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. David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, may be partly forgiven for believing this because he has been unable to look at a photograph of Mr Barschak. He may have been told by his advisers that a man resembling Osama bin Laden gatecrashed Prince William’s party. The Sun, whose editor is technically not blind and is able to study photographs, preposterously described Mr Barschak as an ‘Osama bin Laden look-alike’. He was nothing of the kind. He wore a backless ball gown and red high heels – not the sort of dress that Osama or any terrorist would wear – and what was obviously a false beard. I find it impossible to look at him without laughing, which is what members of the royal family did when he popped up at the party.