Gordon Brown’s recent insistence on hunting out all immigrants in the UK’s national health service to review their credentials as a potential terrorist ready to unleash their wrath on the country is a short sighted, blinkered view of eliminating any threat to his nation’s security because, the fence has already been jumped: they’ve been there, done that and grabbed the headline (They being the medical practitioners being questioned and charged following the most recent round of attempted plots on London and Glasgow).
Granted, in his own admission, he has only been in the position for a number of days but surely his viewpoint from the crows nest of number 11 and his willingness to embrace the role before and during his predecessor reign would make him knowledgeable that lightning never strikes in the same place twice; once a loophole or a weakness has been identified and utilised to whatever degree of ‘success’ ( I use the word with regret), when it is public knowledge that it has been permeated, the repairmen move into patch it up while the next round of wanna-be murderers are sneaking in from behind ready to assume the next vulnerable point in society. It could also be argued that the stringent airport security checks are futile - the attack by air is in the past tense. Even the Glasgow attack was by land, however we still don't know why the airport despite hyperbabble on rolling news channels that they were going to make their way onto the runway (if that was the intention, why make such an impact on the front door.
It is a phenomenon of governments that they feel everything must be regulated and controlling measures eliminates risks. What terrorist attacks, among other 'headline' events, tell us is that there is no such thing as predicatbility. Life is a Black Swan; a large-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations. Moves like Brown's clampdown on Health service workers is dealing with the previously unexpected only after the revelation, thinking it can be minimised through a heavy reliance on observations. It is not factoring for future possibilities only dealing with the here and now - the bell curve or normality. Progression can only be made by, to utilise a business buzzword, thinking outside the box.
Granted, in his own admission, he has only been in the position for a number of days but surely his viewpoint from the crows nest of number 11 and his willingness to embrace the role before and during his predecessor reign would make him knowledgeable that lightning never strikes in the same place twice; once a loophole or a weakness has been identified and utilised to whatever degree of ‘success’ ( I use the word with regret), when it is public knowledge that it has been permeated, the repairmen move into patch it up while the next round of wanna-be murderers are sneaking in from behind ready to assume the next vulnerable point in society. It could also be argued that the stringent airport security checks are futile - the attack by air is in the past tense. Even the Glasgow attack was by land, however we still don't know why the airport despite hyperbabble on rolling news channels that they were going to make their way onto the runway (if that was the intention, why make such an impact on the front door.
It is a phenomenon of governments that they feel everything must be regulated and controlling measures eliminates risks. What terrorist attacks, among other 'headline' events, tell us is that there is no such thing as predicatbility. Life is a Black Swan; a large-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations. Moves like Brown's clampdown on Health service workers is dealing with the previously unexpected only after the revelation, thinking it can be minimised through a heavy reliance on observations. It is not factoring for future possibilities only dealing with the here and now - the bell curve or normality. Progression can only be made by, to utilise a business buzzword, thinking outside the box.
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Ironically, with a new Premier comes a new ‘justification for jihad’. While the antics of Iraq and Afghanistan plagued Tony Blair it appears that the Royal honours bestowed on Salman ‘Satantic Verses’ Rushdie is the reason for Brown’s premature test of leadership.
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