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MP Mark Field |
MP CALLS FOR RING OF STEEL
Botched terror plot brings calls for tougher security policy
THE botched bomb plot on Friday has triggered calls for a ‘ring of steel’ to be set up around the West End.
Cities of London and Westminster Conservative MP Mark Field told new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith it was time to debate tough new security measures.
Mr Field said: “The City of London took the step of imposing a ring of steel following the attacks by the IRA in the early 1990s and I believe such a consideration should be made now for the West End and areas of central London.”
He added: “We face a potent enemy who are perverting a great religion into a separatist political ideology. They have shown themselves to have no consideration for human life and, in their misguided beliefs, wish to kill and maim innocent people on our streets.”
The security measures - with checkpoints manned with armed guards and CCTV tracking every car - would mirror that used in The City of London.
But the calls have been described as a knee-jerk reaction to the car-bomb plot - foiled by chance in the Haymarket on Friday. Five days after the attack MI5 downgraded the country’s terror alert status from “critical” to “severe”.
Gareth Crossman, policy director of Liberty, said: “There is an issue we are concerned about which is called ‘function creep’. This is where we are told that a system is being set up and used for a certain purpose and then we find out it is being used for another totally different one.
“We are be concerned that it would be just a ‘fishing’ exercise where large amounts of data are passed over to the police .”
But Mr Field responded saying the car bomb discovery was “proof that more needs to be done to protect people living close to high-profile targets in central London.” |
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