A big state means a spying state

One of Churchill’s mistakes in the 1945 election campaign was to argue that no socialist system could be established in Britain without a form of political police, a British Gestapo. He should never have used the g-word: it struck the electorate as excessive. But reading the Sunday Times this morning, I could see what the old man was getting at.

The enemy Britain was fighting was not just Germany, but the way of life that National Socialism in Germany represented. Britain had stood apart from the big government sweeping first Russia, then Italy then Germany. The British way of life was different: respect for liberty and freedom. The nightmares about this intrusive state were taken to one extreme by Orwell later, in 1984. Churchill was trying to make this point, but did so too crudely. For all its faults, there is a difference between big government and a Gestapo.

Anyway, further to the Sunday Times story, the Tories have drawn attention to the details Labour-run Rotherham Council released after an FoI request saying just how council tax-related surveillance was used.