A letter to Gordon Brown

Dear Prime Minister

Airport Security Checks

On a recent flight from London Heathrow to Oslo, I and many others were forcibly reminded of the swingeing measures and procedures undertaken by security personnel at airports.

Our group consisted of many elderly people including ex-servicemen who were joining a coastal voyage at Bergen and wished to visit towns and villages on the Norwegian coast their naval units had helped liberate from the Germans at the end of WW2.

Under the current regime - which appears to be permanently in place - everyone seems to be regarded as a potential terrorist, even our group of frail 80-year-old’s, many of whom, after being put through the ordeal of intense searches, removal of belts and shoes and a bewildering procedure of half-undressing, were left physically shaken. One member of our party who was suffering from a liver condition requiring him to take regular doses of water was denied the bottle of mineral water he was visibly carrying in his regulation clear plastic bag. The 100ml allowance was hardly sufficient and liquids were only available for purchase from the in-flight staff some way into the flight.

Flying, in itself, can be a nerve-racking experience for the elderly and de-hydration becomes a natural effect of that worry. With the whole procedure repeated at Oslo for our onward transfer flight to Bergen, our colleague was visibly ill by the time we reached our destination.

I have personally heard of numerous instances of people being humiliated in public by having their trousers fall down in full view of other passengers after being told to remove their belts, while others have been treated by security staff like common criminals because they inadvertently happened to carry a tube of toothpaste in their night bag.

But what distresses me most is the reasoning upon which these unprecedented security measures have been based.

We are told that following the attacks of 9/11 in the US and the subsequent bombings in London on 7/7 that the world is a less safe place and a constant terrorist threat exists requiring high security measures to remain in place.

Are we expected to take your government’s word for that?

In depth analysis of those two seminal events by myself and thousands of others reveal countless unanswered questions and inconsistencies between the official version of events and what has been actually witnessed at first hand. The 9/11 Commission Report answers none of these glaring inconsistencies and we are left with the preposterous scenario of a group of Islamic terrorists, whose inabilities to even fly a Cessna let alone large commercial aircraft, being capable of penetrating NORAD defence systems (which were coincidentally engaged in an drill in which a similar scenario was being enacted) to pinpoint specific targets - particularly in the case of the Pentagon - with unbelievable dexterity, defying aeronautical science. Taken in tandem with the mountains of evidence which clearly identify fore-knowledge of an attack on 9/11 and the official version of events becomes a sham.

Likewise the official version of events regarding the London bombings is riddled with inconsistencies - let alone another identical drill simultaneously undertaken by Visor Consultants which focused on the exact same locations as those targeted by the supposed bombers - and any honest scrutiny based on media reports and personal eyewitness accounts makes one come to the considered conclusion that the suspects were unwittingly aided and abetted in their activities by British intelligence agencies. Where does leave your government?
Indeed, the restrictions on carrying liquids on board flights has stemmed from the equally questionable events of 10 August 2006 in which, you may recall, a supposed terrorist was to have mixed either triacetone triperoxide, diacetone diperoxide or hexamethylene tripeoxide diamine with a sports drink in an aircraft toilet, an impossible feat according to
Lieutenant-Colonel (ret) Nigel Wylde a former British Army Intelligence Officer, who declared that the volatility of the substances would make the whole process of creating a bomb from these materials wholly impossible.

Are these events real or concocted?

Before we start to humiliate swathes of the general public, including the elderly, having each and every one of us treated as a potential terrorist, should we not have a fair and transparent inquest into what really happened on 9/11, 7/7 and the many other so-called terrorist threats that have followed to see if there is any real justification for the continuation of these draconian security measures. Or is it - as I currently believe - little to do with a perceived terrorist threat and more to do with keeping the public under a firm state of control, as yet another means of reducing our rights as citizens in which the Labour government has played a monumental role during its reign.

Yours respectfully