Brown using 1984 'as a manual'

Orwell's book was a nightmarish vision of the future

Tuesday, 16, Sep 2008 12:00

Civil rights campaigner Shami Chakrabarti launched a scathing attack on Gordon Brown's record at a Lib Dem conference fringe event last night, saying he used George Orwell's book 1984 as "a manual for government".

The Liberty director warned the prime minister had failed to become the change voters expected during his honeymoon period and that he was now struggling in the polls as a result.

"Democracy is sometimes about hiring and firing governments," she told politics.co.uk.

"If you've been in power for a long time people feel like a change and sometimes you have to be the change or the change comes.

"I think Mr Brown got a honeymoon because people thought he might be the change. He could dump some things like ID cards, not run away with pre-charge detention, say sorry for Iraq, maybe?

"These things don't cost any money but they show a great amount of humility. You might be the change or the change comes upon you."

Ms Chakrabarti railed against the incremental increases in surveillance and unregulated use of CCTV cameras, saying the George Orwell novel 1984 was "supposed to be a warning, not a manual, for government".

"We know what we're up against: the terrible idea that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear. It does matter. Imagine a society where privacy doesn't matter: no dignity, no intimacy, no freedom of thought, no free speech."

She said Orwell's book captured the way in which language was used to subvert important values, including the 'war on terror' in particular.

"The moment you call it a 'war on terror' you're asking people to surrender their freedoms because they're living in a permanent state of emergency," she finished.

"I'm not prepared to wait for 50 years."