We Are All Lech Wałęsa Now
Monday, November 9, 2009 at 12:37PM Via the new and timely Big Brother Watch, this awful piece:
A London council is recruiting 2,000 residents to report on their neighbours.
The “Neighbourhood Champions” will pass on evidence of graffiti, fly-tipping, litter and excessive noise. They could eventually be trained to report child abuse, domestic violence, racial harassment and other “hate crimes”.
A friend who moved here from Poland a couple of years ago told me something that chilled my complacency. We were discussing the effect of the communist regime on Poland and I was arrogantly and ignorantly waxing lyrical about how you can't ever trust the state.
He said "Fraser, the thing you have to realise is this: we knew we could never trust the state. What Communism took from us was our ability to trust one another."
