Friday, January 16, 2009
Why is Margaret Beckett Given a Range Rover?
Yesterday I was walking through Speaker's Court in the House of Commons when a top of the range Range Rover pulled up. I assumed it was carrying a foreign dignatory. I was wrong. Out stepped two security guards followed by the Minister of State for Housing, Margaret Beckett! A Minister of State would normally emerge from a Toyota Prius or a Ford Mondeo. I know she is an ex Foreign Secretary, but what on earth is she doing with a security detail and a bullet proof, top of the range Range Rover? Who on earth would want to harm Mrs Beckett?
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36 comments:
I can only presume that it is standard practice for a recent former Foreign Secretary who is still in governmernment. Does seem a little excessive for her though - she was hardly a groundbreakeng foreign secretary!
L'oreal - because she's worth it. Funny how Labour grab at anything that's going, anything. When they meet St Pete, I hope he vomits on them.
Because as a recent former Foreign Secretary is given protection where the security services assess that there is a need.
Try building an armoured Prius; it wouldn't move very fast!
Oh, and those security guards? Special Branch close protection officers.
"Who on earth would want to harm Mrs Beckett?"
Mmmm....
Who indeed....
FB
Form an orderly queue, please!
The Penguin
Its for towing her carvan obviously , come on Iain keep up
only ANYone stuck behind a caravan trying to get to the West Country !
Alan Douglas
Do you really believe you are better placed to assess the security risk posed to a former Foreign Secretary than the security services?
On some days I could do harm to any Labour MP!
Matthew, a fair point, but I was only asking the question.
In that case, Harriet Harman must be going around in a tank!
Did Becket get the Land Rover etc when she was on the back benches? If not - why now?
Come on everybody - ask the right questions.
She must have something on Gordon!!
She passed me on the M1 coming back from that expensive away day they had in Leeds in a Jaguar XJ6.
I naturally assume it was a hybrid version, running on chip fat, rather than a fuel guzzling alternative to travelling with the 'plebs' on the well run railways we are always told about.
As a political blogger, I'm sure you are familiar with the concept of a kleptocracy. Labour MP's get to be champagne socialists and ignore the little voters. Didn't Gordon recently spend a week making sure Malloch-Brown got a Jaguar instead of "running" the country?
Iain, I agree with Matthew Cain that the security services are more Abel to assess the threat than you.
Sorry that was bad.
You could be arrested here Iain for publicly discussing the security precautions surrounding a government minister. Better be careful!
Remember, they only 'make' the rules. we surely do not expect them to adhere to them...do we?
It has always been that way throughout history. One rule for the rulers, and one for the masses.
Forget socialism/conservatism/marxism etc - they only blur the reality, serve to keep us under control, and make us all distracted from the truth - which is that no-one really gives a sh*t. Period.
So when the snouts are in the trough, it's the way we all work. Survival of the fittest, and basking arrogantly in the luxuries of power. It corrupts don't you know.
Anything they say is just to keep us all quiet, and the remnants of their permanent student status rearing its idealistic head occasionally.
In reality, they are just a sly greedy bunch, who want to keep themselves aloof and refined, just as the greediest rulers throughout history always did.
So the joke is firmly on us, for playing in their games.
We should really revolt, but we are all just too comfortable for that, with apparently too much to lose - certainly in the waistline area anyway!
Who on earth would want to harm Mrs Beckett?
An angry Vet?
mark, I agree, and speaking from Derbyshire, I must say the very thought of La Beckett revolts me. I wonder how on earth we had the misfortune as a county to possess in Parliament such fine representatives as Beckett and Hoon? Not to mention in the past poor Edwina.
Perhaps Derbyshire people did something in a past life to bring down this dismal fate.
It might be for our benefit - were the windows blacked out?
I just hope she does not copy Uruquay's Interior Minister and post a picture of herself in the shower. I don't think my stomach could take it.
Maybe she received a specific threat and they've just tightened up security for a week or two.
"Mike said...
In that case, Harriet Harman must be going around in a tank!"
Mike, HH IS a tank. Well, maybe a Snatch Land Rover then ....
Alan Douglas
Jonathan - you are the first to make that joke.
Today!
Perhaps it's for towing the caravan?
Mike 11:26 AM:
That's not a tank, that's her backside...
Years ago Douglas Hurd attended an event which I organised at a church in Witney. He was no longer a minister but was still an MP. The police protection squad turned up early to sweep the building with sniffer dogs and electronic equipment. He arrived in a top of the range Range Rover accompanied by a number of plain clothes police officers, one of whom was driving. I was (slightly uncomfortably) aware that there were armed plain clothes police attending the event in the worship area of the church.
One of the police officers involved told me that security for ex-ministers was assessed annually. Apparently they had considered reducing Douglas Hurd's security but decided not to when a Sinn Fein politician described some government action they didn't like as "Hurd-like".
I have no idea who would want to harm Margaret Beckett and I suspect that much of the security surrounding ministers and ex-ministers is overkill (if that isn't an insensitive word in this context). However, if I were making the decisions I would probably err on the side of caution too.
Interesing Peter. I used to travel regularly from the Cotswolds to London by train and Hurd, who lives in a no doubt highly desirable Cotswolds residence, was often to be seen in 1st class on his own. I sometimes used to jokingly engage in loud badinage in his hearing range with my fellow passengers about the dismal state of the railways following Tory privatisations. I gained the clear impression that he was impervious - clearly the primary issue was his own general wellbeing, not the state his government's policies had left the network in.
Who would want to harm her? Have you ever been stuck behind a caravan?
"Who on earth would want to harm Mrs Beckett?"
Not me, that's for sure...
Jacqui, did you get that?
Despairing Liberal - I would probably have ignored you too! Now, if you'd talked to him directly...
The event I organised was not political. Many of those attending were non-political or supported other parties. All found him very approachable. He stayed behind to talk to people long after he needed to (and long after the police told me he needed to leave). And no, he wasn't fishing for votes - he'd already decided to stand down at the next election (and Witney is so safe the proverbial donkey in a blue rosette would win).
It's a tow car for her ****** caravan!
Ahh, but is her caravan armoured?
Who would harm Margaret Beckett?
Anyone carrying a polished shield, perhaps?
Is it a freebie from the Caravan Club?
While F/Sec she was photographed with what was supposedly her own R/Rover going off on hols. with her caravan. With the public money she fire-hosed to octogenarian hubby as her ‘assistant’ it would be affordable. Could she now be running it/one on HMPG?
Anyway it would not be creepy Muslim nutters but farmers who would want to harm her after her stonking car-crash of policies at DEFRA which wrecked thousands of businesses and many lives. Which Labour sought to disguise in their normal way by promotion. There is nothing about new Labour that does not make one shudder in contempt and anger – except at last and belatedly the 3rd runway at Heathrow. And when the gas runs out lets hope all those CND useful idiots in the ‘80’s sign up to absorb the power cuts!
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