innerhippy

"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they've tried everything else."

Winston Churchill

There are people who spout the "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" attitude towards the pervasive intrusion of CCTV into our lives. We all know that this individualistic, naive and sanctimonious ideology will drive us head first into the Orwellian state to which the current administration seems committed. But for all the arguments of personal intrusion, there is a more malignant significance of cameras towards society, and it's one of ineffective substitution.

Our streets are becoming increasingly dependent on CCTV as the sole means of crime "prevention". Their original intention was to be used as evidence in the law courts to support the judiciary – and not as the prime means for law enforcement. There are many aspects to CCTV that are damaging and counter productive, but in particular they alienate the general public, good and bad alike, from the tangible presence of authority. Having an authority in the public domain reminds people that they are accountable for their actions. This could be a simple as having a conductor on a bus, but we've done away with them in order to save money. It could be having a supervisor in a train station until the last train leaves, but we've done away with them also – to save money. Or perhaps the good old bobby-on-the-beat, but we don't really have those either, because we're trying to save money.

So what is the cost of saving all this money? An environment where people no longer feel protected by the system of authority and where kids/hoodies/drunks/idiots/vandals are empowered to assume ownership of these public spaces – all because the boundaries have been removed. Cameras do not provide boundaries. They provide an intrusive and antagonistic presence that people do not respect or trust.

And what of the perpetrators? Part of growing up involves the discovery of freedom away from the confines of the home, and that requires young people to explore for themselves what it is actually like to exist in a sociological framework. They need to discover both the opportunities and the limits of this new existence outside the very parental boundaries that they are starting to challenge. And as they are unsure, they are shy. Place them under "observation" and they will naturally want to hide and conceal; enter the fearful hoodie. But they still need control and authority to guide them through this emerging phase in their life. Cameras do not provide this. So left unchecked they seek boundaries with increasingly extreme behaviour. It is then left to the adult public to enforce these boundaries; but they are all too often afraid of the consequences, as had been mercilessly exploited by the media after a recent spate of stabbings in London by gangs of youths. The exacerbation of fear only sells papers which to hide behind. To make matters worse, these reluctant boundary enforcers don't get effective support from the authorities, should they need it, so the cycle is perpetuated.

What you end up with is a runaway youth culture blindly chasing terrified adults. It would be good if sometimes the adults were able to stop dead in their tracks and challenge the pursuers. But no, we are being told to rely on cost-effective and ineffective CCTVs instead.

Cameras do have a place in the modern urban landscape, but only as a tool that supports an age-old tradition of social education, and is certainly no replacement. Social progress is achieved by harmonising the duality of traditions with innovation, its about time the Whitehall bean-counters got off their comfy chairs and took a good look around.

It pains me to admit this, but my admiration for the former dithering Home Secretary has sky-rocketed ever since he took the unusual decision to connect his mouth to his own brain, and not to the bible of No 10. His quest to ignite debate has probably exceeded all expectations and his provocative statements have cut straight to the heart of the cultural stand-off between "Bristishness" (whatever the hell that is) and Islam. And why the hell not? After all, he's only saying what most British people think. We've recently been conditioned to blindly "accept" different cultures and in these days of Islamic hyper-sensitivity, it's simply not PC to voice personal judgment anymore. The last thing we expected was for a political heavy-weight to light the fuse.

No doubt I'm probably going to hell for this (not to mention ruin any chance of indulging in 17 virgins), but if Jack can do it then so shall I.

I can't help it, but every time I see a Muslim woman wearing the niqab (et al) various thoughts start racing around my head: "poor sod, having to wear that ridiculous outfit", "it just smacks of male owenership to me", "I bet she's wearing a Wonder Woman's outfit under that", "maybe she's too much of a munter to show her face in public", etc etc. I was brought up to look people in the eyes and to engage with them using dialog in which the intricacies of facial expression are a crucial and integral part. That's not compatible with religious hoodies. And that's just how I feel.

A Muslim scholar from Jack's constituency of Blackburn came out with the predictable bollocks insisting that his comments were an "insult to Islam and to all Muslims in the world" blah blah blah. Well, Mr Angry Ranty Scholar, cultural misunderstanding works both ways and you're displaying an astonishing lack of understanding for ours: debate is not an insult, you'll find it's a pretty handy tool intended to build intellectual bridges.

If anything, the row has provided the British public with a suite of handy new nouns: how many non-muslims could tell apart a hijab from a niqab, jibab, abaya or even a chador? We've been familiar with burqas for a while and now we have a whole new range to enjoy! The point is that debate leads to education and that should always be valued.

Nobody is saying that Muslim women should not wear head veils, it's just that people in Britain just don't seem to like what they stand for. That's not an insult it's just an opinion.

Interestingly, Charles Clarke also seems to have turned agent provocateur having been released from the shackles of Home Secretary under His Tonyness, the King of Spin. Just as Boris Johnson has always done, open one's mouth just that split second before engaging the brain. It seems that these Home Secretary droids can only take so much spin and censorship – even David Blunkett's at it! Eventually they'll crack up, screw up and get sacked before spewing out a torrent of common sense, political insight and beautiful honesty.

What you get is genuine and stimulating debate. Personally, I love it. Can we have some more please?

Another 14 British troops were killed yesterday when a Nimrod plane crashed in Afgantistan.

The MoD (Ministry of Deception) were very quick to dismiss claims that Taliban forces shot it down with a Stinger missile.

Enter Des Brown: "Frankly the Taliban regularly make claims which we know to be untrue and I think in this case this is instructive of the nature of their dishonesty and I think it's an object lesson for the media of the world to the extent at which they are prepared to lie in order to generate propaganda"

Narurally, the British government would never stoop to such depths as to lie in order to generate propaganda. Remember WMD? Remember what the hell we're doing in Afganistan in the first place?