New Labour: be scanned before being nuked

The Guardian reports that New Labour, via their plank Alistair Darling, want to start scanning people on the railways (despite that fact it was the Underground targeted):

"Randomly selected passengers will walk through body scanners on platforms so that security staff can check for objects hidden underneath their clothes. They could also have their bags passed through x-ray machines or searched by sniffer dogs after trials begin in the new year.

"Mr Darling said it was impossible to truly replicate airport-style security on the railways, but he believed the government was making it more difficult for terrorists to mount another attack.

"It seems to me to make sense that if we can use things like selective screening, where that's appropriate, or new types of CCTV (?) or other actions ... then we ought to do that because our objective all the time is to reduce the risk of terrorist attacks.

Mr Darling encouraged people to continue to visit London after the July 7 bombings killed 52 people. "There is absolutely no reason at all why people should not be coming into London or any other place for their Christmas shopping, and indeed millions will," he told Sky News."*

But slow down a sec Darling, It was only over the last couple of weeks, during your Murdoch-led 90 days campaign, we were told by your 'sympathetic' Richard Dearlove that "Nuclear and genetic terrorism were 'in prospect'. Add to that the prospect of a highly politicized police force shooting you on the tube then suddenly you have to wonder how appetising a prospect London is.

Seems that New Labour want to have their cake and eat it, first it's give us your freedoms, 'the sky is dark', nukes and genetic terror imminent, then at the same time 'oh don't stop your Christmas shopping in London'.

So which one is it Darling ? I smell a rat.

*This section has curiously vanished from an updated version of the Guardian article

London New Labour terrorism