Ah, of course, that makes it alright, then…
“They were only political promises,” says Bernard Woolley, attempting to comfort Jim Hacker in the 1984 Party Games episode of Yes, Minister. “It’s like your manifesto promises. People understand.”
As Wendy Grossman asks, do we? Really? I don’t. Not one little bit.
I know Nick Clegg knows better; only last March he spoke forcefully at the 20th birthday party for Privacy International about the importance of safeguarding personal privacy. But the Conservatives, too, were elected on the promise of turning back surveillance.
Do we “understand” this reversal? Not so much.
Nick Clegg, and David Cameron, like the fictional Jim Hacker have discovered that old truth about power and corruption. They are allowing the poison of the civil service bureaucrats to course through their veins. Damn those inconvenient promises, damn our civil liberties, let the control freaks loose with our personal data, why not?