blanket security is merely a security blanket - and just as effective

Old Holborn's day out at the Commons

I've had the opportunity in recent weeks to observe security in three areas of our increasingly photographed lives. These were social care clearance (Vetting & Barring), airport passenger checks, and the House of Commons. All three raise a number of disturbing questions, but most importantly they operate on the basis of two flawed criteria: that the more inclusive the security, the better it will work; and that those trying to breach it for nefarious purposes have a mindset like the rest of us.

I'll examine the social care issue first, because it's one I've written about at length in the past. Those of us who investigate injustice in the various care formats know only too well that abusers are obscenely sick - but neither mad nor stupid. Captive in a belief system that repeats 'I'm doing nothing wrong', they are extremely adept at falsification, and very inventive when it comes to framing 'good' reasons why they should be close to children or old people.

Far from fearing a national vetting policy, they will welcome it as likely to give them crowd cover - but not be swift enough of foot to check every single reference and assertion. Equally, paedophiles do not go to child soccer games and school swimming sessions, there to salivate obviously: their skill lies in being plausible, not obvious. Mass hysteria and barring rules will not catch such people on the whole - and is unlikely to catch those who are already in the system and helping to administer it.

Last week I interviewed professionals at swimming pools, gyms and schools in three areas of the country. Without exception, they saw the new Government scheme as more waste and gesture, but not a solution in any way. (In the coming weeks, I hope to be demonstrating in detail why they're right).

Airport security represents the exact same mentality: if we check everyone, it'll be alright. I shrink from advising potential terrorists in a public medium, but I have four very easy ways in which any such zealot could beat the system tomorrow. So if I can work it out, so can they.

Airport security is primarily a response to Islamist extremism, but it demonstrates zero understanding of mindset, and little common sense. The first and most important thing to grasp is that wannabe bombers are being run by highly intelligent controllers - and eager to die for the cause. This means any blanket system will fail to either detect or deter, chiefly because (again) it's much easier to hide in a crowd - and also remarkably easy to secrete things inside the body.

Although there are understandable libertarian reasons why 'targeting' on the basis of ethnicity and dress has been resisted, this needs to be rethought. The smaller number of checks required would allow for more thoroughness; and strategically, the focus on 'fellow travellers' will always put cultural pressure on the perpetrators to desist. To do this will be hard for Muslims to stomach - as indeed their murderous minority are irksome for us. We need to be less correct and more determined about this.

Taking part in a peaceful demonstration at the House of Commons earlier this week, however, I found the degree of aggressive approach to any expression of free speech annoying - while the clearance system for more anonymous visitors was remarkably informal.

With just one colleague and in normal dress, I managed to get into the public gallery the first time without an appointment - wearing a cap (against the rules) and with minimal physical security presence beyond the usual search-and-beam cliche.

But ten minutes later (as part of a group of twenty folks dressed in Guy Fawkes masks and burkhas) we were harrassed at every turn, hived off into a roped-off queue, told to remove all headgear, and hustled off the premises once we'd been allowed our taste of democracy in action. Particularly galling was an aside by the gallery cloakroom jobsworth which went "Who let these clowns in? They have no right to be in here - they should've been refused entry at the gate."

His comment about the legal rights of voting citizens is but a microcosm of how all those in or near to power in the UK have the Us/Them relationship entirely the wrong way round. Perhaps more to the point, it also confirms what those in charge of gallery security want to ensure: no 'scenes'. The system as it stands is not about protection, because MPs inside the Palace of Westminster no longer need that.

For once you're in the gallery, it is clear that only a small thermo-nuclear weapon could harm anyone in the chamber below: the thick protective shield of glass must have cost a fortune to install, presumably dwarfing even Speaker Bercow's bill for redecoration of his free flat.

No: the abnormal treatment reserved for a protest group - and the presence of the glass screen - show quite clearly what the system is intended to do: avoid any sign to foreigners and the mainstream media that a sizeable minority (at least) of British people think the whole kit and caboodle of current political thought should be put on a rather bigger bonfire than that which roasted the original gunpowder plotter.

Yet once again, old bloke with grey hair and woman with stick are free to wander where they will - because they look inoffensive. Thus, in a vital building where Caucasian extremists (or even struggling taxpayers) might want to register their explosive disapproval of spineless expenses cheats, such a couple as we represeted could easily do it. But in an airport we'd have no motive at all for bringing down an aeroplane (and just want to go on holiday) one must queue for hours. All this to deter a tiny minority whose likely ethnicity will, by definition, be obvious.

There is no reason or consistency to any of this blanket security. It just reflects an Establishment that cannot see beyond correctness, gestures and control - and who continue to engage in the national sport of tick-boxing, but with no visible desire for effectiveness.

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