AIR TRAVEL IS A MISERY BUT THERE’S A SPARK OF LIGHT OVER THE HORIZON
NEVER mind the lying brochures of beaming, happy tourists heading off on holiday through a charming airport experience. Let us be frank, air travel is becoming more and more an unrelieved misery, and the core of that hair-tearing experience is what passes for secoooooority.
Yes, we are told our safety is paramount and yes, we do not want to be blown up. We are told we must defeat the terrorist with his bomb, desperate to board the same flight as us. We are not told the gloomy truth – the terrorists have actually won inasmuch as they have made our lives a misery just by the threat cast by their existence.
Last week I had to spend five days in Florida which meant passing through Gatwick South on the way out, then into the US via Orlando airport, then back again via both. Pleasure? You must be joking.
All four airport-transits were exhausting. Queue for check-in. Half a mile hike to passport control. Another hike and half an hour queue for security – empty briefcase, jacket, belt, shoes, coins, specs, and semi-nude through the scanners. Get dressed again. Hike to departure lounge. Hike to boarding. Slump into seat. Arrive. Start again. Another hour of queueing. Slump into the taxi.
I do not know what the UK figures are but I believe that since 9/11 a trillion passenger-hours have been spent queueing for security vetting and a trillion dollars spent. Bomb-carrying terrorists discovered – zero. That’s just across the pond. Americans are being slaughtered all right but by each other in schools and by weapons openly bought from the local war-outfitter.
But two pieces of good news: Baroness Sugg tells us our scientists have developed gizmos that will soon be able to let us keep our coats, jackets and shoes on and still be perceived not to be carrying a bomb.
Across the Channel the French are proposing 1,500 prison places in jails entirely isolated to contain jihadi convicts only so that the fanatics cannot persuade and convert non-terrorists to join them when they are released. Not a bad idea.
Our security services – MI6, MI5, GCHQ and the police counter-terrorism branches – deserve our gratitude for the exposure and arrest of those planning to murder us. We may not notice until we study the small print in our papers because child-grooming grabs the headlines but the harvest of terror-planners is endless and they all go inside for years. But then they form entire societies dedicated to preaching and converting.
The French have it right. The jihadists could be concentrated together but then separated into specialist jails where they can talk only to each other.