The View from 22 — government snooping and Cameron and Miliband's crucial autumn

Is the government about to start digitally invading every single aspect of our lives? In this week’s cover feature, Nick Cohen questions exactly what and how the government is trying to achieve with the upcoming snooping bill. Discussing the matter future on our View from 22 podcast, director of the Big Brother Watch campaign group Nick Pickles warns that a heavy handed bill would not only ‘slam the breaks’ on the economy but the beneficiaries may not be who you would expect:

‘We’ve had some quite hysterical editorials saying this is about terrorists and pedophiles but the bill itself says the biggest beneficiary is actually Her Majesty’s Revenues and Customs. We’ve asked the government what proportion of the supposed benefits go to HMRC but we’ve been told we can’t have that information for “national security reasons”.

‘That sums up how disingenuous the proposed bill has been. It lets the government off the hook for essentially pushing something that both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats proposed when they are on the other side of the house.’