Want proper security? Get in the queue

THE point is they don’t expect to find anything anyway: bombs, blades or weapons of mass destruction. You probably think that with a shortfall of 1,500 people intended by G4S to provide security at the Olympics, we are now missing a detail of crack, trained personnel, ready to smother grenades or take a bullet for the citizenry, coldly efficient in their mission to root out any activity or substance that might prove a danger.

Not entirely. What we have lost here is 1,500 bored young people working part-time for extra cash. They are no more engaged with some grand security operation than the girl on the checkout counter at Asda is channelling corporate strategy at Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

You open a bag, they take a cursory look inside and send you on your way. You could walk in dressed as a cartoon anarchist in a cape and carrying a black balloon with ‘BOMB’ written on the side and you would probably get the same dead-eyed response.

As for the concept of expert training, if a G4S security guard did actually find a large device with a ticking timer and all manner of wires poking out, he would merely call a professional — the same as you or I.

We are not talking the kind of folk who jog beside the President’s motorcade here. These are parttimers, and the nature of security at major tournaments, and the huge numbers involved, mean that most operate on autopilot.

The reason Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, was interviewed on nine different occasions by police before his arrest was that the investigation had become so widespread and unwieldy that none of the officers believed the man in front of them was the killer anyway. He was just another guy to be processed, his details placed on record, and dismissed.

Modern security is like that, too. For instance, G4S security guards also check each visitor to the Wimbledon tennis tournament daily. A great many are old dears, the epitome of Middle England, the overwhelming majority so plainly benign it is akin to conducting body cavity searches at the village fete.

So the guards peer into their bags, see the usual, onto the next one. Some attempt a little chat. Most have long run out of small talk.

No method is entirely satisfactory. Some guards are irritatingly thorough, others disturbingly random and haphazard. They are bored, we are bored. It is mind-numbing work and full of awkward compromise.

If a security man is too eager, the queue lengthens and people get tetchy. If the guard is sloppy, people question the worth of such a superficial investigation.

I have a briefcase with eight zips and 14 compartments and regularly get searched at sporting events. Fewer than half of these pockets and pouches have ever been opened by a G4S security staff member because it would be a waste of time. They know I’m not a terrorist; I know they are going through the motions. We do our thing and part.

SO G4S are being paid their £57 million management fee for the illusion of security, because the real stuff — the type found at Tel Aviv airport — would cost 20 times that, and you would need to get in line now for your women’s hockey preliminary match in August.

G4S look in my briefcase, see my laptop equipment and are satisfied. At airports, the same piece of kit has to be put through a scanner. At the Salt Lake City Olympic Games in 2002, my laptop also had to be turned on to make sure it was not a shell disguising a device more sinister.

So which is method is correct? You’ve got me. It would seem that one system for safety is the best, and should therefore be uniform, but we factor in all manner of peripheral issues depending on the location.

Even after the July 7 bombings in London, there are no bag checks at Tube stations. How could there be? We need to get to work, and the system is on its last legs as it is, without introducing airport- style security and adding four hours to the daily commute.

The Army guys who will be filling the hole at the Olympics could be a different proposition. They seem the sort of people who are a tad serious about national security. The brand of it offered by G4S is mostly a figment of our imaginations.