Just Finished Reading: The Silent State – Secrets, Surveillance and the Myth of British Democracy by Heather Brooke

For those who don’t know (myself including to begin with) Heather Brooke is the journalist who broke the MP’s expenses scandal that washed over Whitehall and through the corridors of power a little while ago. Whilst not about that specifically (though it was touched on from time to time) Brooke laid out her thoughts and investigations about what she saw, and I largely agree with her, as the problem at the heart of the British State – secrecy. In that although the State goes to great efforts to know as much as it can about its citizens it resists, with all the powers at its disposal, the often innocuous requests for information from it. Not only that but it clamps down on those, often very clever people, who attempt to provide information to the public in a more efficient a cheaper way than the government can manage. The State, the author maintains, is a serious information control freak who thinks that Public Relations – AKA ‘spin’ – actually constitutes information transfer (which of course it doesn’t). Using stories from her own experience and from interviewing several individuals and groups who have had run-ins with the State information control apparatus the author produces a very convincing attack on an overly secretive system.

Despite agreeing with much of what the author said I did have several reservations about this book. I was for instance regularly irritated the tone of her argument rather than with its substance. She seemed to have bought into the idea that everyone in government is at best indifferent to the public if not actually and wilfully obstructive and appeared to be saying, or at least implying, that anyone with the least bit of power or influence came from a public school background and despised the working class who they regarded as basically incapable of understanding policy decisions at any level. She also appeared to view the rank and file government employee as either so demoralised or browbeaten by their superiors that they can no longer see, or care about, the many problems with the system resulting in far too much control of information – often for its own sake. Again I see something in what she says. Information does not flow as it should and various governments – of all types – do not respect the average voter enough to tell them anything of great account. It is, in many ways, a very vicious circle where we are not trusted enough to know stuff so are kept in the dark where we are clearly too ignorant to be allowed to make or vote on important decisions. About the best thing that can be said for this book – which actually isn’t that bad – is that it raises peoples consciousness of what is, or more often is not, going on in the heart of government and throughout the various public facing agencies. I guess that I’m already cynical enough to think that everything the government/state tells us is lies and propaganda so it came as no great surprise to me that it really is. A fast and often illuminating read but not a particularly earth-shattering one if you’re as cynical as I am.