[Anonymous]

[excessbaggage]

Just announced in the commons by Transport Secretary Philip Hammond. I guess it should make me feel safer on my commute, but somehow it doesn’t…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13521747

[pomerol]

excessbaggage

Know exactly what you mean, having Armed British Transport Police patroling the rail network, makes me feel slightly uneasy.

[Redjohn]

How wonderful. I remember travelling to Sofia around 20 years ago and noted how many CCTV cameras, secret police and armed guards there were around the city. It was quite unnerving and made you realise how lucky you were to live in the West.

This was at a time when the IRA were fully active and supposedly our lives were in danger.

It’s a tragic escalation in the intrusion on our daily lives disguised as making us safer. Safe from whom, exactly?

[O.C.D.P]

Redjohn

I fail to see how armed officers are intruding on our daily lives, should we not appreciate that the government are taking steps to safeguard transport hubs from specific threats. The possibility of a ‘Mumbai’ style attack is a real threat which the security services are constantly picking up ‘chatter’ on, and the use of static or on location assests would give those first responders the best chance of containing the situation in the first instance.

I would say the comparison to the IRA campaign against mainland UK, would be an unsuitable one to draw upon. The threat posed by the IRA was almost exclusively bomb related here and therefore the need for armed officers didnt exist, however different measures were, the removal / sealing of bins in all transport hubs and specialist search dogs for example. And surely the regular bomb scares and hoaxes particulary in London were more intrusive / disruptive than the sight of armed officers.
Different threat, different deterrent / protection.

[NTarrant]

I have to agree with VitaBrevis etc, we already have armed police at airports and rail stations should be no different. Don’t see why anyone should feel unsafe by certain police officers being armed. After all it is not all officers on every beat.

[Redjohn]

Oh Vitabrevis how naiive are you to imagine that our caring goverment has only our welfare in mind! Armed police there to shelter us from harm eh, just ask Jean Charles De Menezes how he feels about that eh.

Utter nonsense. Armed police on the tube or anywhere for that matter is not the British way which has never required armed people on the tube.

[O.C.D.P]

I am intrigued Redjohn to hear what you believe then to be the reason for armed officers being deployed if it is not to protect people and infrastructure? I presume there is some ‘fascinating’ conspiracy theory to follow?

I really dont believe that what happened in the De Menezes case should hamstring current measures for public security. On another day the actions taken by the officers involved may well have prevented a terrorist attrocity. De Menezes was essentially in the wrong place at the wrong time, days after 1 of the deadliest terror attacks on the UK.

I do agree that armed police ‘is not the British way’, and in an ideal world no police officer would need to be armed, however i am sure you are well aware that this is not an ideal world and the simple fact that they have not been required in the past does not mean they are not required now. As previously stated the nature of the threats to the UK have changed and our security posture has to adapt to reflect this, if it were not necessary it would not be happening.

[Charles-P]

It is worth remembering in the De Menezes case that the police involved were running TOWARD a man they thought was a suicide bomber. In other circumstances these officers would have been receving bravery awards. It was their commander who let them down with poor intelligence when the unfortunate De Menezes was confused with some body else.

[VintageKrug]

Though I don’t think a detailed discussion of the De Menezes case is relevant to this forum, the full facts of the case for those interested can be read here:

http://www.mpa.gov.uk/scrutinies/stockwell/

[Author]

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