The insight offered by Liberal Democrat Chris Hune to our leader, Gordon Brown:

 

"1984 was a warning, and not a blueprint."

 

Hune’s literary interpretation comes in response to the publication of the report of the Interception of Communication Commissioner for 2008, which showed among other things that: those responsible for intercepting communication are (a touch creepily) "dedicated and enthusiastic" about their work (p2); in 2008 there was roughly one error a week (p11) such as incorrect phones being monitored, (this rate is double the previous year);504,073 requests for intercepted information were made by the State to communications providers in 2008 (p15), which is about one per 120 people, or the BBC works out one per 78 adults.

John Koehler suggests that around 2.5% of the East German population were Stasi agents or informers; in a country the size of Britain this would equate to around 150,000 people. The interception of communication is, however, much more diffuse these days, so whilst we do not know how many informers there are, we do know 473 local authorities, 43 police forces in England (8 in Scotland), and 110 other public authorities, are able to intercept communications. Chris Hune is at pains to point out we do not yet live in a state as penetrative as the GDR, but this is a structural difference: monitoring once required massive effort -microphones behind light switches, secret monitoring stations in your attic, 1 in 50 being an informer. Now with CCTV on every street corner (one crime solved for every 1000 cameras), details of e-mails held by ISPs, and mobile telephone conversations tapped with a few keystrokes, there is no need for an elaborate apparatus.

Is the price to be paid for e-mail, mobile phones, driving cars and walking in town centres, that of being monitored?

The New Statesman worries this price is due not just to government, but to the private sector too, posing the question: "Is Google Evil?" The discussion is a now familiar one: with a search engine, blog, email, "cloud" based office tools, maps, a web browser, and now even pictures of all our houses on Google Street View, does Google know too much? Could its current benevolent, quirky persona suddenly turn dark? Is Google's innovation and convenience worth the the price of a certain totalitarianism?

Microsoft, Amazon.com and Yahoo! may not care about invasions of privacy, but they have suddenly taken a keen, and somewhat quaint interest in anti-trust actions. These three musketeers of computing, webstores and search engines respectively, have begun to take Google to task on a finger it is desperately trying to poke into a new pie: the deal cut for Google Books with major publishing houses which settled copyright issues for $125 million, potentially giving the bohemian websters a near monopoly on distributing ebooks.

However there is always hope. This is certainly not the first time in history people have been threatened by menacing advances in technology, be they the government panopticon or absolute corporate control of your means of communication. As BBC 2 is keen to remind us through the medium of daytime television, we can always "escape to the country." There are myriad villages in Shropshire and Devon in which to make a Ludditian stand against the alarming movement towards a Brave New World.

A caveat (which the Beeb tends to forget) must be added though: even withdrawing into the wilds comes with its own dangers. For one thing, the number of cow attacks has risen alarmingly in Britain. The National Farmer's Union notes three people have been killed by cows this summer alone, and many others injured. Whether the cows are spooked by walkers with dogs, or are actually beginning to organise into a militant terrorist cell is unclear. MI5 is monitoring this, the influx of Russian spies to the UK, but apparently not the UK's arms dealers who have been selling old Soviet guns to all the wrong people.

In any event, the Farmer's Union offer some survival tips for this dangerous world:

"If you have a dog with you, keep it under close control, but do not hang on to it should a cow or bull start acting aggressively. If you feel threatened, just carry on as normal, do not run, move to the edge of the field."

Unfortunately former Home Secretary David Blunkett worries this advice is difficult to follow in the heat of the moment; speaking about either his own recent cow attack, being chased by a Kremlin-sponsored assassin, or his love life, he points out: "staying calm sounds great, but it is a different matter when the animal is bellowing at you and then on top of you."