IT WAS 50 years ago that the notion of people being spied on everywhere by TV cameras was first presented as part of an Orwellian nightmare of state thought control and the end of individual freedom.

But now it is an everyday reality, and though its supposedly sinister aspects - perhaps inspired by the menace of novelist George Orwell's "Big Brother is watching you" - are not lost on liberal minds, the plain fact is that we like it and want more of it.

This is because, manifestly, closed-circuit TV monitoring of our streets, workplaces, shops, car parks, stadiums and other public places is a force for good.

And how else would the explosion of CCTV have in just a few years reached the extent of there now being a million cameras watching people in Britain, without widespread public consent?

People know they help to catch criminals and deter others from committing crime.

That is why today the government was unveiling the biggest ever state investment in CCTV systems - worth £153 million - so that more of the country's crime hot-spots can be covered. It is also why there is such a positive response today to the sensible and practical call by Ribble Valley Council's chief executive Dave Morris for the CCTV systems in East Lancashire to be made more effective by linking them to a central monitoring station so that there is round-the-clock, all-year surveillance in our region.

Our local authorities and the police should take up this proposal with a will - and might zoom in on this new initiative by the Home Office for potential funding.

Yet, despite all the evidence of CCTV's success and of the sense of security they give to most people, it still has its principled opponents who remain blinkered to its beneficial and essentially benign practicality - the steadfastly hostile Liberals, now ousted from control of Pendle Council, being one such group.

But, as ever, the response to their concerns is that decent, law-abiding citizens, as most people are, have nothing to fear from being spied on.

That is why the cameras are not only overwhelmingly accepted, but are also being demanded more and more.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.