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Biggest Brother
Even George Orwell could not imagine a Big Brother on this scale.
A giant database of people's personal details is to be created by the British government. The official explanation is that it will help "improve" public services.
Conservative front-bench shadow ministers say the new database will be "an excuse for bureaucrats to snoop".
Oliver Heald, shadow consitutional affairs secretary, says: "Step by step, the government is logging details of every man, woman and child in 'Big Brother' computers".
Under the proposed plan, various Whitehall departments will be able to share centrally-held information.
It has a funny ring about what Moscow used to practice in the Soviet days. Except, at the time, their computer hard-disks were not up to the same level.
Critics, including Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs are saying that the plan is nothing less than a grand breach of traditional individual privacy.
The new database programme is estimated to cost the taxpayer over £20 billion, as an initial cost.
By any estimate, that is a lot of money to investigate the colour of your Visa card.
