The brilliant Mr. Peter Hitchens ruminates on the old Russian bear, and relays to us this account of the state of Britain today from the point of view of a Russian journalist:
Under its corrupt government, which is widely believed to sell seats in the upper house of parliament in return for contributions to ruling party funds, the once-free nation of Britain is rapidly turning into a police state. Pre-trial detention, once limited to 72 hours, is being repeatedly extended to far longer periods. Old rules about the accused being innocent until proved guilty are being cast aside. The right to silence has been abolished and so has the law which prevented anyone being tried twice for the same offence. The police increasingly take action against individuals for expressing opinions which defy ‘political correctness’, the official orthodoxy of the British state. The major Churches claim that new laws discriminate against their freedom of conscience.
The streets are under perpetual surveillance by closed-circuit TV cameras recording every action. The citizens are shortly to be issued with internal passports similar to Russian ones, and will be compelled to provide their fingerprints to their authorities. Schoolchildren are already being fingerprinted on such pretexts as allowing library access. The police increasingly use arrests – not followed by charges – to harass those they wish to pursue – and anyone arrested – whether convicted or not – is now compelled to give a DNA sample. As a result, Britain now has the most comprehensive DNA records of its population, anywhere in the world. Many state bodies now have the power to search people’s homes, and the old maxim that ‘An Englishman’s Home is His Castle’ is now so untrue as to be laughable.
Elections are still held, but are a sham in which all the parties have more or less the same policies. The main political movements, which have lost much of their popular support, are kept going by state subsidies and contributions from millionaire businessmen. The main state-owned broadcasting system is slavishly loyal to the government and keeps minority viewpoints off the air, or treats them with contempt and derision, while the other channels mostly purvey low-grade pornographic entertainment, so-called ‘reality’ shows of stunning banality, old movies and sport.
Meanwhile, actual crime is out of control, though citizens are legally prevented from many actions of self-defence and a government minister recently advised Britons to ‘jump up and down’ if they saw an old woman being attacked in the street, in the hope of distracting the attacker. This is the country which lectures Russia about ‘civil society’ and ‘human rights’.
Deeply disturbing look at contemporary Britain from a Russian journalist’s point of view. Having recently seen “Children of Men” (based on the novel by P.D. James), I find it disturbing the degree to which it echoes the horrific state of Britain circa 20027 as portrayed in the film.
Oh golly, you should read the original – strikingly more worrying and affecting.
I’ve been meaning to read it.
Since neither the Russian journalist nor his employer are cited in the quoted “piece,” can we assume the anonymous author is none other than Pytor Hitchenovsky? Frankly, I have always wondered why Peter Hitchens, if he is so concerned with the state of modern Britain, continues to write for one of its most illiterate newspapers.
A man’s gotta eat… Better a Daily Mail column than no column at all.
Well, he could always get a job as a CCTV operator, apparently very much in demand at the moment. As a matter of fact, I donated a copy of his book to the Boston Public Library, although I have seen it in the stacks.
Brilliant! I shall have to read this out to my class when we get back from Chinese New Year.
And all this time I was so focussed on the neo-NKVD hitmen killing people on Britain’s streets and closing its cultural associations attached to the embassy within Russia to notice.