ARE we doing enough to defend ourselves in the constantly-raging “war on terror”? I fear that admirable Government initiatives are not being fully implemented.
Last week, the Home Secretary announced that tens of thousands of British shop workers are being trained to respond to a terror attack. Admirable, I thought. But how effective is the measure proving?
I repaired to Crispin’s Local 7-11 Mini-Market to examine the updated counter-terrorist strategy at first-hand. First impressions were favourable. A hawk-like employee stood snake-eyed behind the baskets. I approached him informally, not wanting to risk blowing his cover, but found him willing to talk. I was not reassured.
He informed me that he is only employed on security duties for a couple of hours a day, spending most of his working hours slicing ham and chopping cheese. Further, his priority is not the wheedling out of al Qaida suspects, but keeping an eye on the kids from the secondary schools opposite.
“So you are not directly involved in international counter insurgency operations?” I asked. “No”, he confirmed. His duties were to ensure that a maximum of two schoolchildren entered at a time and that the minimum number of them ate produce prior to arrival at the cash desk. He revealed one of the mysteries of his craft was to examine the lapels of exiting suspects for crumbs.
“But do you know what an AK-47 is?” I enquired. Quicker than you can say “second home”, he conceded utter ignorance, hazarding that it may have something to do with sudoku. I asked directly: “How would you deal with a major explosion by the frozen food cabinet?” “The Hoover?” he suggested.
I scurried home where I emailed the Home Office, barricaded the front door and sought out Sainsbury’s website. With security at these appalling levels, I can hardly be expected to risk life and limb purchasing Crispin’s morning muffins. I shall shop online and rely on home delivery. My only fear, given the constant danger of imminent attack, is that a single home delivery van could conceal up to 60 fully-armed terrorists.
The experience at Crispin’s has convinced me of the need for a more radical approach to rooting out social deviancy. Once again, the Americans have shown us the way. Instead of making surface gestures, they identify the underlying cause of a problem and deal with it there – at base one.
For example, when the United States discovered a drug problem in Harlem, it bombed villages in Afghanistan. The irrefutable logic is that if the Afghans don’t grow poppies, the citizens of Harlem will have to give up drugs. Cleaned up, they will become upright citizens or possibly bankers. Drug problem solved.
Why not apply the same formula to binge drinking in Britain? The solutions proposed to date only tinker with the problem. Do we really think we’ll wean our inner-city hoodlums off alcohol by adding 50p to the price of 75 centilitres of Chateauneuf du Pape? At best, it will inconvenience the more discerning hoodie. A more holistic approach would be to bomb Bushmills, make a pre-emptive strike on Fullers and systematically destroy every distillery and brewery in the land. Thus will binge drinking become a thing of the past.
It has been suggested that young people intent on mind-skying will turn their attention to other substances. We just need to keep pace. Glue sniffing, for example, can be eliminated by aiming a few missiles at stables, thus depriving the adhesive trade of an essential raw material. Ditto shoe polish factories. Cigarette smoking would be curtailed by arranging conflagrations in Virginia. This would also provide local practice for US troops en route for Afghanistan.
How should we counter the spread of extremism in our universities? Well, neither Oxford nor Cambridge is well fortified and the careful launch of fire-bombs into conveniently flammable libraries would end academic extremism at a stroke.
Then there is the litter epidemic. What guarantees do we have that the very copy of Tribune you are now perusing will be properly discarded? Why take the risk? The easiest way to solve paper-littering is to burn the forests that provide the paper. I understand this will be a disappointment to Tribune’s new owner, Kevin McGrath, but we all have to make sacrifices in the wars in which the Government is engaged – against terror, poverty, obesity, neighbours, crime and things in general.
I know these measures are likely to stir up opposition from liberals. They could even lead to social dissent, which is by its nature an evil – a core solution to which would be to arrest the entire country, allowing out on parole only those who can be adequately policed.
Finally there is the war against global warming. We all know that recycling our Tennents tins isn’t going to do the trick. In fact, most of us have given up hoping we can stop it. So if we can’t cut out the warming, we’ll have to go for the planet. Blow it up. This would both eliminate all behaviour frowned on by the Government and re-establish my confidence in Crispin’s.
