Security screening of passengers at Tube and railway stations considered by government (From News Shopper)

Anything that helps with security should be considered. I don't know what options are out there to do this without delaying the service, but if it's possible, then I can't see any downside to it. However, if it's likely to cause even the slightest delay to exitting the barriers for example, then I'm not sure. At many underground stations, it's already a bit of a 'free for all' when it comes to getting through the barriers.
The other big consideration is how much it costs and who pays for this? I imagine it will be highly expensive to implement. Will that cost be pushed onto the customer?

Never work !! Just more fear mongering from the powers that be.

I already have to have me tuchus touched when I fly anywhere now, enough already !!

This is another piece of nonsense from the hysterical Security Services attempting to justify their own existence (and eye wateringly large costs). "If you're not all frightened, we're not doing our job". The fact is we live in a safe world by and large, or at least safer than our parents lived through. You would hope that politicians and security services would be happy about that. You would hope they would celebrate it. But no, threats and dangers have to be invented for them to justify their existence. "We're doing a great job protecting you for all these naughty people, but we can't tell you who any of them are, and we can't tell you what we do". What a fantastic gravy train that is?
Meanwhile public services get cut including police services and police stations that deal with real issues on the streets - not invented fantasies.

Guess who ;) AGAIN ! wrote:
Never work !! Just more fear mongering from the powers that be. I already have to have me tuchus touched when I fly anywhere now, enough already !!

Don't really see why it's fear mongering. If it was possible to screen passengers as they went on the escaltor for example, then why not? If that screening were advanced enough to pick up knives, then surely that would be a really good thing. (i.e. not just protecting us against the fairly small threat of an extremist with a bomb, but helping to clamp down on the realistic risk of being a victim of knife crime.) On the basis that I don't walk around with any dangerous weapons, I have nothing to hide and hence would support such a system.

Saying all that, at the moment, I doubt it could be done effectively (i.e. at a reasonable cost and without causing delays), but in principle think it would be a good thing.

londonlive wrote:
This is another piece of nonsense from the hysterical Security Services attempting to justify their own existence (and eye wateringly large costs). "If you're not all frightened, we're not doing our job". The fact is we live in a safe world by and large, or at least safer than our parents lived through. You would hope that politicians and security services would be happy about that. You would hope they would celebrate it. But no, threats and dangers have to be invented for them to justify their existence. "We're doing a great job protecting you for all these naughty people, but we can't tell you who any of them are, and we can't tell you what we do". What a fantastic gravy train that is? Meanwhile public services get cut including police services and police stations that deal with real issues on the streets - not invented fantasies.

This ^ bang on !

More control over the people. And if you can't see it then you are a brain washed moronic cretin. A nation in fear is a nation under control.

the wall wrote:

londonlive wrote:
This is another piece of nonsense from the hysterical Security Services attempting to justify their own existence (and eye wateringly large costs). "If you're not all frightened, we're not doing our job". The fact is we live in a safe world by and large, or at least safer than our parents lived through. You would hope that politicians and security services would be happy about that. You would hope they would celebrate it. But no, threats and dangers have to be invented for them to justify their existence. "We're doing a great job protecting you for all these naughty people, but we can't tell you who any of them are, and we can't tell you what we do". What a fantastic gravy train that is? Meanwhile public services get cut including police services and police stations that deal with real issues on the streets - not invented fantasies.

This ^ bang on !

More control over the people. And if you can't see it then you are a brain washed moronic cretin. A nation in fear is a nation under control.

Yes Wall, more control of sheeple like PaulErith.

Guess who ;) AGAIN ! wrote:

the wall wrote:

londonlive wrote: This is another piece of nonsense from the hysterical Security Services attempting to justify their own existence (and eye wateringly large costs). "If you're not all frightened, we're not doing our job". The fact is we live in a safe world by and large, or at least safer than our parents lived through. You would hope that politicians and security services would be happy about that. You would hope they would celebrate it. But no, threats and dangers have to be invented for them to justify their existence. "We're doing a great job protecting you for all these naughty people, but we can't tell you who any of them are, and we can't tell you what we do". What a fantastic gravy train that is? Meanwhile public services get cut including police services and police stations that deal with real issues on the streets - not invented fantasies.

This ^ bang on ! More control over the people. And if you can't see it then you are a brain washed moronic cretin. A nation in fear is a nation under control.

Yes Wall, more control of sheeple like PaulErith.

I'm genuinely interested in why you would are so against it.

I agree with the previous comment that mentioned cuts in police, etc. Totally agree that should be the priority in terms of cutting crime.

However, from a purely conceptual perspective, if a system was in place that, as you went on the escalator, would pick up people who have knives in their jackets, I would see that as a positive thing because it will help to catch these criminals and cut knife crime. Just wondered why would you be so against this?

Because I'm innocent until proven the guilty. This way I'm guilty until I prove I'm innocent.


Another move to scare us into following orders, meekly submitting to observation and scrutiny, losing our privacy etc rather than manning up and tackling the problems at source. Instead we get even more restrictions on civil right and civil liberties. This is another step towards Tyranny. To control the populations mobility........ I believe the Nazis did the same.


So with only minutes to go before your train departs, I'm sure people will be delighted to miss their trains just because the scanners either don't work properly or their minimum wage operators (G4S) want you to remove a laptop from a bag for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
Also many people carry all sorts of 'tools' for work, So they will be stopped every time. They might just have made train travel even more miserable. What next, stopping us carrying drinks on to a train for fear that they might be liquid explosives? So when will they screen bus users? Let's scan people in supermarkets, shopping malls, traffic jams, stadiums and arenas.

If you are very quiet and listen with your ear close to your speakers you can hear PaulErith....baaaa baaaa baaaaaaaaaaa.

Its the sheeple.

I agree with what you say around the practicalities of such a system. That's why I think it's really just a conceptual idea at the moment. As I said in my earlier comment, it's already conjested getting off the tube, so any system that slowed it down would be bad.

I guess I was just interested in why people were against the high level principle or morality of it. So much of depends on your personal experiences. As someone who has seen a close friend seriously affected by violent crime, I'm in favour of anything that can help the situation.

Guess who ;) AGAIN ! wrote:
If you are very quiet and listen with your ear close to your speakers you can hear PaulErith....baaaa baaaa baaaaaaaaaaa. Its the sheeple.

Do us a favour, why don't you try engaging in intelligent debate rather than insults. Am I not entitled to my opinion? Why do you feel it necessary to post rude remarks? Do you think it's clever?

Personal experiences - I have been caught up in 6 armed robberies. 1 Car jacking. 5 attempted muggings. Drunken assaults 10 at least. 1 Beating - bottle smashed over my head and then used on my face leaving various scars in a racist attack. General criminal damage done to cars and property.

So would screening public transport users stop any of this .......... No. None of this happened on public transport.

PaulErith wrote:

Guess who ;) AGAIN ! wrote:
If you are very quiet and listen with your ear close to your speakers you can hear PaulErith....baaaa baaaa baaaaaaaaaaa. Its the sheeple.

Do us a favour, why don't you try engaging in intelligent debate rather than insults. Am I not entitled to my opinion? Why do you feel it necessary to post rude remarks? Do you think it's clever?

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaa

I am against this because there has to be a clear and present danger, risk, and problem to be addressed. I see no evidence for one.  I see a safer world than my parents era, and safer still than when I was growing up.  With no problem to be solved, it's pretty obvious it's just a perpetuation of a gravy train.  A myth that we are still in some cold-war nightmare.  That the authorities are supposedly protecting us from some threat that we can't see and do not understand.  

We need to resist this fantasy at every opportunity.  It is what gave us the ridiculous farce of ground to air missiles on Blackheath and warships in the Thames during the Olympics.  Even Theresa May was forced to concede there was no evidence of a threat to the Olympics.  So why are people inventing fantasies?  As I said elsewhere on this site, why can't we just enjoy the Olympics and leave it that that?

Remember that this time last year we had riots, looting and buildings being vandalised.  THAT is where the efforts should be concentrated.  Unfortunately the police are beng cut back.

the wall wrote:
Personal experiences - I have been caught up in 6 armed robberies. 1 Car jacking. 5 attempted muggings. Drunken assaults 10 at least. 1 Beating - bottle smashed over my head and then used on my face leaving various scars in a racist attack. General criminal damage done to cars and property. So would screening public transport users stop any of this .......... No. None of this happened on public transport.

You're not Bruce Willis by any chance are you? Although, I'm sure even in the Die Hard films he didn't face that many violent episodes.

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I remember when they set up a random screening at Bromley South station. people that went through were screened and anyone that turned away from the entrance once they saw the screens were approached and asked why they turned around and were searched. I believe 15-20 people got arrested that day for carrying weapons. If screening was done at random times and in random places then I feel this would not impact as much on passenger delays and would also put the fear into the people carrying weapons that they could get caught at either end of their journey thus bringing down knifecrime etc. would this not be a happy medium?

Tmcd wrote:
I remember when they set up a random screening at Bromley South station. people that went through were screened and anyone that turned away from the entrance once they saw the screens were approached and asked why they turned around and were searched. I believe 15-20 people got arrested that day for carrying weapons. If screening was done at random times and in random places then I feel this would not impact as much on passenger delays and would also put the fear into the people carrying weapons that they could get caught at either end of their journey thus bringing down knifecrime etc. would this not be a happy medium?

That's a good idea, and it sounds as though the evidence is that it worked on that particular trial.

That is a very much better idea, I'm all for stop and search anyway.

Like a Martini.....any time any place any where.


PS Paul......baaaaaaaaa
a ;)

I love it that because people dont hear about something then the threat has been made up to induce fear.
There is plenty out there to get worried about but thankfully the powers that be dont always tell us about every threat they are encountering.(this information is first hand from a very good friend working within a government organisation that prevents this type of thing)
Even right now our forces are being probed by terrorist groups to assess their response to different threats so they can gain valuable intel from it.

Luckily for us we do have very well trained guys out there doing allsorts to protect us from these nutters who love to blow up people indiscriminately.

Im all for metal detectors randomly placed for spot checksas it makes it harder for criminals to predict where they might get caught next.By all accounts the trials using them were pretty successful at detecting illegally carried knives etc.
It didnt significantly interupt journey times either so win win.