UK - For all the security we are actually no safer

[buckthesystem]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jh...1/18/do1804.xml

By Jenny McCartney

I don't know precisely what variety of persuasive tactics our Government is considering using on captured terrorist suspects, but they certainly seem to work on its ministers. At 8.13 last Wednesday morning Lord West, the Security Minister, firmly told the Today programme that he needed "absolute evidence" before he could be convinced that it was necessary to detain terrorist suspects for more than 28 days.

By 9.15, after a "security meeting" at Number 10, Lord West's opinions had been substantially refreshed. His strong feeling was that "Yes, we will need more than 28 days." By 9.49, he was positively bullish, pressing for urgent legislation "so that we have the necessary powers when we need them". Heaven knows what he might have endorsed by mid-day, if the microphones had still been plugged in.

It is difficult not to feel some sympathy with Lord West, who seems a thoughtful man suddenly placed in a political pressure-cooker. But the rolling revision of his views, in time with news bulletins, acts as a metaphor for our Government's response to terrorism: it is policy on the run.

advertisementSo the Government is pushing for a 58-day detention limit for terrorist suspects. It is also intent upon introducing an identity card for every British citizen, including highly personal biometric data which everyone who renews a passport from 2009 onwards will be compelled to supply. Air travellers will soon be forced to give up to 53 pieces of information to the Home Office before travelling. Rail passengers may have their bags randomly screened at selected "high-risk" stations.

If anyone objects to such initiatives, the Government replies in pious style that they are necessary elements in the domestic war against terror. Yet there is no evidence that any of these measures could have done anything to prevent, for example, the suicide-bomb attacks on the London transport system on July 7, 2005.

I do not treat the threat of terrorism lightly, nor disregard the fact that practical steps must be taken to restrict its reach. By all means reinforce buildings and think carefully about where you build car-parks. I grew up in Belfast in the 1970s and 80s, when customers' handbags were routinely searched at every shop entrance, and areas were regularly cordoned off because of "suspect devices".

I never once resented such minor impositions. But then, even at Belfast airport at the height of the Troubles, I never saw anything like the achingly slow, appallingly-managed "security" that characterised our trip out of Stansted airport a few weeks ago. Passengers were mired for up to an hour in a near-motionless queue, while at the front elderly ladies were being told to remove their shoes. When I finally informed a glazed airport employee that my husband, restless baby and I were now in imminent danger of missing our flight, her mantra was: "You've just got to stay in the queue. Take it up with your airline".

The same charade, I fear, could soon be underway at major British railway stations. If Mr Brown is determined to have a "Fortress Britain" - and I have yet to be convinced that peering under pensioners' insoles is the best way to secure it - he had better require airports and stations to provide the necessary number of trained security staff and assistants, working fast. The alternative is a Shambles Britain, in which the dull threat of terror hangs permanently in the air, knocking every journey out of shape.

One grim truth must be faced, which is that no functioning Western country can terror-proof itself against suicide bombers. Where an IRA bomber at least yearned to get back safely to the lads in South Armagh, an al-Qaeda bomber wishes to be propelled straight to Paradise. Suppose that a suicide bomber is not selected for a random search at a railway station, and boards a train: carnage ensues. Suppose that he is stopped: carnage ensues, only at the checkpoint instead, surrounded by fellow-travellers.

The real preventative work will come from intelligence-gathering, the cultivation of civic-minded informants from within the British Muslim community, and the publicising of a trustworthy conduit for tip-offs such as the "confidential telephone". We are, and will remain, primarily reliant on the initiative and judgment of the security services and government. That is why in recent weeks there have been certain revelations that should make us very worried indeed.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission found that the London police showed severe failures in its command and communication structure while in pursuit of the late Jean-Charles de Menezes, a falsely perceived terrorist suspect, using radios that do not function in the Underground. The Home Office has authorised 10,000 illegal immigrants to work in the security industry in Britain. And Britain's newly-appointed most senior intelligence official, Alex Allan, has a personal website that publicises his home address and telephone numbers.