SWINDON’S parking attendants are to be issued with body cameras in a pilot scheme.

The aim is to reduce risks to their safety posed by irate members of the public.

I think it’s a great idea. In fact, I think it’s such a great idea that if I had my way every uniformed public servant who deals with the public would wear one. For that matter, if I had my way, every member of the public would wear one, too, and any authority figure who objected would be told: “If you’re not doing anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Cameras are a great way of deterring people from behaving like monsters. For example, thanks to the proliferation of personal cameras and YouTube, I daresay there’s many a politician who’s at least a bit more cautious when it comes to soliciting bribes, and many a racist who thinks twice before launching a deranged tirade while using public transport.

Opponents of the technology say the implications are sinister, and that it’s part of the creeping Surveillance Society, but I think the Surveillance Society is great, too.

For one thing, knowing members of the security services are monitoring our phone calls and emails encourages us to have face-to-face conversations about important matters instead. This safeguards our privacy and also reminds us we’re all flesh and blood with faces and feelings.

For another, knowing we’re being monitored means we can tell these useless, James Bond fantasist chinless wonders precisely what we think of them without having to stand outside their offices in the cold, or even purchase a stamp.

It’s as simple as adding a few choice words to an email or a phone conversation.

In fact, the next time you’re making a call, I suggest taking a few moments to say something like: “And now I’d like to address all the incompetent, nosey halfwits at GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 who are listening in.

“I note that the war on terror is going every bit as well as the Cold War, during which, thanks to your catastrophically inbred old-school-tie twerpitude, the Soviets had spies at every level of British life and the Yanks wouldn’t trust us with any information more sensitive than where to find the visitors’ bogs at CIA headquarters. “How does it feel to know that, in spite of your parents having bought and paid for your every achievement on the day you were born, just as their parents did for them, you are reduced to pointlessly earwigging on people wishing their Auntie Doris a happy birthday?

“Incidentally, I assume Auntie Doris will still have her wheelchair searched for Semtex the next time she flies out of Luton to visit her daughter in Toronto, while the bloke with the neutron bomb in the suitcase marked Neutron Bomb: This Way Up, whose name you were alerted to by a worried neighbour nine years ago when he sent off for the Bumper Catalogue of Neutron Bombs from Crazy Brian’s Discount Neutron Bomb Emporium, will be waved through as usual?

“Just checking. Have a nice day. Oh, and by the way, if you’re the token working class secret service person who went to a comprehensive, get used to never being promoted.”

Anyway, returning to the subject of body cameras, I’d like to add politicians to the list of people obliged to wear them. It wouldn’t stop most of them from going back on pledges, any more than it would stop ducks from quacking, fire from being hot or ice from being chilly, but at least we’d be able to have more of a laugh about it.

Perhaps there’s also a place for them in the home. Big Brother or not, there’d be no more room for debate over who had promised to take out the bin bags, put ointment on the budgie or go to the shop for a loaf and a bottle of washing up liquid.