If you've not seen this yet...

[spudtater]

The British are feeling the pinch in relation to recent attempted bombings and have raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." Brits have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorised from "Tiresome" to a "Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was during the great fire of 1666.

Comments

[feorag.livejournal.com]

It's back down to "Miffed" again.

[markadm.livejournal.com]

I personally don't find this very funny, considering the huge impact this has on police and other security services. :(

(But I can see its humour, too... oh, well!)

[gominokouhai]

Stop whining. It's not as if your lot actually had to do anything. In this case, The Looming Threat Of Global Terror was thwarted entirely by:

1. An ambulance crew;


2. A traffic warden;


3. A bunch of neds looking to get their fight on in Glasgow;


4. Bollards.

I've been more terrorized by blancmange.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

> 4. Bollards.

Devilish cunning things, bollards.
And vicious when they're cornered... :-)

[gominokouhai]

Now you're just talking bollards.

[markadm.livejournal.com]

Think wider. There's an awful lot to do.

[gominokouhai]

What, like stopping your boys flapping in panic about imaginary threats and getting them back to policing?

[markadm.livejournal.com]

Stop being so damn childish.

[gominokouhai]

Don't ever call me childish unless you can back it up, which in this instance I suspect you can't. I'm not the one tilting at windmills here.

If you're going to act like a Key Insider who knows all about what's going on among the top brass in the war rooms, then you're going to have to take some responsibility for the fucking state this country is in. That's thinking ``wider''. Otherwise, you can admit that you are a civilian functionary attached to a local police force that hasn't even been the location of any terrorist incident.

The only extra work you're going to have to do is deal with the flood of complaints created when your blackshirts start coming up with new and interesting ways to abuse their new extended powers of unlimited stop and search.

(Why did you get rid of the white shirts anyway? Are you trying to look like thugs?)

[markadm.livejournal.com]

I don't have to admit anything; you seem to forget I do have some personal experience with counterterrorist incidents, and have knowledge of what the Police get up to. When I say "think wider", I mean realise the efforts and machinations that do go on, and have to go on in all Forces. Don't try and conflate the governance of this country, which is the purview of BlairBrown, etc., with the Police service's responsibility of guard, watch and patrol.

Oh, and don't try and do the "you're just a civilian thing". We're all civilians; in my case the lack of powers under the Police (Scotland) Act is irrelevant.

Use of section 44 still has to be proportionate...

[gominokouhai]

> you seem to forget I do have some personal experience with counterterrorist incidents

I didn't forget; I didn't know in the first place. Unless you're talking about G8, in which case I think there's something of a difference, but that's neither here nor there since you still would have more experience than me.

> I mean realise the efforts and machinations that do go on

Go on then: what, exactly, are you having to do now that you weren't having to do this time last week? All of the perpetrators of the latest hilarious jape are in custody. The threat assessment has been downgraded again. We are no more at risk now than we have been for the last thirty years—I would say significantly less so: at least the IRA actually knew how to make a bomb that had a chance of going off.

> Don't try and conflate the governance of this country[...] with the Police service's responsibility

I'm trying not to. That's exactly why I want your boys back out on the Grassmarket where I need them and not industriously strip-searching everyone of a vaguely brown complexion.

[luckylove.livejournal.com]

I found it hilarious.

It's related to this comment by Marc Brett.

During the WWII blitz, when the danger was very real, the message wasn't one of fear and angst, but "Keep Calm and Carry On". I wish we had that message in today's phony war on terra.

Yes it's tough on most of us but we won't let that get us down. We'll just Carry On!

[fenland.livejournal.com]

We'll just Carry On! .... up the bollards...?!

[luckylove.livejournal.com]

*groans*

[spudtater.livejournal.com]

Eh? It's more about the British qualities of stoicism and understatement than anything else. I'm certainly grateful for the services of the police etc. in keeping the country safe, but I'm not going to get all melodramatic about anything — that would just be tacky. (i.e. American)   8^)

(I would put the danger from the wave of violence currently sweeping across Glasgow as more significant than that posed by incompetent terrorists, but this is another discussion entirely).

[scattergather.livejournal.com]

Or even competent ones for that matter (at least with availability levels of competent terrorists broadly in line with what they are now). The effort expended in countering terrorism within the UK is way out of proportion to the actual real physical damage it does or could do under a much more less invasive (and less expensive) security climate. Much of the money (including that lost due to excessive security measures) could be far more productively spent on other measures in terms of reducing deaths and injuries. There's a need for preventative measures against terrorism, but balanced ones.

Of course, this discounts the fact that many of the primary intended purposes of terrorism are psychological in nature (there's a clue in the name) and those are difficult to put an economic price on, but given what's been happening to civil liberties, I think I'd rather the shrinks took up a bit more of the slack than the securocrats.

I don't think this is a callous thing to say; considerations of cost and disruption are always going to feature in decisions about security measures; budgets are set, benefits are weighed. It is therefore entirely legitimate to question whether these assessments have been performed optimally. Gathering evidence (not the "for the prosecution" sort) relating to the effects and risks from terrorism to use in calibrating security measures is essential -- it can help establish a rational counter-strategy to terrorism, and it can be used to help counter the psychological effects. Pity it's less of a vote winner...

[scattergather.livejournal.com]

I first saw this after the tube bombings. People died then, and it was still funny. Gallows humour is healthy (especially here given the psychological neffects of terrorism). Just ask a forensic pathologist.

[scotm.livejournal.com]

The Register: the lens of truth through satire

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/02/terror_idiocy_outbreak/

[spudtater.livejournal.com]

Good article.   8^)