Snapping point

Charlie Brooker: To politicians, we're little more than meaningless blobs on a monitor

My personal snapping point was reached last week, at the precise moment Jack Straw announced the government was vetoing the Information Tribunal's order for the release of cabinet minutes relating to that whole invasion-of-Iraq thing. Come on, you remember Iraq: that little foreign policy blip millions of us protested against to absolutely zero avail, because Straw and his pals figured they knew best, even though it turned out they didn't and - oops! - hundreds of thousands of lives were lost as a result. Remember the footage of that screaming little boy with his limbs blown off? Maybe not. Maybe you felt a shiver of guilt when you saw that; guilt that you hadn't personally done enough to prevent it; should've shouted louder, marched further. Or maybe it stunned you into numbness. Because what was the point in protesting any more? These people do what they want.