The recent elections, in which Surrey Council residents had no part to play, set me contemplating what has changed in our lives, particularly during the last decade or so.

Just over a decade ago our Prime Minister could accuse a political opponent of being “frit". A dialect term, from her part of our country for being frightened.

These days I suggest "the state" has all of us “frit”.
I certainly am, even with the protection and freedom to speak one’s mind that no longer having to obtain and keep employment confers.

We are now frightened to express a view on a whole range of subjects because of the accusations, and worse, that will rain down on us.

We are frightened that even when we have said or done nothing a malicious accusation will have us treated like a convicted criminal, can destroy our family, cost us our job and future prospects of employment, even when eventually the accusation is proven to be an untrue malicious one.

We are frightened to teach our children and grandchildren many traditional nursery ryhmes and songs for fear they will cause offence.

We are frightened to tell the jokes that always started “ There was an Englishman, a Scotsman, an Irishman and a Welshman” and in which anyone of the nations could be the butt of the joke.

We are now frightened to play or sing the Flander’s and Swann song “The English the English" etc.(They will be banning the ‘Gasman Cometh’ next.)

We are now frightened to intrevene in any street incident. This is both because of the fear that knives will be produced and because of the way any such brave and foolish public spirited person will be treated by the police when they belated arrive on the scene.

We are frightened because if a gang of burglers, armed with an axe, break into our home the police will fail to respond to a 999 call.

We are frightened that, if we are in our sixties and have long been a primary school teacher,(a job almost every man is frightened to even consider these days), the discovery that we once let our fishing licence go out of date would end our career.

We are frightened that if we, and the bus driver, fails to realise our Oyster Card was a few pence short we will end up in court and get a criminal record.
We are frightened what the next stealth tax will be foisted upon us.

We are frightened just what the next hare-brained scheme will be dreamed up by our European, national or local politicians to waste our hard earned taxes and at the same time line their own pockets by way of unjustified, if legal , expense claims or by illegal but unregulated ways.

We are frightened of just what unrealistic military commitment our national Government, none of whom I understand has ever served in the armed forces, will undertake and of the young men’s lives that will be needlessly lost.

At another level we are frightened by the officious actions of local Government councillors and employees over rubbish and recycling collections. Have you tried reading, let alone decyphering, the recycling markings on many plastic items?

Even 20x20 vision and a powerful magnifying glass is not enough. We are frightened by the way in which the Government intrudes into every corner of our own life and our family life.

We are frightened on nothing more than a malicious accusation social workers and the secret Family Courts will take our children away and even rush them into adoption in order to defeat even that secretive legal system.

We are frightened that being on a DNA register could led to us being convicted and imprisoned by a technology stretched to its limits by its practitioners and understood by no one else.

(We have hung and imprisoned too many innocent men in my lifetime even with less involved technology and practices.) I am sure that the above is only part of the story.

On reflection, are you certain that you are not “frightened” in a way you never used to be?