Driving out of London along Western Avenue on a sunny January morning, the Gatso speed cameras are flashing and popping like crazy. No one is driving fast, but the speed limit for traffic on this part of the M40 motorway decreases four times in as many minutes and catching offenders who are running the latest limit is money for old rope. In response, drivers brake and swerve at the last second. Spotting speed cameras has become a major preoccupation and must be a safety hazard in itself, although official figures are unlikely to reveal this fact. The squat, gray Gatso speed-camera boxes have become an appropriate symbol for today's Britain; they should appear on the new Jubilee stamps. Elizabeth I had Sir Thomas Walsingham; Elizabeth II has Big Brother. Of course, Big Brother is a lot more popular.

Returning from years of living abroad, one finds one is forever living in a foreign land. What happened to all those stroppy, funny, tolerant, and eccentric Brits I seem to remember? Perhaps they never existed. The certainly bear no resemblance to the nation of cowed, righteous, security-obsessed, bovine, authority-worshipping cretins who seem to have replaced them. Britain has approximately the same population and tax revenue as France. Furthermore, France has a massive and wasteful public sector that employs 20 percent of the working population. So how do French governments manage to provide adequate health care, good and free education, excellent public transportation, and a generous state pension scheme—not to mention a 35-hour working week? Big Brother seems to be not only sinister but greedy and incompetent by comparison. Surely, one day people in Britain will start to ask where their money has gone. In my opinion, too much has gone on Gatso speed cameras, which have been cunningly placed on many of the safest and straightest roads in Britain, where they carry out their prime function—increasing public revenue.

Of course, the French are far too lawless to tolerate such a brilliant invention, and would probably rip such cameras out of the ground and throw them through the windows of the nearest town hall. Some years ago, the authorities in Paris tried to introduce tow-away trucks to deal with the city's chaotic parking situation. This caused a few street riots, but the mayor stuck to his guns until Christmas, when the city closed down for the week and the trucks were locked into a car pound under a motorway overpass. When the truck drivers turned up for the first shift of the New Year, they found the entire fleet had been firebombed. New tow-away trucks were ordered, but they have rarely been seen at work. Thank God we don't behave like that in Britain.

Returning from abroad, one finds one has entered fortress Britain, an island under siege. Illegal immigrants are not getting a good press. I am not in the image-making business; but if I were, I would urge these unfortunate people to give a more positive impression of themselves. Once they have been released from a juggernaut lorry and received supermarket reward cards and lottery tickets, they should get cracking. They should be running their own instruction courses for Britain's bus and train drivers by now, since it is always reassuring to see a beard and a turban inside a driver's cab. And their children should be making themselves useful once school is out. They should gather at the traffic lights on the great exit roads of our cities equipped with old detergent bottles full of muddy water, which they could squirt over your rear number plate. This would be well-worth £1 a shot, since it would render speed cameras completely useless.

Wednesday, Jan. 16, is the first anniversary of the death of Auberon Waugh. He was one of the funniest and best-loved figures of the 20^th century and probably of the last 2,000 years. His friends wept when he died, but strangely when one thinks of him today it is usually with a smile. Bron used to rage against devices such as Gatso speed cameras, although he himself drove far too slowly and considerately ever to be troubled by one. If only he were still there to lead us on a crusade against the spiritual pygmies who have inflicted these machines on our country.