It's not surprising to read that Britain is the surveillance country of the world with it's 4.2 million CCTV cameras. We're king of "dataveillance" too with our credit cards and loyalty cards being monitored for marketing reasons - why do you think Sainsbury's keeps sending money off vouchers for totals just a bit higher than your average weekly spend? No other country in the world watches it's population like Britain does - it's quite strange then that most of the population detest the idea of an ID card.

Now we all know these cameras have been put up to cut crime, catch untaxed and uninsured cars and generally keep the peace (and make some extra cash for the govt), but what's becoming evidently clear is that most of these are bloody useless. Crime still goes up, and you want to know why? Quite simple... everyone knows the quality of these cameras is rubbish. Just sit down and watch Crimewatch every month (we did last night - didn't recognise anyone, so no cash rewards for us) and you'll always see loads of CCTV footage of crims going about their ways, but there's no hope in hell you'll be able to identify them. Just have a look at this week's footage to see what I mean.

Has anyone ever actually seen any crystal clear CCTV footage? Does it exit? I know the technology is out there cos if it wasn't, Ken Livingstone wouldn't be making a killing off the drivers visiting London on a daily basis.

You can also request CCTV footage of yourself, under certain circumstances. Other than as part of your defence in a court case, why else would you want to?