In message
David Hansen wrote:
On Sat, 24 Feb 2007 20:45:57 +0000 (UTC) someone who may be
(Nick Leverton) wrote this:-
If the entire police force of a county can't stop a couple of hundred
ravers from getting together in one place to have a party (a confrontation
which still happens in most counties most weekends), I'm not sure how even
the police+army is going to stop millions of people from leaving London.
Indeed. Such ideas may seem fine in television programmes, but it's
difficult to see how to stop human waves.
It wasn't an idea in a TV programme, it was official governemnt policy for at
least 30 years.
I suppose one could try using area weapons, like Saddam Hussein did using
the weapons of mass destruction we had sold him against the Iranians, but I
suspect that would simply make the public more determined and I'm not
convinced that most of the police or armed forces have forgotten that they
are not in the SS. Even if the armed forces were withdrawn from imperial
wars overseas I doubt if there would be enough of them to stop the public
in other ways.
You are making the mistake of talking about the present day, the policy was
in place throughout the 50s 60s and 70s. And they weren't planning on
stopping the whole population of London, they were talking about the weak,
radiation sick survivors of one or more multi-megaton blasts over the London
area.
--
Graeme Wall
This address is not read, substitute trains for rail.
Transport Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail/index.html