Gatwick Drones - a gross failure of government

London's second airport has now been closed for 24 hours and responsible ministers are running around like headless chickens. They don't know how many drones there are, where the operators are, when they will appear next and certainly not how to get them out of the sky once they are up. 

This didn't come out of left field. This whole thing was entirely predictable; a universally available technology with no restrictions, a known vulnerability, the risk events with potentially catastrophic consequences. There is NO excuse for the police and security services not to have formulated a response which should have gone into effect last night. This is a gross failure of government, a sackable omission for senior responsible officers and an embarrassment for the nation. Heads MUST roll.

If they're still out there waiting for a little Remainer with a joystick to launch the next one, or have set up their signal jammers, they may be disappointed. Drones can be pre-programmed with course and altitude; there's no reason why the perp didn't leave a dozen drones on hidden rooftops around Gatwick a week ago, each in sequence taking off, flying over the runways a bit and then ditching itself in a body of water.  All preset within the drone and no signals to jam. They've no idea how many there are to go or what the launch frequencies are - will another six take-off on Sunday? And they can be initiated either with a mobile phone call or an inbuilt timer.

One thing's for certain. Our police and security services had better get their acts together pronto - their failure to date is simply not acceptable. 

Update - Friday am
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Perhaps ill-advised for PTSD Adonis to post thus on Twitter - I understand he's already been reported to the police for a 'glorification of terrorism' offence. He talks bollocks, too;

LATEST GOVERNMENT PETITION FIGURES

No Deal Brexit - 263,365 growing
STOP BREXIT - 101,143 sclerotic 

In fact the Adonis option has actually been overtaken by a petition to "Make grey squirrel rescue exempt from Invasive Alien Species Order 2019"

2nd Update - 8.53
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Yes! The boss of Drone Defence, UK's premier drone countermeasures company, has just been interviewed on R4 'Today' and said in his expert view (1) more than 1 drone was involved - probably several and that (2) they were likely to have been pre-programmed.

Just as we posted over 12 hours ago. Raedwald  - Truth First.
And a special prize to Jack the Dog - the responsible Minister, Grayling, has just made a statement saying that 'Lessons have been learned'. As predicted. 

Would internment have prevented Manchester?

Would preventive internment have prevented the Manchester horror? Last time we tried internment, in Northern Ireland it was approved by 'Grocer' Heath in 1971 and 350 paddies were banged up. The initial problems were twofold; there were 450 names on the list but 100 got away due to police and army incompetence, and only Catholics were interned - loyalist potential killers were left free. By the time the scheme - called 'Operation Demetrious' by the inept security bunglers - was ended four years later things had hardly changed. There were 1,874 Catholic thugs and only 107 proddy thugs banged up. Economic damage was incalculable, from mass civil disobedience, rent strikes, civic criminal damage and sabotage. Thirteen protesters had been shot dead by the Paras. It was universally agreed that internment was an utter failure, radicalising more terrorists than it took off the streets. Not one experienced police, security or armed forces officer will support it. The evidence is that it doesn't work.

Yet as far as the animal Abedi is concerned, our security bunglers have bungled again. Here was a classic social failure, so thick his mates called him 'Dumbo' with a brow so low he could have passed for a native in the states of the deep south. A classic subject for the evil fantasies of Islamism with its primitive, simple tenets that can be understood by even the very stupid. So well did he absorb the poison that his mates reported him to the terrorist security line twice and his own mosque once. He travelled to and from Libya, a hotbed of Islamism. His brothers and father were Islamists, their own brows hardly less Neanderthal than his own. Everyone who knew him classed him as a nut-job exploding jihadist, and the security bunglers knew it all. Surely, had he been banged up away from the internet, without his passport and his 3G phone, Manchester would have been prevented?  The expert evidence suggests otherwise. 

The domestic security service has around 4,000 workers and a budget of £3bn, with police forces across the country to do their legwork. Yet they and the police seem to spend more time and energy chasing Katie Hopkins for being rude about Islam than preventing terrorist killers. Abedi should not have slipped through the net. Someone screwed up. 

It is fantasy to believe that any other than reasonable, justifiable and equitable measures can be taken in the fight against Islamism. Internment is a savage, sectarian and ultimately futile measure that satisfies populist anger but actually helps the Jihadists. Ankle tags, yes. Confiscation of passport and travel bans, yes. House arrest, possibly. Daily reporting, possibly. Internet bans, yes. 

But above all the bungling security services need to apologise to the Muslims - Abedi's imam and his friends - who actually acted as responsible citizens and reported him to the government hotlines but these security agencies then did absolutely nothing. And someone must be sacked for that.