Tony the Nanny

Tony Blair's shameful record on civil liberties.

Brendan O'Neill | May 17, 2007

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These schemes are part of the government’s drive against “anti-social behaviour.” New Labour introduced Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) in 1999, written decrees which tell individuals how they must behave. A local authority can issue an ASBO forbidding an individual from walking down a certain street, using bad language in public or even wearing a certain item of clothing, without having to prove in a court of law that the individual is guilty of anything.

ASBOs are like feudal rulings: they are dished out on the whim of local officials and on the basis of hearsay rather than hard evidence of misdemeanor. They’re a shocking affront to liberty and to the rule of law.

So in Blair’s Britain we are spied on constantly; we’re nannied everywhere from the pub to the soccer stadium; we can be reprimanded and have our freedom of movement and association restricted on the say-so of a local official. Dear reader, we Britons are no longer free. Instead we live in a permanent state of parole, where we must walk, talk and act in a certain way or risk having our collars felt by a CCTV spy, a cop or a council official.

That is Blair’s legacy: the transformation of Britain into one big holding cell, and British citizens into constant objects of suspicion.

Brendan O’Neill is editor of spiked in London. His journalism is collated at BrendanONeill.net.

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