Outer Party Politics

Social workers in Britain are finding themselves subject to the same intimate scrutiny of their private lives that they themselves have subjected the public to for decades. However, Ken McLaughlin says that while this is poetic justice, it is also an ominous development.

No doubt, some people reading this will relish the irony of a profession that has habitually policed the intimate aspects of people’s private lives suddenly finding itself hoist with its own petard. However, this would be to overlook the fact that this 24/7 regulation and surveillance is being rolled out to include not only social workers but all social care workers – including, among others, home helps, residential and day care staff. Ultimately, a significant sector of the workforce will soon find their private lives subject to the scrutiny of the GSCC.

This is another one of those episodes in the Blair New World that George Orwell echoed in 1984 where it was not the common people, the Proles, who had the most to fear, but the members of the Party.

A Party member lives from birth to death under the eye of the Thought Police. Even when he is alone he can never be sure that he is alone. Wherever he may be, asleep or awake, working or resting, in his bath or in bed, he can be inspected without warning and without knowing that he is being inspected. Nothing that he does is indifferent. His friendships, his relaxations, his behaviour towards his wife and children, the expression of his face when he is alone, the words he mutters in sleep, even the characteristic movements of his body, are all jealously scrutinized. Not only any actual misdemeanour, but any eccentricity, however small, any change of habits, any nervous mannerism that could possibly be the symptom of an inner struggle, is certain to be detected. He has no freedom of choice in any direction whatever.