it depends what you believe; the UK media stories about bureaucratic incompetence and bungling or the colossal number of state employees and technologies deploy

it depends what you believe; the UK media stories about bureaucratic incompetence and bungling or the colossal number of state employees and technologies deployed to monitor everything (GCHQ, MI5/6 buildings across river from seat of democracy etc). If you wanted to build a vast surveillance state you'd cover your tracks by seeding the news media with stories of ineffectual incompetence and other fakery...