Orwell’s 1984 was supposed to be fiction… then it only went and came true (Picture: publicity picture)

Big Brother, the thought police, Room 101, newspeak.

Elements of the nightmarish vision evoked in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four are entrenched in our language and culture.

Only last week, the issue of surveillance famously explored in the book surfaced again with the news that emergency powers to allow police and security services to continue monitoring phone and internet records are to be rushed through parliament.

When the novel was published, the year Orwell chose for the dystopian society inhabited by Winston Smith was still 35 years off.


Emma Carr, acting director of Big Brother Watch, said: ‘It was supposed to be a warning, not a guidebook on how to create a surveillance state.



‘Yet, it is remarkable how many tools that were used to suppress in Nineteen Eighty-Four are now part of the everyday surveillance regime in 2014.’

In the book, telescreens allow Big Brother to keep subjects under constant watch and the concept of citizens being spied on by officialdom is a hugely controversial issue today.

‘It is remarkable how many tools that were used to suppress in Nineteen Eighty-Four are now part of the everyday surveillance regime in 2014’ (Picture: publicity picture)

Britain’s CCTV network is one of the largest in the world, while National Security Agency files leaked by Edward Snowden shone a light on the extent of online surveillance.

Jim Edwards, of the Business Insider website, said today’s technology is more efficient for surveillance purposes than telescreens. ‘Mobile phones and computers do a much better job of tracking our real interests and unspoken desires,’ he said.

Prof Richard Keeble, chairman of the Orwell Society, said: ‘The disclosures by Edward Snowden suggest surveillance is going on to an extraordinary degree today.’

Orwell’s vision included:

Endless wars – Prof Keeble said there were parallels between Orwell’s perpetual war and the West’s long- running ‘war on terror’.

Newspeak – The language of Oceania is a pared-down version of English used to control. The use of jargon by organisations and political parties (‘key performance indicators’, ‘hardworking families’) is a feature of life today.

Censorship – The Ministry of Truth controls the dissemination of information by doctoring photographs and rewriting archives. Revisionism has made headlines recently in the furore over ‘right to be forgotten’ legislation.

Torture – Winston Smith is tortured in Room 101. Prof Keeble said: ‘Torture has become very much part of western politics. I think to that extent it is prescient.’