Spy in Sky CCTV cameras over the White Cliffs of Dover tomorrow? Just you wait and see…

Update 26 Jan. Eminent and highly respected commentator Simon Jenkins has just added a new angle on the focus for this blog which illustrates how key the issue of money may be – and can be found in full here

Just to cheer us all up on a rainy start to the week in London, I bring news that our real Big Brother in Britain plans to use unmanned spy drone cameras to look after us even better than before. Ah, how lovely you may think. But maybe not…

Frankly, the idea of UK police using such high-tech spy- in-the-sky kit, currently deployed in war zones like Afghanistan, but now for ‘routine’ monitoring of riders, motorists and protesters, in our occasionally Green and Pleasant Land – does not fill me with great joy at all. There are also some bloggers out there like BB Watch who take a very dim view of this latest news. To be fair though, these new additions to the armoury of surveillance kit our governors and private enforcement companies have to hand are not called spy drones at all. Oh no.

It seems, according to responses to a Freedom of Information FOI request submitted by the Guardian that the folk who make this kit are the arms manufacturer BAE Systems, and they produce a range of ‘unmanned aerial vehicles’ aka UAVs. Worryingly though for some of us perhaps, good old BAE is converting a fleet of UAVs from use in warfare to use by a consortium of government agencies led by Kent police.

The FOI request forced release of report documents from the soothingly titled South Coast Partnership. But it turns out that this is a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan with BAE.

Their report reveals the following news:

“Five other police forces have signed up to the scheme, which is considered a pilot preceding the countrywide adoption of the technology for “surveillance, monitoring and evidence gathering”. The partnership’s stated mission is to introduce drones “into the routine work of the police, border authorities and other government agencies” across the UK.”

So there you go then. And all I can say to anyone who is starting to harbour suspicions that this plan may not be entirely driven by an earnest desire to look after us all better than ever, is that you could be in danger. And the danger you’d be in is of joining that widely reviled group called sceptics. And for those who go further with thoughts that a primary driver for getting this kit into action is to dish out loads more revenue generating penalty charge notices PCNs, for such heinous crimes as exceeding speed limits by a few mile and hour etc., could be in graver danger still. You could be heading down the slippery slopes to the doom of becoming an extreme cynic. By the Cringe!