Police raids

[David Hansen]

On 3 Mar 2003 at 10:32, Brian Beesley wrote:

> Just as absolute
> safety of e.g. the railways is impossible to guarantee without closing
> them all down.)

It's actually worse than that. Even if the trains were stopped and 
all the "railway" equipment was removed there would still be dangers. 
People can fall off bridges and viaducts, embankments and overbridges 
can collapse. The only thing to do would be to remove all traces of 
the railway and restore the land to the condition it was before.

Of course even then the land where the railway had been would not be 
safe...
 
> Yes. But instead of leaving it open-ended like that, why not have
> legislation which imposes penalties (at least dismissal) which could
> be imposed on those policy-makers who persistently allow too much
> collateral damage resulting from "operational activities"?

The usual argument is that such a system exists, it is called an 
election? The argument assumes that the electoral system reflects a 
number of things, which is highly debatable.

The argument also claims that civil servants are entirely neutral, 
simply doing what party politicians want. This one is so laughable as 
not to be worth serious consideration. See for example the desperate 
desire of the Home Office to re-introduce identity cards ever since 
they were abolished. No matter who is Home Secretary this stupidity 
comes up regularly and I'm sure it comes from civil servants.

I tend more and more to the idea of putting the people concerned on 
trial. We could make a clean sweep of them, though there are perhaps 
a few that are decent and honest thus deserving to be spared.


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  David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
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