Alex Klaushofer

The government's decision to decriminalise rough sleeping by repealing the Vagrancy Act of 1824 has been met with outrage and wringing hands. For some, the police losing their powers to move rough sleepers on evokes the prospect of tent cities and businesses plagued by people living in doorways. Yet the change, which will be formally enacted today, is really only a rationalisation which brings the law into line with reality. Last time it was in power, Labour pledged to dramatically reduce the numbers of people on the streets. Set up in 1999, the Rough Sleepers Unit brought together local government, the police, health services and the voluntary sector to, as homelessness tsar Louise Casey said earnestly when I interviewed her, encourage rough sleepers to 'come in from the cold'.

Supermarket customers in Britain are part of a growing experiment in surveillance. After an eight-week trial, Sainsbury's has made live facial recognition permanent in a big south London store. That shop, the hypermarket in Sydenham, is not far from where I live. I donned a low-brimmed hat and a Covid mask and went to see. Supermarket customers in Britain are part of a growing experiment in surveillance I expected only small notices in the windows to alert customers to the presence of the biometric cameras, and so was pleasantly surprised to find both doors of the main entrance flanked by large stand-alone signs explaining the policy.

Shabana Mahmood's announcement that facial recognition is to be rolled out across the nation is no vague statement of aspiration. Part of wider policing reforms and backed by the promise of fifty more camera-topped vans, the Home Secretary's announcement signals the government's determination to make mass surveillance part of daily life. Combined with the current consultation on facial recognition, it also confirms that Britain is becoming a surveillance state without any real thought or debate. Mass surveillance isn't compatible with a healthy society The focus of the public consultation on a new legal framework for the use of biometric surveillance technologies by law enforcement agencies is framed in 'when did you start beating your wife?' terms.

When the taps run dry in Tunbridge Wells you know something has gone very wrong in the heart of Albion. Some 24,000 residents had their water supply cut off for almost a week after South East Water found that water at the local treatment plant was contaminated with chemicals. Schools closed, businesses lost money and, although supplies have resumed, residents have been told to boil water. The fiasco is illustrative of our national water crisis. In my part of south London, the streets literally course with water flowing from burst pipes. As I predicted in a piece for The Spectator eighteen months ago, the situation for Thames Water customers has worsened.

If you think Britain’s free speech crisis is bad now, if Ofcom gets its way it could get a whole lot worse. The broadcasting regulator-turned-internet-policeman is currently consulting on proposals to beef up the Online Safety Act. The proposals in its blandly-title 'Additional Safety Measures' document could reduce the internet in Britain to a shadow of its varied, vibrant self. Ofcom's proposals are alarming A big chunk of the 309-page consultation concerns livestreaming. In Ofcom's world, livestreams are of particular concern because of the 'risk' posed by humans interacting with each other in real time.

This summer I spent an afternoon, as I do every year, sitting with old friends in their garden a few miles from the Gloucestershire village where we grew up. Their garden adjoins fields, affording a clear view of the Malvern Hills. But this year, the view was different. We watched as trucks crawled across the land three fields ahead, shunting between concrete blocks. Little constructions had appeared between the trees and hedges. I was witnessing the construction of the UK's largest solar farm in a rural residential area. Some 26 fields, comprising 271 acres of farmland near the village of Highleadon are being turned into a photovoltaic power station with ground-mounted solar panels and substations for inverters and batteries.

The vexed issue of compulsory ID is, once again, on the cards. 'BritCard' is being billed as a 'progressive digital identity for Britain' by Labour Together, the think tank that put forward the scheme earlier this month. The digital ID card has been endorsed by dozens of Labour MPs, and No. 10 is said to be interested in the scheme, which is being touted as a way to crack down on illegal migration, rogue landlords and exploitative work. But concerns about privacy appear to have gone out the window. Tony Blair has been at the digital ID game a long time Perhaps it is no surprise that Keir Starmer's government appears to be warming to a rollout of digital ID cards. Tony Blair has been at the digital ID game a long time.

Tesco has followed Sainsbury's lead by installing cameras above self-checkouts to identify when shoppers fail to scan an item properly, using the footage to provide a live-action replay of their misdeed. Predictably, it's not gone down well: a video posted on Instagram involving a can of tuna got more than 3.5 million views. When will the supermarkets learn to stop treating their shoppers like criminals? Tesco's track record with customer data is not encouraging Much of the reaction to Tesco's VAR (Video Assistant Referee) cameras has focused on Britons' humorous responses: 'VAR Decision – Tuna Disallowed,' joked one person. 'Clearly off side,' riffed another. But the growing surveillance in our supermarkets is no laughing matter.

Sainsbury's is stepping up surveillance on its self-checkout tills. It's hard not to laugh out loud. Not only will shoppers in some stores be recorded close-up by a VAR-style camera as they pack their groceries, but should anything appear amiss they may be shown a replay bearing the message: 'Looks like that last item didn’t scan. Please check you scanned it correctly before continuing'. It doesn't get much more Big Brother than that. Britain is rapidly becoming a surveillance society. Banks of cameras are part of the furniture on our streets, and in our supermarkets and shops. Some stores even use facial recognition. As I wrote in The Spectator a year ago, this obsession with surveillance and automation is part of the reason why I no longer shop at Sainsbury's.

Does Britain have a ‘two-tier’ attitude towards policing? The Home Affairs Committee, made up of 11 Tory, Lib Dem and Labour MPs, is dismissive of the suggestion. 'It was disgraceful to see the police officers who bore the brunt of (the) violence being undermined by baseless claims of ‘two-tier policing’, its report, published earlier this month, says of the police response to the ugly scenes that followed the Southport murders last July. It's a questionable claim – and I've been left wondering why they chose to reference a piece I wrote about two-tier policing for The Spectator in August. Legislation in the pipeline could give the police even more powers 'Police response to the 2024 summer disorder', the 46-page report put out by the committee, reads like an apologia.

At 3am last Thursday morning, council contractors and police descended on a Bristol neighbourhood to install roadblocks under the cover of darkness. Fadumo Farah was one of the residents who got up that night to see what was going on. She was shocked to see dozens of police officers and security guards with drones. It 'felt like a movie scene,' Farah said. In a last-ditch attempt to prevent the work proceeding, she – and a group of other residents – lay down in the road. The operation was the latest episode in a long-running battle over Bristol's first Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) – known in the local lingo as 'East Bristol Liveable Neighbourhood' – in the areas of St George, Redfield and Barton Hill.

Does Britain have a two-tier policing system? Accusations that some protesters are treated differently to others have emerged in the wake of this week’s riots and the various counter-protests that have taken place. But while the blame is being directed at Sir Keir Starmer – with Elon Musk tweeting about ‘two-tier Keir’ – questions over the police’s handling of protests must not solely be directed at Britain’s current Prime Minister. Since 2020, I’ve harboured an uncomfortable feeling about the way protests are dealt with – and a sense that something is wrong.

On the day the election was called, I turned on the tap but nothing came out. The sudden stoppage was hardly a surprise: I live in a 'Thames Water hotspot' and can't drive ten minutes in any direction without encountering at least one road closure as the water pipes are dug up. It's got to the point where I mutter, 'ah, Thames Water' every time I hit traffic. More often than not, the plastic barricades and temporary traffic lights duly appear, accompanied by signs bidding me not 'to overtake cyclists' in the narrow portion of road left. With Thames Water likely heading for collapse, government takeover looms Such closures punctuate the London suburbs, from the big operation which caused delays at two junctions for four months, to countless little digs at roadsides.