The Stasis are Coming!

The last time I visited a country where neighbour was encouraged to spy on neighbour and where children were prompted to report even their own kin for breaches of the state rule, was East Germany at the height of the Cold War.
But later this month, I shall be visiting another nation that has lost its moral compass, to use a favourite phrase of one of its leaders, to such an extent that I shall be regarding every small boy who looks twice at me with grave suspicion.
Of course, if I look back at him, I may be arrested as a suspected paedophile, so it’s not going to be a happy visit I feel.
The French learned their lesson over denouncing each other during the revolution when they rather lost their heads over the business, which resulted in a good many innocent people losing theirs. Now they keep very much to themselves as a result.
But from the comments I am reading in the media, the vast percentage of the public resent this, along with all the other bureaucratic intrusions into privacy and their daily lives. The only ones in favour are, I suppose, the jobsworths who will make up this sinister underground network of Stasi type spies.
But there seems to be little enthusiasm, other than writing to the press, to take any action against such an affront to democracy.
In France, we take to the streets and vote with our feet, arms and the occasional bottle or half-brick to express resentment against government policies. It seems to work.
But I notice a good many of those that write to complain seem to think that every ill that assails Britain is on account of their quasi-membership of the EU.
If that were the case, how is it my trash gets picked up without fuss weekly?
Blaming the EU for every petty restriction on life in the UK, restrictions which don’t seem to bedevil the other states, must be the reason the Aussies came up with the phrase, “Whingeing Poms.”