What are we to make of news that the people of Shoreditch in London are now able to subscribe to a local CCTV channel which will allow them to keep an eye on their neighbourhoods and phone the police if they see anything untoward happening?

It's a pioneering scheme which is likely to spread, apparently. And a brilliant idea, too, in practical terms. Get residents to pay good money for access to these spy cameras as part of a sort of highrise neighbourhood watch and you don't need to employ staff to monitor the images they produce.

The authorities both save money and make it at the same time.

However, what of the people who are being watched? That's you and me. We're on camera now just about anywhere we go outside of our own homes, and it might not be long before an electronic eye is being kept on us there as well.

Interactive television works both ways, after all. At present we believe that we're in control of it, but for how long can we be sure that it isn't watching us?

One Shoreditch man, asked on a TV news programme what he thought about this CCTV development, said he didn't like it because it made him feel he was being hunted. I know what he means.

Supporters of universal surveillance claim that those who do nothing wrong have nothing to fear and that the benefits from these cameras for law-abiding people in terms of peace of mind more than outweigh the loss of privacy that comes with them.

The problem is that once you accept the principle that spying on people is OK, where does it stop?

We're now watched in banks, shops, bars, restaurants, streets, car parks, parks. .Where next?

Yes, there is a certain sense of security to be had from the presence of CCTV cameras and the knowledge that they deter wrong 'uns. But the cost of it, in terms of intrusion by prying eyes, is a high one.

The latest development in Shoreditch has just raised the price.

So Mark Oaten, the disgraced Liberal Democrat leadership candidate, blames his liaison with a "rent boy" on the fact that he lost his hair in his late 30s. Most follicly-challenged people in years gone by dealt with the matter by resorting to the combover style and, more recently, have had what remains cut very short to reduce the impact of their baldness. To be driven by it into the arms of a prostitute, male or female, seems a rather extreme way of coping with a perfectly natural phenomenon. Who is Mr Oaten trying to kid? Perhaps himself. Whatever technology the banks and credit-card companies use in their attempts to thwart the credit-card fraudsters, the felons seem to be hard on their heels. Chip-and-PIN was supposed to be the foolproof way of keeping our transactions safe. Now, though, the crooks have devised gadgets which, if they can install them stealthily in the machines at petrol stations and supermarkets, can copy the information on our cards and record our PIN numbers as well. Once again, it seems, the only safe way of buying anything would seem to be by cash - carried close to our persons in body belts, to foil the non-electronic muggers. I'm finding it hard to get to grips with this assumption across the land that Blair will or should) hand power over to Gordon Brown, (pictured above). Who says? Blair certainly should get out of office. He should have gone a couple of years ago, in disgrace, after it came to light that he took the country to war on the basis of a lie. But why is it generally assumed that the brooding Brown would be an ideal replacement? Despite a multitude of stealth taxes and the soaring price of utilities, there appears to be plenty of money sloshing around in the economy. But much of it is in the pockets of individuals who are living beyond their means and the national debt is mounting alarmingly under Brown's distinctly imprudent stewardship as Chancellor. The growing number of job losses as large British firms either close down or merge and rationalise or send work overseas suggests that sooner or later (and as this trend accelerates, sooner begins to seem increasingly likely) the chickens will come home to roost. Do we really want the man who has apparently ignored this reality while he's been in charge of the nation's purse strings to take over as head lad? Unfortunately we, the hapless citizens, aren't allowed any say in that until the next general election. But at the very least Labour MPs should be able to vote on a selection of candidates for the Prime Minister's job if Blair's hand can be prised off the tiller. And until that has happened, there should be no more talk of a "handover of power" to Brown as though it was written on a tablet of stone.