You're safer with strip searches

Oh, what fresh hell is this?

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has given the go-ahead for full body scanners to be introduced at Britain's airports.

Presumably this is to make us feel safer. Except, you know, it probably won't actually make us safer:

Experts have questioned the scanners' effectiveness at detecting the type of bomb allegedly used on Christmas Day in an attempted plane attack over Detroit.

Plus, the rollout of these machines - if they are going to make such a valuable contribution to aviation security - does beg the question why didn't it happen earlier?

The government's move has been largely welcomed by the Liberal Democrats.

But home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne did say the scanners could have been rolled out sooner as they had been kept in storage since being trialled.

Right. So we have machines - that do an effective strip search of passengers, lest we forget - that won't combat the type of bomb that failed to blow up an aircraft recently being rolled out after being in storage for God knows how long. You'll have to forgive me, but I suspect that this has fuck all to do with making air travel safer. This looks and feels like the sort of knee-jerk reaction from a panicked, beleaguered government desperate to avoid the charge of being soft on security. The outcome of this move won't be increased security, but rather increased costs and increased delays.

Ooo, and it also shows that even failed terrorist attacks can provoke panicked reactions from governments. Which is exactly the sort of message we want to send out...