What are we being protected against?
As I pass another perspex container loaded with penknives... what, exactly, are we being protected from?
Assault on a plane? No. Everyone knows - and I mean everyone -that you can fashion perfectly serviceable weapons from the stuff you find onboard.
Another 9-11? No. There is no conceivable set of circumstances that this will repeat itself, even if penknives are passed out with the gin and tonics.
Lockerbie-style bomb? Taking my scissors away stops this how?
What does that leave? Confidence that 'something is being done'? Hardly. Working out that it's all a farce doesn't require Einstenian levels of brains. Do you know anyone who thinks differently?
I cannot see any possible justification for the continued high level of personal searches and confiscation of restricted items, apart from the fact it is a new Eden for the jobsworths.
R