3 December 2007
Orwellian vision sneaks past our defences
Not many people would vote for the Orwellian vision of constant surveillance, citizens informing on each other, and laws covering what we say and think.
But you don’t have to vote for it: it sneaks by in a thousand small ways, and if there seem good reasons for it, you just let it happen. In a Norfolk school, for instance, children are being encouraged to spy on their teachers and expose their failings.
We are told that “gangs of diligent children patrol classrooms to make sure all televisions and computers are switched off” - and if a teacher has left one on, he or she gets a red card.
This may seem harmless and in a good cause. After all, no-one is being locked up and tortured. But in a society where so many children have no respect for teachers, it sets a bad precedent.
It also presents as fact what is conjectural – at least as far as the effects are concerned – but of course we’re used to that.
Elsewhere children are dangerously encouraged to see cars as evil, and no doubt it is just a question of time before they hand out red cards to drivers who they don’t think are parking properly.
Already unqualified adult volunteers are encouraged to gang up and use radar guns to catch drivers exceeding speed limits – and this at a time when exceeding the speed limit has been shown by government figures to account for fewer than five per cent of accidents, with most of those caused by the driver being drunk, on drugs or engaged in criminal activity.
This is an open invitation to people who want to impose their own prejudices on others, as are most Orwellian innovations.
Most of these wheedle their way in because people are frightened – usually unnecessarily. Last week, for instance, a professor of philosophy made it clear that he wants us to be “scared stiff” – so scared that he wants us to stop using accurate language and use scary words instead.
He suggests that the precise term “climate change” should be dropped, and we should start using terms like “climate crisis” and “climate catastrophe”.
He may be convinced that we are in dire straits atmospherically speaking, but many of us are not convinced. He calls us “climate-deniers”, which I presume means we think there is no climate at all.
He calls his own belief “telling the truth”, and he would like to impose his own “life-improving” lifestyle – which coincidentally would fit in nicely with tackling a climate crisis – on everyone else.
This man is not a scientist: revealingly his UEA colleague Prof Mike Hulme, who is, has written at least twice to the EDP correcting wild assumptions on “catastrophic” climate change.
The philosopher is already a politician locally and would like to be on the national stage. He thinks we should speak honestly. I think we should too. So I have to say that I believe he would be not a change but a catastrophe. Of course, that’s only my view.
Meeting the challenge of throwing money away
A conservation charity I know has recently built itself a bright new meeting room. I can see it from my bedroom window, and I’m very happy they hold meetings there.
If they didn’t, they might do what the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority does and book expensive hotels. In 18 months the QCA spent more than £4.2 million of taxpayers’ money on top hotels and conference centres to host meetings in the course of a wide-ranging review of the secondary school curriculum.
This, in case you were wondering, is equivalent to the annual salary of about 150 fully qualified teachers, but hey – who need fully qualified teachers when you can enjoy reviewing the curriculum instead?
Of course. the education sector is not alone in spending far more than it needs to on the comfort of its employees – or its consultants. The EDP reported last week that Defra, which has spent over £1bn on consultants over five years, booked staff tackling a bird flu outbreak into the luxury Ickworth Hotel, near Bury St Edmunds, where the lowest bed and breakfast rate is £185 a room.
Still, at least they’ve taken foie gras off the menu at City Hall. That’s not a financial saving of course, but no doubt the reorganisation of Norfolk councils into three unitary authorities will be. Or might there be some slight cost involved in rebranding, restaffing and completely changing everything?
Happily there are two areas still marked “undecided” on the brave new county map. I think I’ll move there. It’s bound to be cheaper.
Narrow escape for radar gun police
I hear from an unimpeachable electronic source that two traffic patrol officers from a few miles north of Norfolk were involved in an unusual incident while trying to catch motorists exceeding the speed limit on the A1.
One of the officers was using a hand-held radar device to check the speed of something approaching over the crest of a hill, and was surprised when the speed was recorded at over 300mph. The machine then stopped working and the officers were unable to reset it.
The radar had in fact latched on to a Nato Tornado fighter jet over the North Sea, which was engaged in a low-flying exercise. The chief constable fired off a stiff complaint to the RAF and received the following reply: "Thank you for your message. You may be interested to know that the tactical computer in the Tornado had automatically locked on to your hostile radar equipment and sent a jamming signal back to it.
“The Sidewinder air-to-ground missiles aboard the aircraft had also locked on to the target. Fortunately the Dutch pilot flying the Tornado responded to the missile status alert intelligently and was able to override the automatic protection system before the missile was launched.”
Wonderful things, Tornadoes. We should have more of them.
Wrong place, wrong time
Shortly after being mistaken for a small town by the BBC, Norwich has emphasised its city status by being voted second-best small city in the world, though how it could be beaten by Ipswich (even Ipswich, Australia) is hard to comprehend.
Not many people know that Hingham was on the long list for best small autonomous republic but was sadly disqualified for time and space distortion.
“Same old story,” said local expert Prof V A R Scheinlich. “We were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”