Nanny Knows Best

Nanny Knows Best
Dedicated to exposing, and resisting, the all pervasive nanny state that is corroding the way of life and the freedom of the people of Britain.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Nanny's Airport Security

La PetomaneFollowing on from the recent alleged terrorist plot, Nanny has ratcheted up the security measures at the airports and in doing so has engendered a mild sense of hysteria in some people.

A couple of days ago a woman was handcuffed on a plane, as she suffered a panic attack and was found to be carrying some hand cream. Today it was reported that a man was given a sound kicking, when he was suspected of trying to light his own farts.

A Sky MarshallLuckily a sky marshall was on board the plane, and saved the day by inserting a large rubber bung up the fart lighter's arse.

As a result of this incident Nanny will be upgrading her security advice to airlines and insisting that all passengers have a rubber bung inserted up their arses.

Additionally, she is insisting that these new custom designed security seats be installed as soon as possible.

The Electric Commode

To see a detailed picture of the Electric Commode, please click this lick The Electric Commode.

Postcards of the above design can be purchased here Electric Commode Postcards.

OK folks, maybe part of the above was a slight exaggeration!

However, I would contend that the security measures and ensuing hysteria have done little to improve the long term (read that bit carefully) security of the UK or of passengers departing from UK airports.
  • The current level of security checks are unsustainable.


  • BA has had to cancel 13000 flights since last Thursday, this is economically unsustainable.


  • Over 20000 bags have been "lost/misplaced" since last Thursday. Fortunately the baggage handlers at Heathrow are a very honest bunch of people, and as such passengers can rest assured that their "lost" bags will not be interfered with in any way.


  • Despite the security checks a 12 year old boy managed to get on board a plane, and a man returned to an empty plane to look for a lost wallet.


  • Aside from the increased security at British airports, European airports are as they were before. As such, were you part of the "crescent of evil" you could simply pop over on the channel tunnel (which has no extra security) to France, board a flight there back to London and as a transfer passenger board a long haul flight with your tube of toothpaste still on your person.


  • As for the rest of us travelling by train or tube, tough luck, the security remains as before.
Nanny is good at raising bogeymen and imposing draconian rules, but she is not good at managing the consequences. Clearly the current security measures will have to be relaxed, otherwise the airline industry will grind to a halt.

Here are a few simple ideas that I have for improving the situation:

1 Allow only one small clear bag onto a plane, containing "safe" items. The previous situation, whereby people were bringing all manner of crap on board was a ridiculous nonsense anyway.

2 Ensure that people only book into the hold of a plane 1 item of baggage per person, with a maximum weight. The vast array of ski equipment, boxes and bits and bobs that some people carry severely delays the check in process. Should you wish to transport your kitchen sink, then place the extra load on board a separate plane specially designated for delivery of such items.

3 Do away with 100% hand searches of people and their carry on luggage, instead use profiling to identify the high risk traveller. Therein lies the problem with Nanny, she seeks to zeroise risk, rather than manage it.

None of the above are radical or new ideas. However, at the moment, it seems that the relevant authorities are behaving in some senses like headless chickens and not sitting down calmly and working through what really needs to be done.

In the meantime, the alleged terrorists much be rubbing their hands with glee as they see the chaos that they have caused.

9 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:44 AM

    Ken,

    I think you may have missed Nanny's point on this.

    She really wants us to stop travelling and making all that nasty poisonous CO2 stuff on which life depends. Making travelling, especially by air, even more unpleasant than it was is a master strategy in that war.

    To take you ideas in order ...

    1.

    I used to travel regularly for business. I could get enough stuff into a briefcase and saddlebag (just about the max size allowed on a flight) to cover a Monday out, Friday return business trip. I knew where my stuff was and could check in, transit between flights and exit at the destination much more relaibly than I could if I had to deal with a separate case in the hold.

    An small clear bag would not hack it nor make my journey more managable for the airline. Worse not hat so much business travel involved laptops, mobile phones and so on.

    Indeed in the 9/11 events it seems that the availability of mobiles was the only way to tell what was going on ...

    2. (And to some extent a continuation of 1 ...)

    The paraphernalia of business travel for many people wil involve the tools of their trade so some method of allowing for that would be required.

    On the other hand banning sports equipment could be viewed as a good health and safety move and cut the cost of insurance for winter holidays for example.

    I have noticed that certian types of traveller do seem more prone to carry all sort of stuff with them, especially once outside the european airports and into the areas the other side of the Med.

    Your plan for a second plane would obviously not suit Nanny's aforementioned plans to cut air movements. However it might well benefit the baggage handlers at major airports.

    3. I predict a whole new industry or two trying to create computer systems to 'profile' everyone on the one hand and for obscuring 'profiles' on the other.

    Personally I think the authorities are gleeful at this opportuinty to introduce more controls and care not what the effects are. The many other controls whihc seem to have achieved nothing or less than nothing in the last few years are offered as evidence to support that statement.

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  2. Anonymous2:04 PM

    Grant; yep. Nanny's solution to medicine not working is always to give more of it:

    CCTV in city centres didn't stop crime: solution, more cameras

    Reducing speed limits and putting cameras all over the place didn't reduce the number of deaths on the road: solution even lower limits and more cameras.

    Restricting sales of number plates didn't stop car clonging: solution, futher restrict the number of places that can sell them by adding RFID technology.

    and so on....

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  3. Anonymous2:05 PM

    Oops: "clonging"?! Should be "cloning"

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  4. Anonymous2:23 PM

    Oh dear Ken, you are turning into Nanny with all your restrictions and computer systems. Never thought I'd see the day.

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  5. Anonymous8:49 PM

    Anon said:
    "Grant; yep. Nanny's solution to medicine not working is always to give more of it:"

    I believe the technical term is 'Cognitive dissonance'.

    Even though you know something is not working you carry on doing the same thing.

    Nanny is particularly prone to that, having no ideas of merit of her own or from her advisors.

    Indeed her advisors seem to recognise the problem and readily modify their advice to fit the dissonant model, recommending that others do the same.

    www.ippr.org.uk/ecomm/files/warm_words.pdf

    Just one example of many.

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  6. Anonymous8:56 PM

    Ken, good to see that pic of Le Petomane. I'd almost forgotten about him.

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  7. The technical term may be 'Cognitive dissonance'.

    However, I prefer the laymans term.

    'Unable to find their own arses with both hands and a GPS'

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  8. Bagpuss

    Here is a link for you

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_P%C3%A9tomane

    Ken

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  9. Anonymous11:43 AM

    I have little doubt that once the EU version of the GPS satellite system goes live EU bureacrats will be doubly unable to find their own arses. But maybe there is notheing to find? The lack of orifice would at least explain why they are so full of crap.

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