By Jamie Bryson
In today’s Irish News Brendan Hughes revealed some of the reports the PSNI ‘snitch line’ had received during the Covid 19 pandemic. You can read the article HERE
The snitch line was always going to encourage and empower the self-righteous curtain twitching busybodies, who could now feel the warm glow of moral superiority and simultaneously feel part of a ‘movement’- namely the liberal elite- by mere virtue of informing on those lesser citizens who were failing to abide by the diktats of the political establishment.
You could hear it on the airwaves from the outset as some commentators became infused with a new superiority as they beat us lesser beings over the head with the latest buzzwords and twitterati approve clichés. On one debate on the Nolan Show in which I was challenging the PSNI’s efforts to criminalise persons daring to travel to exercise, a social media journalist launched into a cliché bonanza, culminating in an instruction that we should “use yer loaf”.
It is unsurprising that many of the most ardent lockdown enforcers, who appeared to develop a new lease of life with the notion that the state could control every aspect of our lives, were cheerleading for the snitch line, yet reacted with indignation to any suggestion that the flagrant breaches of the regulations (which they themselves extolled) at the Bobby Storey funeral should even be investigated.
The story by Brendan Hughes, exposing some of the most incredible reports, is well worth reading for anyone who wants to understand how the most arbitrary and draconian restrictions ever imposed, in conjunction with citizens being encouraged to inform on their neighbours, has damaged our society.
We had everything- reports of those walking more than once a day; informants for the Covid stasi monitoring, logging and reporting neighbours movements; citizens informing on their own housemates for daring to visit their parents; individuals being reported for visiting a ‘lady friend’; surveillance being conducted in restaurants by self-appointed busybodies for the purposes of reporting back as to whether it was only a family eating together; the obtaining of ‘photos’ of who was arriving at a neighbours home.
We even had one incredible case whereby a busybody became so taken with their new role as a Covid informant that they provided times, car registrations and hour by hour sighting logs- complete with a promise that they would work towards obtaining photos.
I would like to know how many of these absolutely preposterous and nonsensical reports the PSNI followed up on? How much tax payers money was wasted in pursuit of making the ‘touting tommys’ feel like they were part of an FBI surveillance operation bringing down dangerous criminals, by virtue of their valiant efforts to ensure they logged each time their next door neighbour dared to go for a walk.
This all sounds like something out a comedy, but no- this is the world we now inhabit. This is manna from heaven for the liberal elite; a society of tell-tale-tits, competing with each other as to who can win the highest moral superiority points, based upon the level of snooping carried out on behalf of the establishment.
Northern Ireland has become a nanny-state, with the liberal elite acting as the self-appointed Stasi. You can just imagine them all, sipping away on their latte, comparing notes as to the heinous actions of their neighbours; appalled at the audacity of those who would walk twice a day, visit a relative or god forbid have a ‘lady friend’.
The more extreme among them will undoubtedly be already drawing up a blueprint for the Orwellian ‘Two Minutes Hate’, whereby the worst offenders- as judged by a panel of twitterati approved ‘commentators’- will be subjected to twitter lashing at 5pm, with up to date ‘Covid crimewatch’ reports carried on BBC NI.
We can nevertheless be thankful, we are still at least able to purchase books in Northern Ireland. The liberal elite have actually found their way into Government in Wales, and as a result non-essential items (as defined by the elite) are banned. The bookshelves are covered up with the type of yellow tape that would usually be reserved for dangerous chemicals or explosives. Not to worry; one can at least still purchase a nice frothy latte.