered the public consciousness in quite the same way as 1984 (I’m not a fan of big brother, the channel4 TV offering, though).

The character who most mirrors the British public is “Parsons”.
I wonder if the torturers at Guantanamo were as enigmatic as O’Brien ?

Iain M Banks’ Culture novels are set on the fringes of a Utopia but usually involve the rather dubious deeds needed to maintain the peace within. A utopia needs some kind of threat to have dramatic tension.

There’s also the sarky utopia, like Michael Young’s The Rise of Meritocracy where a dystopia is presented as if it is a utopia, something lost on those who adopted Young’s term.

We are more than the queue-forming, forelock-tugging, tea-sipping, biscuit-eating, pet-shop-boy-listening people of popular mythology. We are, at the root and bone, a nation of king-killers. I think they’d better watch out.

Gee, she’ll be quoting GK Chesteton next.

Nationalist. Patriot. All just as bad as one another. Have some respect and love for your tribe and you forefathers, by all means, but leave any love for a flag and the state at the door.

Amen to that. Once you’ve personally experienced what happens when you don’t fit into someone else’s idea of what it means to love the flag, despite it being as much your flag as theirs, you realise flags are just tools to rally the dumb.

[26] I wouldn’t put anything past our Laurie

*27. Rayyan.
You put it fantastically well. I may have to quote you!
We had a nice taste of that in yesterday’s debate elsewhere on this site as well as my own blog….

26, 28 – that’s a great poem! Genuinely.

Nationalist, I think, implies blind love for the flag and the state. I’m a patriot; I think an important part of being a patriot, particularly when you’re of the left, is about holding the state to account, willing it to live up to the best of its own ideals. I don’t love the state, I don’t even trust it; I think the flag is a clever piece of branding, and accordingly love it in the same way that I love Diet Coke – with suspicion.

But I can’t help thinking that the British and all the non-British who live here are great, I can’t help thinking that Britain is a good place to live and can be a better one, truly. That doesn’t mean that I think we’re better than anyone else, I don’t. I just happen to like us and believe in us.

*runs away before someone calls me a fascist*

Cheers Claude! *doffs hat*

I just happen to like us and believe in us.

As do I! If we can’t make progressive change happen here then we can’t make it happen anywhere. If I didn’t believe in Britain I wouldn’t try so hard to improve its politics. There’s just so much potential…. of course, there is also so much shit, as I was reminded today by a talk show on LBC on the subject of OK Magazine’s Jade Goody “in loving memory” tribute-to-her-as-if-she-was-dead-even-though-she-is-still-alive special. But hey, I reckon the British people know good stuff when they see it: they just need to be given some of it to counter-act the tripe they are fed most of the time.

I do complain but it’s only because I want things to change. However are there are some huge cultural barriers that have arisen from a combination of Britain’s chequered history and the more contemporary privatisation-reality-tv-tabloid culture we find ourselves lumped with. Great post Laurie!

23. Aaron. Cromwell and many of the Roundheads came from the class of gentlemen farmers /yeoman farmers , which in effect were the middle classes. The class of yeoman farmer barely existed in continental Europe as one was either an aristocrat or peasant. The great advantage of Cromwell was that he largely cured Britain of religious fundamentalism.

Aaron you seem to forget the archers of England were volunteers. In fact the archers of Sussex once killed 300 of the Kings Bodyguard because of an insult.

The ships captains who fought against the Armada came from a wide range of ackgrounds.The Agricultural and Industrial Revolution were started by farmers and craftsmen. In fact what made Britain successful was the fact that it was far more egalitarian and open to social mobility than any other country in Europe. Rousseau or Voltaire was amazed that we erected a statute to Newton and buried him in Westminster Abbey.

Under the Royal Navy of Nelson , what was incredible was how many Commanders and Captains had started as ratings .In fact the Royal Navy was remarkably egalitarian . Captain Cook FRS and winner of the Gold Medal started as a rating in the RN.

Perhaps what we should be patriotic about is the fact that we have had a degree of freedom of speech, rule by law and a level of social mobility far in excess of any other country in the World. The present Labour government has reduced and continues to do so our historic freedom of speech,rule by law and democratic accountability of the executive..

I refer, of course, to the miners strike. Where state power, via the Police, trumped people power.

Mrs Thatcher was elected three times, and won a landslide three years after the strike. But that does not matter, because, obviously, you are not one of “the people” if you voted for the Tories.