Is it time to lock up all the Upper Class?
There's an amusing story in the Independent today about Michael Hammond, a decorator's son from Sussex, who pretended to be a polo-playing millionaire, friend of Princes William and Harry, and a fixture on the London season.He's in trouble because he on dozens of occasions also impersonated police officers, e.g. for the first time it was in Windsor Castle where he pretended to be Superintendent Simon Morgan (a real Police Officer). He said he was accompanying famous friends of Prince Harry who wished to avoid being seen. He was waved through. Another time he pretended to be a top surgeon in need of an escort convoy to save a dying child. The Police -- and this beggars belief -- drove him on the wrong side of the road & stopped London traffic to get him to where he wanted to go.
The Crown Prosecution Service noted that, "his deceptions have deprived the people of London fo the services of many police officers for lengthy periods of time when Londoners were under the threat of terrorist attacks".
Fair enough. But surely the more serious lesson of this (and many other events, such as the Windsor-Castle break in and the House of Commons fox-hunting one) is that if you were an Al Qaeda terrorist the simplest way to strike at the heart of British government is to pretend to be a member of the Upper-middle or Upper-Class. For immediately the Police appear to lose all control, ignore questions of identification and basically give the assailant carte blance to do whatever they want.
You can imagine how it goes.
House of Commons Security Guard: You can't go in there, it's for Members only.
Upper-class twit: But my father, and his father before him. 1200 years. Unbroken lineage. Beagles. Formerly German surname. 72 virgins. The lot.
HoC SG: Ah yes. Right you are. 72 virgins?
UCT: Drinking club at Oxford. Rival to the Bullingdon.
HoC SG: Of course Sir. Be our guest. Go and murder the Cabinet.
With Britain facing a threat the greatest in our history, or whatever it is, it's pretty clear we can't take the risk that Al Qaeda terrorists might be lurking in the mansion blocks of Mayfair or Chelsea, or the stately homes of the Shires. The internment of Japanese-Americans has recently been rehabilitated as a policy and that can be our guide here. Buckingham Palace, with 570 empty rooms, will suffice as a camp.
posted by Matthew @ 1/11/2005 08:38:00 AM
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