Under Threat?
Our new Secretary of State, Shaun Woodward, told the Politics Show at the weekend that we now face the same threat from international terrorism as the rest of the UK "no more and no less".
Passengers arriving at Belfast City Airport this morning didn't appear to agree. One woman told Will Leitch on Good Morning Ulster that "our time has come and gone. Britain is more the target than us, and Scotland too now Gordon Brown is Prime Minister".
Obviously you have to be cautious about tempting fate. If some Islamic extremist happened to find themselves close to a target of opportunity here (say, a visiting VIP) it's quite possible something awful could happen. But in general terms I agree more with the passengers in transit than the Cabinet minister. There are more high profile targets in Great Britain than here, so if you are an international terrorist mounting a campaign then you are more likely to be active there. Also given that most terrorists are mindful of the media impact of what they do, they might consider an incident in Northern Ireland to be simply too confusing in terms of the message it projects.
Perhaps the changing nature of the threat should be communicated to those authorities at UK regional airports who still insist in segregating Northern Ireland passengers and taking their photos. Why?
But will we start marketing ourselves as the "safest place in the UK?" Don't hold your breath.
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Great post Mark. I'm amused at the fleeting thought that unionists might be so desperate to maintain the tie to the Union that they would stage a fake Islamic attack, just to be able to say 'us too!'.
Shaun Woodward's first interview and he proved himself to be completely out of his depth.
I think we need to be careful that we are not used as a soft target by the terrorists - we need to make it as difficult to hijack a plane in Belfast as in Heathrow.
As for Johnny's comment re:unionists - a little pathetic really - although agree re:Shaun Woodward