A busy Thursday

  05 February 2010

Thursday morning Operation Griffin

Thursday morning started with a visit to the airport for a briefing about security and the anti-terrorist activity being undertaken in North West Leicestershire and in particular the airport itself. The briefings and presentations were from the members of Leicestershire constabulary based at the airport, special branch anti-terrorist squad and also the Royal Logistics Corps based at army Chilwell near Nottingham (bomb disposal). The briefing was part of Operation Griffin to raise awareness of the potential threat and the fact that the UK threat level has recently been raised to 'Severe', which means that an attack on UK intersts at home or abroad is likely.

It was very reassuring to see the work all of these services were doing to reduce the risk and mitigate the impact of a potential terrorist attack in our district. The briefings called for 'awareness not alarm,' most of these in the audience work at or near the airport and it is vital that they report anything unusual to the police and security services. We watched several short videos showing how a potential terrorist incident could be discovered and thwarted by the security services as a result of putting several small pieces of information from different sources together. Security is all of our responsibility and we all have our part to play. we need to ensure in our battle with those who would perpetrate such attacks that our vigilance and security measures in North west Leicestershire are at least as good as anywhere else in the UK as the terrorists will always go to what they believe is the softest and easiest target

Thursday Afternoon

I was interviewed for the BBC Daily Politics show which is being shown on Friday 5th of February at 1200hrs, the topic was North West Leicestershire and wether we should have a by-election or just wait for the General election?

Thursday Evening

The campaign team returned to the village of Castle Donington, canvassing and leafleting. I noticed a massive increase in the number of 'Don't Destroy Donington' signs in windows and gardens. This evening was far less wet than Wednesday, after which it was not just the canvass sheets and leaflets that needed to dry out on the radiator when I got home.