There seems to be a lot of these emotionally driven campaigns at the moment (see also the restricting new drivers stuff earlier this week). It’s harrowing for her to loose her son; I can’t begin to understand how tragic that is and how I would ever continue to live my life if it happened to me.
However I’m not sure it’s very healthy or beneficial – it’s very reminiscent of the [Mitchell & Webb train safety sketch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98CWbGG2DJ0). In the Manchester arena attack they didn’t get in the arena – they were at the entrance by a McDonalds just outside. Since the attack they now stop you getting in that part of the building, but the cut off is in the train station below – so still a devastating place for an attack to occur. If they stopped people getting in the train station, then it would be just outside – it would be devastating no matter where it occurs. You need to focus efforts on stopping it in the first place, rather than making slightly more survivable when it does occur more simply moving the problem a few meters away.
Under these proposals entertainment venues of 100 or greater capacity have to take steps at a time where they are already struggling. I know people who work music festivals and are genuinely concerned that meeting these requirements in what is essentially a field with no infrastructure will bankrupt them.
It’s terrible what happened at the Manchester Arena and there are probably lessons to be learned. But those should focus on how the security services could do better – if they could – rather than restricting our freedoms. A terrorist only has to get lucky once, and by forcing smaller venues and events out of business you can argue they have, in a way, won.
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There seems to be a lot of these emotionally driven campaigns at the moment (see also the restricting new drivers stuff earlier this week). It’s harrowing for her to loose her son; I can’t begin to understand how tragic that is and how I would ever continue to live my life if it happened to me.
However I’m not sure it’s very healthy or beneficial – it’s very reminiscent of the [Mitchell & Webb train safety sketch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98CWbGG2DJ0). In the Manchester arena attack they didn’t get in the arena – they were at the entrance by a McDonalds just outside. Since the attack they now stop you getting in that part of the building, but the cut off is in the train station below – so still a devastating place for an attack to occur. If they stopped people getting in the train station, then it would be just outside – it would be devastating no matter where it occurs. You need to focus efforts on stopping it in the first place, rather than making slightly more survivable when it does occur more simply moving the problem a few meters away.
Under these proposals entertainment venues of 100 or greater capacity have to take steps at a time where they are already struggling. I know people who work music festivals and are genuinely concerned that meeting these requirements in what is essentially a field with no infrastructure will bankrupt them.
It’s terrible what happened at the Manchester Arena and there are probably lessons to be learned. But those should focus on how the security services could do better – if they could – rather than restricting our freedoms. A terrorist only has to get lucky once, and by forcing smaller venues and events out of business you can argue they have, in a way, won.