from the red zone

Welcome to occupied Manchester:

Planning for the conference began more than a year ago, with key police officers joining colleagues in Brighton to gain experience of last year's event. All leave for police officers has been cancelled.

Many have been on overtime already in recent months, drawing up detailed plans and installing the metal fencing, heavy concrete blocks and security check points which will surround G-Mex and the Manchester International Convention Centre.

Work has also taken place to make the "buffer zone" outside the security barriers secure.
A no-fly zone has been put in place, buildings have been searched and service staff in hotels, shops and the conference centres have been subject to rigorous vetting procedures. Even the drains and underground access points have been searched and secured.

They’ve actually blocked off a fair chunk of the city centre, with no access at all except to the apparat. Great. Treated like a terrorist suspect in my own city. This isn’t a public event. It’s the sales conference of the governing party. Why can’t they just piss off into the countryside somewhere and find some defensible space to conduct their orgies in? The Evening News, relying on Manchester City Council’s Department of Statistics I just Pulled out of my Arse, says the shindig will be “worth £15 million”. Spent on what exactly, I don’t know. Old Labour were famously curry monsters of major proportions, but I can’t imagine what this lot are going to spend money on. Coloured paper clips, maybe. Illustrated compilations of the greatest powerpoint presentations of our age.

Security is clearly becoming the new celebrity. This from John Robb:

Fractional jet ownership programs have zoomed, since these programs suffer none of the security delays and hassles mass transit endures. A great example is Warren Buffet's NetJets, which has a 50% market-share in the fractional jet industry. It has already expanded to 600 aircraft (equal in size to the world's second largest airline, albeit with much smaller jets) and sports global coverage.

This trend is something that will continue as the hourglass demand pattern (where demand is split between super-discount products/retail and a price insensitive high-end) we see in an increasing number of markets becomes the norm in security as well. Rest easy, our business and political elite will not be needlessly inconvenienced.

Yes indeed: rest easy I shall. Now the munchkins at the Labour conference obviously aren’t in the private jet league, but they’ll get a taste of what it’s like inside the velvet rope through their affiliation with the government. The rest of us sad cases will have to go about our everyday business outside the green zone, with hundreds of armed cops breathing down our necks.

Indeed. Can't have everyone getting behind the rope, can we?

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[Backword Dave]

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