The press shouldn’t join the government in its mindless obsession with security

A favourite newspaper ruse is to sneak a journalist on to the flight deck of a Boeing 747 and then to suggest that we are all at risk as a result of lax security. It is, of course, very effective. Most of us are easily alarmed. And many of us will have been persuaded by the media that the admission of the ‘comic terrorist’ Aaron Barschak into Prince William’s birthday party at Windsor Castle was a terrifying lapse. There was almost universal horror. ‘This security breach has repercussions for the safety of every British citizen,’ thundered the Daily Telegraph. ‘This sorry saga reveals failings that are systematic, showing laxity at every level,’ asserted the Daily Mail. ‘When the inquiry finds who is to blame, an example must be made and heads must roll,’ demanded the Sun.

What nonsense. The general fallacy is to suppose that because Aaron Barschak could gain admission to Windsor Castle looking very vaguely like Osama bin Laden, it would be possible for Osama bin Laden or a real terrorist to do so.