[sph]

Mass surveillance and living in a police state is an ingrained part of British culture.

It is no wonder to me that police procedurals are the most popular genre of TV shows in UK by quite a margin. They really are high-quality, but it does really feel like thinly-veiled propaganda (often commissioned by the BBC) portraying the State and police as the good guys in their endless quest against the baddies. Thank god there are CCTVs at every corner keeping the peace!

[walthamstow]

Weird extrapolation. They're popular in lots of places - Law & Order has been running 30 years.

None of this is unique to the UK. I'm old enough to remember 24, the show that whitewashed torture while people were getting renditioned by the CIA.

I'd be more surprised if there was a country where this kind of thing didn't happen.

[remus]

Have you lived in the UK? I have, and it doesn't feel like a police state.

[tim333]

Indeed "totalitarian state controlled by a political police force" is not the thing - Brit here. Iran maybe.

[sph]

I didn't use the word "totalitarian", which the UK still isn't for the time being. A surveillance state doesn't necessary have to be totalitarian (the CCTVs were in good conscience put there to protect us from the baddies). But it certainly is a precondition to become that over time.

[sph]

Almost 15 years, yes. Were you born in the UK, or do you have outside perspective?

[OJFord]

Not GP but I was born in the UK, and from 'CCTV on every corner' even as an exaggeration I'd question if you stepped outside London in those 15 years, not counting 'London' airports.