The Silent State: Secrets, Surveillance and the Myth of British Democracy [Paperback]
'Will strike fear into the hearts of politicians, assuming they have hearts. You won't know whether to laugh or rise up and overthrow absolutely everything.' --Charlie Brooker
'A wonderful book ... Heather Brooke puts every other British journalist to shame. She single-handedly exposed the systemic corruption that had become an embedded part of parliament at the turn of the 20th century. In doing so she has changed British public culture and earned an essential place in our national history. She is an extraordinary figure who must be celebrated.' --Peter Oborne
'Secrecy is one of the great British diseases. It's so secret that we don't even admit we suffer from it. Heather Brooke is part of the cure - challenging the routine concealment and distortion of important information. There should be more journalists doing the same.' --Nick Davies, author of FLAT EARTH NEWS
Book Description
A modern classic of journalism and an iconic investigation of power in C21st Britain, by one of the country's leading reporters.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
78 of 81 people found the following review helpful:
A must read for all UK voters, 6 April 2010
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This review is from: The Silent State: Secrets, Surveillance and the Myth of British Democracy (Paperback)
I bought this book having heard of Heather Brooke through her instrumental role in breaking the MPs expenses scandal and I'm so very glad I did.
Heather lifts the lid on the rotten heart of British democracy and exposes just how little real information the electorate actually have to work with when judging the performance of their elected officials, police services and judiciary.
We pay for huge amounts of data to be gathered on our behalf and about us, and yet we are (in many cases explicitly) denied access to that data. Sometimes we get to pay for it many times over before being presented with a figure-fiddled, dumbed-down press release that bears little or no resemblance to the facts.
In many ways a lot of UK voters already suspect many of the issues raised in this book, but to see the hard facts is something of a smack-in-the-face. If you are suffering from voter apathy, this is one book that is guaranteed to stir you out of it.
Heather has a wonderfully fluid and accessible writing style that carries you through what could easily have been a dry subject with ease and humour. Her ability, and persistance, to get at the truth places her at the pinnacle of modern investigative journalism and, for me, the name Heather Brooke belongs amongst those of game-changes like Bob Woodward,Carl Bernstein and Amira Hass.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Every one should read this book, 17 May 2010
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This review is from: The Silent State: Secrets, Surveillance and the Myth of British Democracy (Paperback)
Every one in Britain should read this book, it raises issues that many of us have thought about but not realised fully how undemocratic Britain is. From the legal system which only works for the rich or those endowed with public money, the all pervasive use of 'spin' often called PR, used by public bodies to con us into believing they are doing a good job, how we are charged to access data that has already been paid for by us (the taxpayers) and the state snooping on us using a multiplicity of databases which have largely been introduced furtively.
Heather Brooke was also largley responsible for bringing into the open the MPs expenses scandal, which eventually the Telegraph took a lot of the credit for.
24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
Depressing and shocking, 4 May 2010
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I have spent 30 odd years of teaching History, and attempting to answer questions from students such as "How could they do that", "How did they get away with that", "Why did people believe them" about various historical events of the last 2000 years. Any ideas I might have had that we now live in more democratic and enlightened times are blown away by this book. Some of the stories are not new, but collected together they are a dismal and depressing chronicle of present-day Britain. In many ways we have as little freedom as medieval peasants.
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