For
"Liberal Democrat MPs", read "Paul Keetch MP", the Member for Hereford and Lib Dem Defence spokesman.
According to the Mirror, he went on to say:
"The Mirror has exposed a huge gap in our security. It's no good having armed police on the front gates at Westminster if someone can hover in the sky only 1500ft up."
Which, roughly translated, means
'That should ensure me good coverage in the Mirror, and appeal to the Mirror readers in my constituency.'
Politicians are not stupid when it comes to headline- grabbing comments - and it won't have escaped Mr Keetch's attention that the journo who wrote today's nonsense [Day 2] is the Deputy Political Editor of the Mirror. Like it or not, tabloids sell the most newspapers in this country, and Press coverage is oxygen to politicians. Rather important to keep well in with the Deputy Political Editor of a national newspaper!
"The Government should think about an air exclusion zone around sensitive buildings.
Does Mr Keetch wish to see a 'water exclusion zone' along the Thames beside the Houses of Parliament? A terrorist could carry a much bigger bomb in a large boat than in a camera bag in a small helicopter.
An air exclusion zone? I don't know how long Mr Keetch has been an MP, but he clearly doesn't look up on his way to work, or when having tea on the terrace, because he's not noticed helicopters passing by. The Heli Route across London for single-engine helicopters is along the river. Or perhaps Mr Keetch is extremely hard of hearing? According to the yesterday's story, a JetRanger at 1500' caused "so much noise that guests at a special lunch attended by Lord Tebbit could hardly hear themselves speak." (It must be true - it was in the Mirror.)
I wonder what Lord Tebbit thinks of the Mirror's ideas - he was an airline pilot until he became an MP in the early 70's.
Perhaps the Mirror would like to see airliners prohibited from flying over London in case we have aother 9/11? It would close Heathrow whenever there's a Westerly wind (
ie most days) but what does that matter, it would be quite a coup for the Mirror if their campaign closed one of the world's busiest international airports.
"We need to review how easy it is for people to hire helicopters and light aircraft - there must be proper identity checks."
Shame Mr Keetch didn't think this through before making such a suggestion. What 'proper identity checks' will he suggest when he has thought it through?
How would helicopter operators know if the ID given was genuine? Or, if genuine, whether the passenger was a terrorist?
We can turn up at Heathrow, buy a return ticket for an internal flight or the Irish Republic, and fly both legs without ever being asked to produce any form of ID - I did precisely that to/from Dublin only three weeks ago.
The point is, as many others have pointed out, that if terrorists wish to attack, there are far more effective ways to do it than hiring a small helicopter and carrying a bomb in a camera bag.
A suicide hit at a big building would almost certainly kill those on board, but it would be a total fluke if anyone else was killed or injured.
Yesterday's
'Voice of the Daily Mirror' editorial, accompanying the 'shock horror' nonsense, said
'We could have killed most of the Cabinet at the right time.' (No obvious comments, please!) I suppose you could - if they were all out on the terrace at the same time and there was a bomb in the helicopter - but a boat on the river would be so much more effective.
We can never defend ourselves from every means terrorists might use - and would we want to try? Personally, I think the price is too high. If we turn ourselves into 'Fortress Britain', the terrorists have won.
If anyone wishes to contact Mr Keetch to answer his points, his e-mail addresses are:
Constituency Office
[email protected]
House of Commons
[email protected]
Perhaps we should - MP's frequently refer to the 'enormous number' of letters of support they've received.
Note
In view of my earlier post, I should point out that the views I've expressed here are my own. They should not be taken as representing the views of Biggin Hill Helicopters.
Of course, if we're all wrong and there genuinely is a serious problem, it's a little worrying that the Lib-Dem Defence spokesman didn't notice the
"huge gap in our security" until the Mirror 'exposed' it.
Mr Keetch would probably be the Defence Minister if the Lib-Dems won the next election. Doesn't inspire much confidence, does it?
