THE frontpage headline in The Independent screamed - as much as a quality national newspaper can scream, that is - with all the glass-smashing vibrato of any tabloid.

"Big Brother Britain, 2004" it read, followed by sub-headings that announced that four million CCTV cameras were now watching the public and that the UK had the "highest level of surveillance".

There was obviously something missing here. Highest compared to what? Not to worry. Some 850 words of eight-point type sitting under the bigger stuff soon treated us to the typical broadsheet main story-of-the-day spread.

It was all explained in great detail.

This particular tale related how the number of closed circuit television cameras had quadrupled in the past three years, and that there was now one for every 14 people in Britain.

This increase was happening at twice the predicted rate.

It was believed that the UK accounted for one-fifth of all CCTV cameras worldwide. Estimates suggested that residents of a city such as London could each expect to be captured on film up to 300 times a day, and much of the filming breached existing data guidelines.

And so on. At the end of the piece there was a cross-reference to more reports inside and a leading article further back that mumbled on about the need for vigilance but, that generally, there was no great cause to worry unduly.

Right. That's fine then. Another issue sorted, done and dusted. The great minds have deliberated.

It's not often that this column kicks off with a national newspaper as its opening theme but this week I must make an exception. For while many of the posturings of the pro-Blair Press are easily explained, the question of its attitudes to this Government's addiction to repression must surely remain a mystery.

Having been reared on Left-wing ideology - and roundly rejected it - I am at a loss to understand how or even why current philosophies sit so awkwardly with those of the past. In particular, I have this present regime's record very much in mind.

Take a few examples. Identity cards - potentially a massive threat to civil liberties, not to mention one's pocket - are announced. The "liberal" Press nods sagely in agreement... no need to worry, says the Talking Heads Collective.

Then there's the euro. Once again, this will be marvellous for everyone. There will be no loss of sovereignty, and public spending decisions, taxation, interest rates et al will remain under the kindly control of your neighbourhood British Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Three cheers for Prudence. And just think - everyone will be liberated from the tyranny of having to change their money when they go to Calais on the booze run. Freedom or what!

All this is salivated over by the "liberal" Press. It's fine, trust us, they whisper in our ear. We should know... we're graduates. As the song said... "Be happy, don't worry".

You name it, if the broad spectrum of the British public is against it, it's a dead cert that they'll be backing it to the hilt.

The fact that not so long ago, the British Left - including the vast majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party - was rigidly opposed to the existence of the EU, not to mention the euro, never seems to occur.

All this is now conveniently forgotten, erased from history, like some massive 1930s-style Stalinist pogrom of the mind. It never happened, all right? History for us begins in May, 1997.

Like the 19th Century Christian fundamentalist's concept of The Beginning, the date is firmly set and there it will remain.

As for identity cards, well, there is absolutely no one from my past who I could ever imagine would have been in favour. The Left of only a few years ago would have condemned them out of hand.

Actually, old-style Lefties know this is true. It's just that most have been silenced or are just too fat, full of red wine or just plain lazy to admit it. This amnesia on such a colossal scale must surely rival other great world events such as the parting of the Red Sea and the ascent of Zeus to Mount Olympus.

These days, it would appear that an entirely new species of mutated radical now occupies the editorial chairs of our national papers. Where there was once rebellion, there is sheep-like acquiescence, the mass-produced university clone with regulation, approved view.

Now, here's something from the heart. I would be less than honest if I didn't admit that there's a tiny part of me that would quite like to like New Labour. So let us, just for a moment, pare it down to the personal level.

Take Worcester MP Mike Foster. He seems very pleasant in every way. I have dealings with him from time to time in our respective capacities as a rising politician and a local hack who, apart from writing a column, also edits the letters page.

But the sad fact is that, to use one of my favourite military metaphors, I'm in the opposing trench. Yes, we might kick a football around in no-man's land on Christmas Day, but after that, it would be business as usual.

You see, I'd dearly, genuinely love to know why New Labour has become so obsessed with laws... and more laws.

There are now speed cameras everywhere, an extra fiver on speeding tax, head teachers imposing fines on parents who take their children on holiday during term time, and the Inland Revenue targeting plumbers and electricians who do the occasional "foreigner".

Then there are the traffic wardens who will become authorised to dish out £100 fines for a further 20 motoring infringements, the persecution of smokers and any number of stealth laws that only become apparent when someone falls foul of them.

So what is it with New Labour and laws? Is it because the country is being run by two barristers, Blair, Blair & Co? Don't they realise that there is now a climate in this country born of a growing sense of injustice?

You cannot blame ordinary people bitterly complaining about issues such as, say, lack of action against street violence, when the full force of The Establishment is exerted so efficiently against softer targets.

Youths who have killed people with their cars walk free, grinning at the photographer. An OAP is fined £120 - one-and-a-half times his week's pension - for doing 35mph both ways along City Walls Road.

No amount of official bull can gloss over the fact that most reasonable people understand and sympathise with the routine expressions of injustice when they hear about stories such as this.

It doesn't take Einstein to work out that there is now real, bitter resentment in Britain. And on a massive scale.

I will leave you with this final quote from The Independent. It is by Professor Clive Norris, deputy director of the Centre for Criminological Research in Sheffield. Referring to the use of surveillance cameras, he had this to say.

"The use of these practices represents a shift from formal and legally regulated measures of crime control towards private and unaccountable justice."

I think New Labour would now do well to think long and hard about its image. If it's happy to champion the petty jobsworth and pompous official, then keep digging, comrades.

If not, then there's much work to be done before the next General Election.