Fiona MacDonald

What did you find most encouraging?
Discrimination (in terms of race, sexuality, disability) seems to have become ever more unacceptable in the first decade of the century. Of course we are still not a perfect country and no doubt new forms may be on the rise, but the young people I work with seem to have an unerring understanding that equal opportunity for all is a vital right which must be strived for. A few months ago, I was shocked to discover that as recently as the 1950s, Alan Turing, father of computing and breaker of the Enigma code, was given a choice between prison and chemical castration, having been found guilty of a homosexual act – he chose the latter and eventually committed suicide. Now, reality TV shows like 'Big Brother' or 'I'm a Celebrity' treat gay relationships no differently to any other – something to be gossiped over, hoped for, observed, commented on exactly like that of any straight couple. There is still a long way to go, and now we have Islamophobia, and we still don't have enough women in top offices, but I believe advances towards a discrimination-free society have, at least, been consolidated in the last 10 years.

What did you find most discouraging?
This is an easy one for me: the new baseline assumption that we are all potential suspects and/or potential victims. What is it about Britain that makes it essential for us to be more closely monitored by CCTV cameras than any other nation on earth? Why are there more of us on the national DNA database than any other country (5.2% of the population compared with, for example, 0.5% in the USA)? Why is it that when I am sitting watching TV minding my own business I am assaulted by a public information advertisement which ends with the words, 'Benefit thieves, it's not if we catch you, it's when'. Why am I not accorded the courtesy of any kind of assumption that this warning may not be applicable to me personally?
     It seems we have become a nation living under the cosh of an all-pervasive fear of crime which the media and the state either actively encourage or at least do nothing to discourage. So, little by little, our civil liberties are chipped away and we find ourselves in a society where anti-terrorism laws are invoked to question tourists taking photographs of London landmarks and, indeed, a man taking a picture of a fish and chip shop in Chatham in Kent (he was arrested and later 'dearrested' and had his subsequent complaint upheld).
     If we allow fear of terrorism and other crimes (no matter how dreadful) to dominate the way we live our lives, then we are handing the terrorists, muggers, murderers and yobs a victory. I was sitting at my desk one day this year when I received a phone call from someone who said she was phoning in co-operation with my bank. She talked at some length about the awful difficulties which befall people whose credit cards are used fraudulently – the cost in terms of the time it takes to sort everything out, the great difficulty of proving that it wasn’t I who used the card, and so on. She then went on to say that for just £50 her company could remove all this worry at a stroke and would it be okay if they took the money from my account that day? When I thanked her but said that I was not interested she summoned an extraordinary degree of surprise into her voice and asked why not. I understand people who do cold calling have a list of possible customer responses and guidelines for their reply. I could tell from the confused silence that followed that my response was not on the list: 'Because I am sick of fear being used to manipulate people in this country'.
     Let's make the second decade of the century one when we decide to stop living in fear and just get on with our lives freely. And to those who say, 'If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear', I say, 'How much money do you have in the bank? Not my business? But, surely, if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear'.

Which public figure did you most admire?
I can't think of anyone who has impressed me so much that I would nominate him/her for this but this year I did have enormous respect for Malcolm Chisholm when he showed great independence of mind and refused to follow the party line in the Megrahi debate.

Which public figure did you least admire?
Tony Blair, of course.