[ashleysmithgpu]

10 for each person in the UK? ... I wouldn't put it past this government

[gaius]

It started during the Bliar years (not that that excuses this government from continuing with it). Remember the national biometric database?

[oliwarner]

Err, no. It started in the 1960s. There were massive city-wide programmes up and running well before Blair.

The IRA (or their reactionary counterparts) are who you should blame for the amount of CCTV in London, but it all comes from the same place. If it wasn't them, it would have been something else.

[escapologybb]

^This

My first memory of surveillance in any kind of large-scale was in the early 1990s, well before Tony Blair. It was when the Met police put up the "Ring of Steel" around the centre of London to stop the volunteers blowing things up.

Anyway, too much surveillance bad. Unless they use it to find your phone, in which case too much surveillance good. One might think it's somewhat of a nuanced issue!