Chris Lowe: 'CCTV makes Britain a gulag'

Chris Lowe has complained about the planned introduction of ID cards and prevalence of CCTV cameras in Britain.

The Pet Shop Boys keyboard player told thelondonpaper that the number of cameras installed in the UK makes the country seem like a Cold War-era prison in the USSR.

Lowe said: "I can go on about ID cards, and how CCTV cameras have turned Britain into a gulag.

"You get off a train at a railway station and it's like a prison camp. There's not one little camera - they're all over the place."

Bandmate Neil Tennant added: "People would have found it slightly sinister at one time. But a generation has grown up thinking: 'Whatever.'

"Two years ago, 70% of the public were in favour of ID cards, now over 70% are against them. Thank you the Pet Shop Boys. Having brought down the Berlin Wall, we're taking on ID cards."

The group's 2007 single 'Integral' addressed the issue of ID cards, while new B-side 'We're All Criminals Now' chronicles the shooting of unarmed Brazilian Jean Charles De Menezes by the Metropolitan Police in 2005.