By: MIKE JOHNSON
ONE OF the first things Gordon Brown did when he took over from Tony Blair as Prime Minister of the UK was to announce that he would form a government of “all the talents”.
By this, he meant it was his intention to bring in experts from outside the political sphere, in an advisory capacity, to sort out the major problems.
The most important of these turned out to be Admiral Sir Alan West, a former head of the Royal Navy, to lead the fight against terrorism. His appointment was announced days before a spate of failed terrorist attacks, in which two cars packed with explosives failed to ignite in the heart of London and two men rammed a vehicle into the side of Glasgow Airport, before setting it, and one of the occupants, ablaze with petrol.
A total of eight people were subsequently arrested. Significantly, although all those involved turned out to be of Indian or Middle Eastern descent, they were only described in early official statements as being “non-British”.
This was intentional, as the last thing the authorities needed was to alienate Britain’s Muslim population. Their help was certainly going to be needed if the ensuing investigations were to be successful. To that end, Sir Alan appealed to the Muslim community to “snitch” on neighbours if it was suspected that they were involved, in any way. Although snitching is a schoolboy term for giving information, he said he had used it “to gain maximum attention”.
Internal security
These attacks were certainly different to previous ones, in that all those involved had been working within the National Health Service, two as doctors. All of them have been described as conscientious professionals or of having given no hint of fundamentalist tendencies. So what triggered them off? Without a doubt it was Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war.
The terrorists of Baghdad, inspired by insurgents from Iran and Syria, had successfully caused widespread havoc and wrecked the Iraqi economy. Their attention now turned elsewhere. An Anglican priest, working in Baghdad, told the BBC that terrorist cells were being recruited to send to Britain, to launch suicide bomb attacks amid a concerted drive to radicalise British Muslims. It is no coincidence that the first of these attacks occurred at the time Tony Blair was standing down as prime minister.
Of course, not all Muslims in Britain are potential terrorists. Most are not fundamentalists and believe terrorism is evil. It is to those that Sir Alan West was appealing. They may be reluctant to report a seemingly nice young man down the road who may or may not be a terrorist, but would be horrified to think that one of their own sons could become a bomber. At the same time, the government must take a hard look at internal security.
The whole question of border controls must be closely re-examined. One expert has said our airport security is “still living in the last century”. There is no automatic computer check of the names of entrants against the official list of potential terrorist suspects. This is one loophole which must be immediately closed if we are to concentrate on ‘the enemy within’.
While all this has been going on, England has joined the rest of the UK in banning smoking in most public places. It’s a move that affects most Britons, from the 70 per cent of the population who are non-smokers already are now happy to leave the pub without smelling of cigarettes to the millions of us whose habits are having to change – the new pariahs of society.
Total ban?
I expect that Tony Blair and his band of health advisers thought they were being clever by fixing July 1 as the date to introduce the ban. After all, they would have said, it’s mid-summer and everyone who wants to smoke will be happy to sit out on pub terraces, or in the beer garden, soaking up the sun. What they forgot was that this is England. In most of the country it was bucketing down with rain, after the wettest June for 93 years.
So, even if you managed to go outside and find an umbrella to sit under, the gusting wind drove the rain under the umbrella and you still got soaked. Clubs are also included in the ban, although, so we are told, the prime minister wished to exempt them. Now we must stay at home, open a bottle of wine and, for those of us who live alone and went to the pub to make social contact, smoke in solitude.
However, I have a nasty feeling that’s not going to be for long either. A mean-featured Health Ministry official appeared on television to announce that the government would review the situation after three years, when they could well introduce a TOTAL ban, even in the privacy of one’s home. “Until then,” he said with a sneer, “it’s between you, God and the insurance companies”.
There are early signs that he’s already on the attack. Children’s organisations have started campaigning on the effects of passive smoking on our children in the home, and even the RSPCA has launched a campaign to “Save Our Pets” from the danger.
I have a feeling that a return to Algarve may be the only solution. My copy of The Resident (July 6) reports a change of heart by the government, to give small bars and restaurants the option of allowing their customers to smoke. Viva Portugal!
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