Atkins weaves graphics, documentary and news footage, personal stories and information about legislation to expose the deeply disturbing changes that have come about in the UK over the last ten years.
Comments are from human rights organizations, politicians, academics and lawyers, and the film focuses on ordinary people who have had enough. They feel compelled to protest and complain about the loss of civil liberties such as freedom of speech, (which has always been sacrosanct in Britain), being presumed innocent until proven guilty, our rights to privacy, the illegality of torture, and the rest.
The Police are used as Government tools to control the unruly population who, when peacefully protesting, are now considered a security risk and a terrorist threat. One busload of women on their way to a peaceful protest were imprisoned in their coach and escorted back to London by a motorcade of police outriders and vans. They were unable to get off the coach for a toilet or drink stop. Distressed, but not daunted, the women took the case to court and won.
A couple of elderly ladies were filmed outside a military base. Standing in lovely open countryside, chatting amiably, a policeman approached and wanted to know what they were doing there. He asked for their details. Now savvy, these women know that they are not required by law to provide this information unless there is a good reason for requiring it. He went away. I felt a bit sorry for him, for having to carry out such a ridiculous task. It insults the intelligence of officers to be used in this way by the arms industry.
Other protesters who sit quietly outside companies where Guantanamo shackles are made, or where missile parts are manufactured are subjected to heavy-handed policing. Whilst protesters outside your factory may be unsightly and a nuisance, their presence is not illegal. It is now.
New Labour has also presided over a rise in house prices so great that the UK now has a seriously divided population, hardly a socialist achievement. There has not been such a gulf between rich and poor for about forty years.
Of all the examples shown in the film, the persecution and harassment of Muslims is very troubling. One young man, despite being acquitted, remains under house arrest. It looks like racism, and suggests a Government view that all Muslims must be potential terrorists, but this would be like saying that, in the time of the Irish troubles, that all Irish were IRA terrorists.
Making and exploding bombs is a criminal act, possibly a psychotic act. Such people are murderers. Isolated terrorist attacks have produced a Government hysteria that has resulted in blanket policies which restrict innocent law abiding citizens. If people protest they become labelled as criminals for objecting to unreasonable imposed limitations. ID cards will not prevent murders.
But, by far the most disturbing part of the documentary for me was being made aware of the level of surveillance in the UK today. Information is necessary and useful but any unqualified idiot can be employed to sit and watch CCTV cameras, medical and tax records can be misused, and computers can fail. These records provide a directory which makes ‘ethnic cleansing’ swift and efficient. The parallels with Nazi Germany are too terrifying to contemplate.
And what do I hear on the news this morning? That the Government Chief Medical Officer, Liam Donaldson, believes it must be compulsory for our bodies to be cut up and used for the benefit of other people when we die. Our bodies. Make that government bodies. I pray this is not true. Being an organ donor must be a choice. Anything else brings up connotations of farming or, God forbid, our skin being used for lampshades, our hair being used to stuff mattresses. The root of all evil is fear. This organ donor panic is about fear of death. It’s inevitable. Becoming a virtual prisoner in your own country is not.
All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.
Do something. Write to your MP. Something. You have a voice. We all have. Use it.
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