A recent report shows the absolutely mind-bogglingly frightening statistic that Britain has "half as many more CCTV cameras again as the whole of China".
We have a population of 60 million and theirs is twenty times that.
We have more than 4.2 million cameras. That works out as 1 camera for every 14 people, or two for each infant school class.
Whereas China has the equivalent of one camera for the whole of Bradford.
This shows New Labour's worrying obsession with surveillance, and we have created the model "Big Brother" state that the Chinese government, or any 21st century non-democratic regime, would love to have.
Although I am convinced of the argument that CCTV has a role to play in the fight against crime, it is still unclear how well it does this.
An argument against is that it merely moves criminal behaviour from one area that has CCTV to another area that doesn’t.
However, I believe that the money spent on cameras could be better spent on police to solve crimes and patrol the streets.
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