Observations on society

Driving recently behind a car in which there were two young men in British national costume - that is to say, tracksuits and baseball caps - I noticed a continuous stream of litter, the detritus of a fast-food meal, emerging from their windows, thrown into the street with as much self-consciousness as an elephant leaving its droppings in the bush.

I could have drawn up beside them at some traffic lights and pointed out their antisocial behaviour. At best, however, I would have been answered with a torrent of angry abuse - how dare I impugn every freeborn Englishman's right to behave exactly as he chooses - and, at worst, with violence. People have been stabbed for less, so I let it pass.

As it happened, the next vehicle behind which I found myself was a bus. On its rear end was posted an advertisement, inviting members of the public to inform on other members of the public whom they saw dumping rubbish where rubbish ought not to be dumped, and giving a telephone number that received anonymous denunciations.

The episode seemed to me to encapsulate a great deal that is unpleasant about modern Britain. First, we fail to train our children in the elementary decencies of social behaviour, then we encourage the population to behave like spies and narks. It is difficult to think of a better scheme to infantilise a population, render it permanently dependent upon authority and destroy the human personality all at the same time.

There have been increasing invitations of late asking the population to inform upon one another. Every day of my working life, for example, I pass two posters with a picture of a horrible large rat standing on its hind legs, looking at the world with feral malignity. The poster invites us to "Rat on a rat", that is to say, to inform on a drug dealer, and gives another number that receives anonymous denunciations.

I have little sympathy for drug dealers, but this deliberately dehumanising depiction of them (or anyone) appals me. It is hardly an original observation that a first step to inhuman treatment is often the use of animal metaphors to describe those of whom we disapprove. Moreover, it is distinctly sinister that people should be asked to express their virtue by approximating their behaviour to that of an insinuating, devious, cunning rodent.

We have also been invited recently to inform anonymously upon those whom we suspect of cheating social security. As a taxpayer, I cannot really approve of such cheating: but much contact with those who are unfortunate enough to get into the clutches of the system causes me to rejoice each time I hear of the triumph, however dishonest, of an individual over that bureaucratic and unfeeling monster.

Anonymous denunciation destroys trust and spreads paranoia; it makes normal human relationships impossible and promotes violence; and it gives authority an irresponsible tyrannical power. Worse, it prompts people to use the law as a means of settling private grievances.

The encouragement of anonymous denunciation was one of the most unpleasant aspects of the Vichy government and the Occupation in France. It was both a symptom and a consequence of the regime's moral illegitimacy.

The increasing appeal to such methods in Britain today is likewise a symptom of the declining legitimacy of a government that arrogates ever more powers unto itself while failing to perform its elementary duties.

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