How Accessible should Public Figures be?

Written by Vincent Cable MP and published in Online Exclusive on Wed 26th May 2004

The purple flour attack on the Prime Minister raises wider questions about how accessible public figures should be to the general public.

There is a serious danger of becoming obsessed by security and losing all sense of perspective. Those of us who choose to be in the public eye should not expect higher levels of personal security than the people we represent. Everyone travelling into Waterloo and using the Underground runs a - very slight - terrorist risk. So do MPs, though the risk is also small and certainly less than being attacked by unstable individuals. JFK, and his brother, the Swedish Prime Minister and Foreign Minister were victims of loners. Overall, politics is still a far less risky profession than working on a building site or a fishing boat let along soldiering.

The danger of over-reaction is that its creates even bigger barriers between people and their representatives, between the governing and the governed. It also leads to wasteful follies like the plastic screen to protect MPs - cost to taxpayers, £600,000 - which the powder throwers evaded very simply.

Our security systems are full of mindless restrictions that are no deterrent to serious terrorists. Elderly ladies are stopped from carrying embroidery needles on planes. Stations are strewn with rubbish because an IRA bomber once used a litter basket. The government's proposed £3 billion ID cards was also dreamt up as an answer to terrorism; but ID was not a problem from the 9/11 hijackers and the Spanish bombers. More security in parliament is likely to have the same dismal results.

Of course we have to be vigilant. And we need to invest in good intelligence services so as to intercept terrorist attacks. But putting the Prime Minister and MPs behind more fortification only helps the enemies of democracy.