Go 1984
What a superb Windows program that is. It records only when something happens. You can get years of coverage on a hard drive. However the police are asking the licence holder to install equipment which can be used to incriminate themselves. It is quite possible to go back and delete scenes, especially the ones with the underage selling.
Now answering the question of why CCTV is so popular, it's because the police won't investigate a crime unless it's on CCTV, so if you want their help then you had better record some evidence. This was a double edged sword, until they made it illegal to film them. OK so that's now unavoidable so it simply won't be admissable in court because admitting you have the police on tape will be admitting to a crime.
Now we still have sensible people in the police but they are coming up for retirement. They will be replaced by young thugs and smart evil graduates who will find very creative ways of using these new all encompasing powers.
We already have the doublethink which says children should never be exposed to alcohol, backed by increasingly bizzar government health advice.
Most people on this site can see this happening, infact most people can see this Police State crap happening. However some people are still rationalizing it by saying it's not that bad and it's already here (as if that makes it ok). It's incremental.
The next thing has got to be the linking of the cameras to government approved monitoring station due to the problems of licencees tampering with the data and the benifits of better CCTV coverage. Oh it's not here yet but it's clearly down the road just a few years.
A change of government won't help, it's not really Labour doing all this. It is at the moment because they are in the driving seat, but they are not planning the journey. A change of courty won't help becaue this crap is being directed globally. Anyone who is glad they are not in the UK, just watch out, you're next.