And you get a cup of tea thrown in too. Or coffee.
You may have heard Gordon Brown boasting that,
Tens of thousands of men and women throughout Britain – from security guards to store managers – have now been trained and equipped to deal with an incident and know what to watch for as people go about their daily business in crowded places such as stations, airports, shopping centres and sports grounds.
Good news hey? Even if some of their time may have been spent on learning that people who prefer tofu to meat are indulging in just the same sort of suspicious activity that terrorists get up to.
But wait. What does this impressive sounding training actually involve? Spy Blog has the answer:
Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith’s claims that “tens of thousands” or “60,000” people who have been, or will have been “trained ” ( by some vague unspecified date in the future) really amount being exposed to a three hours (including a coffee break) multi-media presentation and group discussion.
Even “Dad’s Army” was better trained than this !
As Spy Blog points out, the body which runs this training – National Counter Terrorism Security Office – produces a lot of printed guides full of advice on what constitutes suspicious behaviour in the war on terror. Included in the list of activities to watch out for are peope who indulge in:
Simple observation such as staring or quickly looking away. (Cinemas and Theatres guide, p.52)
Better become a blind meat eater then.
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8 Comments
It’s possible to detect suspicious behaviour. People are quite good at it (better than computers). But only when they’ve had lots of training and experience.
We’re talking about police officers with several years’ time in the field; not someone who’s been subjected to a morning’s Death by PowerPoint.
How scary is this bit?
“people taking pictures – filming – making notes – sketching of the security measures at attractions. Tourists should not necessarily be taken as such and should be treated sensitively, but with caution”
Your innocent trip to the Tower of London could have an unscheduled stop at HMP Belmarsh simply because your photo has a policeman in it or even a staff entrance or something like that.
Ridiculous.
This is pathetic, I mean REALLY pathetic. Who are these people that they’ve trained? Do I know one of them? Surely if they’ve been trained to fight terrorists then I should stay away from them, seeing as they are far more likely to be a target for the terrorists now that they have anti-terrorist superpowers?
Yes, and so?
Workplace training on any aspect of health and safety, or equalities, or other things tends to be like this.
Are you suggesting they should go in for weeks long training?
Matthew: there’s a huge gap between how Jacqui Smith and Gordon Brown have tried to present the training and the reality of what it involves. Puzzled as to why from your comment it appears you don’t think that matters?
Also, make sure you don’t go fishing under a flightpath.
Mark
Puzzled as to why from your comment it appears you don’t think that matters?
Because this is what “workplace training” means, public or private sector. Anyone who deals with job apps know that “trained in X” on a CV means “went to a three hour PowerPoint presentation in X”.
In this case, I’m not sure much more is needed anyway.
But Matthew –
the Govt didn’t call it workplace training!
They said “Tens of thousands of men and women throughout Britain – from security guards to store managers – have now been trained and equipped to deal with an incident …”
This certainly suggests to me that this was more than a 3 hear presentation on Tofu eating, sideways glancing, photo taking dnagerous folk!