Let's focus on facts, not Big Brother fiction

I LIKE George Orwell, I really do.

But the forward-thinking novelist has a lot to answer for with 1984.

For the past 50 or so years, people have lived in fear of a Big Brother culture, where the state observes our every move. And it's all the fault of George, who told us that such controls would restrict our personal freedom and be a bad thing.

We came to accept, and reinforce the belief that cameras were bad news.

When the idea of CCTV cameras was first put forward, the liberal reactionary line was: "Oh no! Big Brother has finally come to pass."

They were right in a sense, because nowadays we really are under almost constant observation. As soon as we walk out into the street or even get on a bus, the cameras are watching, recording our every move (in a grainy, blurred way).

How does that make the cameras a bad thing though? They don't stop us doing what we want to do.

But if we are a bit naughty, we get caught and punished. I can't begin to count the number of times I have sat in court and watched cretinous thugs get sent down for crimes of astonishing brutality - crimes they would have got away with in the past.

Last week the Evening Telegraph reported on how a preparatory school in Burnley, Sunnybank in Manchester Road, had become the first in the country to install cameras in classrooms.

The idea was to give parents reassurance - they could check on how the little 'uns were doing just by logging onto a secure internet site. As headteacher Barbara Cross spelt out: "If mum's a bit concerned she can log onto the internet and watch them. A parent logged on yesterday because her little boy had been ill and was delighted to see him sitting up and eating."

Now where's the harm in all that?

Of course, when some national commentators got hold of the story they were horrified at this invasion of the classroom.

What next, they barked, cameras in the home? Well, no, obviously. Any government that tried to put cameras in the home would lose votes quicker than it had lost its own marbles.

I was a bit surprised that so many writers had taken leave of common sense.

It's this sort of anti-change, reactionary comment we should be scared of, not the fictional Big Brother.