Big Brother is coming

Two weeks ago, Tony Blair told the road-toll petitioners by email that his government was not trying to impose ‘Big Brother surveillance’. That was accurate, if disingenuous. The real Big Brother doesn’t announce himself. He comes creeping up on you, by stages, until you realise that you are being snooped on, scrutinised and spied upon in all sorts of ways that would have seemed unthinkable only a few years ago.

Take the powers of the taxman. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) — the new authority established by the merger of HM Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue in 2005 — is becoming astonishingly intrusive in its investigation of so-called ‘dual purpose’ expenses to discourage taxpayers from claiming for items that could, conceivably, be put to private use (that is, almost everything).

Easy enough to prove with documentation that the petrol you claim was necessary for a work-related journey. But what about, say, clothing? Claims in this category can enable inspectors to ask the most intimate questions about your personal life. They are entitled by law ask whether that sexy, sparkly, Kylie-style stage costume is also worn for ‘private use’. You think I’m joking? Not a bit of it. This very question was asked by the HMRC of an exotic dancer, who told me the story when I was investigating the business wars between lap-dancing clubs for a Channel 4 programme.

What we see here is not a conscious conspiracy, but — much worse — a slippery trend towards the assumption that surveillance and snooping are the norm and socially acceptable. Consider these examples and the tapestry they add up to:

• In January, the Press Complaints Commission published a ruling that reveals how Trading Standards use children to snoop on shops suspected of breaching local trading rules. A 15-year-old boy, for example, was deployed by Cornwall County Council officers last year to test out whether regulations were being adhered to in a Truro shop after it sold him alcohol underage.