# Do the Brits live in fear of being "black bagged" by the government? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 26, 2008, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-brits-live-in-fear-of-being-black-bagged-by-the-government/465270 "2008-09-26T02:10:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Alonzo\_John\_Blitz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@Alonzo\_John\_Blitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alonzo_John_Blitz)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-brits-live-in-fear-of-being-black-bagged-by-the-government/465270/21 "2008-09-26T22:49:43Z")
**Do the Brits live in fear of being “black bagged” by the government?** None of my British friends have ever mentioned it to me; though some do have an inordinate fear of being _teabagged._ ---
**Author:** ![A\_shameful\_cracka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@A\_shameful\_cracka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_shameful_cracka)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-brits-live-in-fear-of-being-black-bagged-by-the-government/465270/22 "2008-09-26T23:18:28Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Did anyone ever write a fictional Britain that’s controlled by Communism, rather than Fascism? Are we to infer from all of the Russian slang in _A Clockwork Orange_ that the British government is somehow controlled by Russians or Communists? My edition of A Clockwork Orange came with the glossary in the back, and I seem to recall that it said the Russian influence on the slang was due to the pervasive Russian propaganda and broadcast programming, so I wonder if the UK was supposed to be one of the last non-Russian dominated countries and subject to a lot of broadcasts from some kind of “Radio Unfree Europe”. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2008, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-brits-live-in-fear-of-being-black-bagged-by-the-government/465270/23 "2008-09-27T23:53:21Z")
> [@Kythereia](#): > > …Alan Moore was envisaging a post nuclear-holocaust Britain–basically, what would have happened if the Cold War had gotten hot–and he thought it would be very easy to tip the country’s scales into fascism… The UK itself didn’t actually suffer any direct nuclear attacks in V. Prior to WWIII a Labour government disarmed and pulled the UK from NATO. The conditions that led to Norsefire seizing power were the result of the economic disruption and nuclear winter. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2008, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-brits-live-in-fear-of-being-black-bagged-by-the-government/465270/24 "2008-09-27T23:58:37Z")
It’s also worth considering the (undue) prominence of extreme right-wing parties like the BNP (British National Party) and Mosley’s Fascists before them. The US undoubtedly has the odd Nazi nutcase, but I get the feeling they’re not as ‘organised’ at national level or given the press that they are here. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-brits-live-in-fear-of-being-black-bagged-by-the-government/465270/25 "2008-09-28T00:31:34Z")
I don’t see how fringe parties such as the BNP and their ilk have any kind of prominence, undue or not. They may occasionally win seats in local council elections, but the prospect of them getting an MP, let alone a sniff of power, seems remote. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-brits-live-in-fear-of-being-black-bagged-by-the-government/465270/26 "2008-09-28T00:36:00Z")
The fact that they have won seats in council elections is bad enough for some, arguing that it’s (understandably) too much power. Although you’re completely right; they don’t have a snowball’s chance of “real” power, and I don’t live in fear of being ‘black bagged’ by the government, just throwing out theories about why it’s part of our culture. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-brits-live-in-fear-of-being-black-bagged-by-the-government/465270/27 "2008-09-28T00:41:17Z")
> [@Apocalypso](#): > > I was watching **V for Vendetta** the other day, and it occurred to me that there’s a lot of movies and books with themes of governments that curtail people’s freedom of expression. Examples: **1984** , **Brazil** , **V for Vendetta** , even \*\*Pink Floyd’s The Wall \*\*movie had Pink imagining himself in charge of a neo-nazi fascist ruling party. Then it hit me that these almost all have one thing in common: They all come from the Brits. Ok, I know Terry Gilliam was born American, but he was a member of Monty Python and Brazil was full of Brit actors and very much a Brit movie. > > Sooo, where does this come from? Does the average British citizen live in fear of an oppressive government that can swoop in at any given time and haul them off, never to be seen or heard from again? Brit dopers, do you have a fear that listening to the wrong music or having the wrong opinions will someday get you “black bagged”? As an English chap, I’m a bit puzzled by your assertion that there are ‘a lot of books’ about Government oppression. Our best-selling authors write books about **horseracing** (Dick Francis), **espionage** (Len Deighton, John Le Carre), **Fantasy** (JRR Tolkien, JK Rowling), **detectives** (Agatha Christie, GK Chesterton) and **cookery** (Delia Smith, Jamie Oliver). Our top films are about **gangsters** (Lock..Stock.., Long Good Friday) and **wabbits** (Watership Down). We’ve had a Monarchy for about 937 out of the last 942 years 🆒 and a Parliament for about 743 years. So if ‘they’ are planning something, ‘they’ are certainly patient people. We are delighted here that our regular police are unarmed and that gun ownership for self-defence is banned. We have a thriving set of freedom-loving organisations (e.g. Amnesty International). Honestly (and I mean no offence) the main threat to UK citizens is Guantanamo Bay. We have had several citizens taken there… ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-brits-live-in-fear-of-being-black-bagged-by-the-government/465270/28 "2008-09-28T00:45:14Z")
> [@glee](#): > > We’ve had a Monarchy for about 937 out of the last 942 years 🆒 and a Parliament for about 743 years. > So if ‘they’ are planning something, ‘they’ are certainly patient people. That’s just to lull us into a false sense of security! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-brits-live-in-fear-of-being-black-bagged-by-the-government/465270/29 "2008-09-28T00:50:09Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > “The Brits”? No, of course not. The great majority of Britons are sane enough to know they have practically nothing to fear from their government. I think there’s plenty to fear from any government - it’s just that hardly any of it is expected to be visited on us personally in the middle of the night. But many of us fear the government will dick us about with new and apparently pointless legislation, will raise taxes or screw us financially in some other way, or will commit us to war against some nation or other. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-brits-live-in-fear-of-being-black-bagged-by-the-government/465270/30 "2008-09-28T05:28:05Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I can’t say that I ever thought much about the Russian in ACO. To make a guess, trying to rehabilitate a criminal is generally a liberal preoccupation. Since they went for an extreme version of that, the government could be presumed to be significantly more liberal, which would indicate that yeah, they might have some better or closer ties to the ol’ USSR. Heh, I dunno. I think the USSR was big on giving their criminals a rehabilitation through the back of their head. ---
**Author:** ![chicken\_wire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e4f/32.png) [@chicken\_wire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chicken_wire)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-brits-live-in-fear-of-being-black-bagged-by-the-government/465270/31 "2008-09-28T06:20:27Z")
> [@glee](#): > > As an English chap, I’m a bit puzzled by your assertion that there are ‘a lot of books’ about Government oppression. > Our best-selling authors write books about **horseracing** (Dick Francis), **espionage** (Len Deighton, John Le Carre), **Fantasy** (JRR Tolkien, JK Rowling), **detectives** (Agatha Christie, GK Chesterton) and **cookery** (Delia Smith, Jamie Oliver). Le Carre has branched out from pure espionage into social commentary, and sticks it to oppressive government in his more recent novels. _Absolute Friends_ and _The Mission Song_ have a go at the negatives of the “war on terror”. _The Constant Gardener_ demonetises (probably justifiably) both the pharmaceutical industry and the government. He’s always had a bit of a social conscience and left-ish tilt, if you ask me. He still rocks as an author, of course. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-brits-live-in-fear-of-being-black-bagged-by-the-government/465270/32 "2008-09-28T08:37:03Z")
Well not Brit, but live in London. Can’t say that they do. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-brits-live-in-fear-of-being-black-bagged-by-the-government/465270/33 "2008-09-28T16:55:56Z")
> [@glee](#): > > As an English chap, I’m a bit puzzled by your assertion that there are ‘a lot of books’ about Government oppression. > Our best-selling authors write books about **horseracing** (Dick Francis), **espionage** (Len Deighton, John Le Carre), **Fantasy** (JRR Tolkien, JK Rowling), **detectives** (Agatha Christie, GK Chesterton) and **cookery** (Delia Smith, Jamie Oliver). > Our top films are about **gangsters** (Lock..Stock.., Long Good Friday) and **wabbits** (Watership Down). So my proposed book about a secret agent who goes undercover as a Unicorn jockey to solve a murder at a wild game restaurant that’s controlled by the mob would make a fortune over there, wouldn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-brits-live-in-fear-of-being-black-bagged-by-the-government/465270/34 "2008-09-28T18:05:07Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > So my proposed book about a secret agent who goes undercover as a Unicorn jockey to solve a murder at a wild game restaurant that’s controlled by the mob would make a fortune over there, wouldn’t it? Indeed it would although a bit of romance (Barbara Cartland style) wouldn’t go amiss;) ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-brits-live-in-fear-of-being-black-bagged-by-the-government/465270/35 "2008-09-28T18:39:45Z")
I always thought much of this was just satire of '80s Tory Britain. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-brits-live-in-fear-of-being-black-bagged-by-the-government/465270.md?page=1)