> the goal in question is explicitly Orwell-style surveillance
Because that's the only politically correct thing they can do.
Because that's the only politically correct thing they can do.
This is not even wrong. There is a long list of 'politically correct' things the government could do which are inconvenient (timing-wise) as they would highlight their fallibility/incompetence. First on the list is to stop the drastic cuts[1] they instituted to the police force. A close second is to stop exporting jihadists (that's right: exporting civilian British nationals[2]) to wage war in Islamic countries. It is unfortunate that saving face in light of the impending snap-elections is preventing real solutions from being implemented; instead, we get security theatre that sounds good to the electorate but wouldn't even have prevented the previous attacks - a necessary factor for the action to be considered as an improvement at the very least. Right now the issues are totally unrelated; just opportunistic legislation.
1. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/02/inspectorate...
2. https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/the-manchester-bombi...