Cameron walks to walk

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8698647.stm

The prime minister has decided to dispense with motorcycle outriders for his official car and was pictured walking between government buildings.

Mr Cameron was photographed last week in his official car, stuck in traffic and without police motorcycle outriders, and walking in Westminster surrounded by tourists.

This seems like a very stupid gimmick to me. He is the Prime Minster, he should have police outriders. Being stuck in traffic is dangerous, walking around is dangerous. No responsible minded person would suggest that money spent on police escort for the most senior members of government is a waste so why do this?

[Hom3r]

Pehaps it's his clone to trap baddies

[punky]

Originally Posted by Damien

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8698647.stm







This seems like a very stupid gimmick to me. He is the Prime Minster, he should have police outriders. Being stuck in traffic is dangerous, walking around is dangerous. No responsible minded person would suggest that money spent on police escort for the most senior members of government is a waste so why do this?

I think you can't please everyone.

He's trying to save money and putting his conveniences where his mouth is. I think he should have a pat on the back for that.

Originally Posted by punky

I think you can't please everyone.

He's trying to save money and putting his conveniences where his mouth is. I think he should have a pat on the back for that.

But he is saving little compared to the risk. The other day his car was sitting in traffic. While people milled around wondering what the press were taking photos off

It's not about convenience as much as it's about safety.

[Xaccers]

Originally Posted by Damien

No responsible minded person would suggest that money spent on police escort for the most senior members of government is a waste so why do this?

Yes they would. If there's a real chance of him being at risk, or a need to not be held up, he will use them, if the situation is deemed not to be a risk he won't, and therefore a hell of a lot of money will be saved.
Look at all the assasination attempts on leaders in other countries where police escorts were used yet did not prevent the attempt.
Very rarely were they just going about their day to day business, simply because it's not that easy to find out their movements.
Like De Gaul, he should swap his motorcade for a fleet of DSs or Activas to protect against losing a tyre

[punky]

I'm sure Special Branch will look after him.

And you can only do so much. Yeah you can give him outriders and he probably won't suffer a vehicle ambush. But he has to be out in the open some time. He can't go everywhere in a Popemobile. If he is that much at risk of a vehicle ambush (a la President Musharraff) then it would mean he'd never be able to go into public again. Dave Cameron may be PM but he still is an MP and needs to run his constiuentcy surgery.

The real issue here is that he is sacrificing a lot of free time for this (few minutes here, few minutes there - adds up over 5 years) for the sake of some police resources. He is saying we all need to make cuts so its a bit hypocritical if he doesn't make any himself. He gave everyone a 5% paycut which is a start but the cost in supplying police officers and vehicles would be quite substantial over 5 years I reckon. Probably run into 6 figures quite easily.

Also plenty of MPs use public transport. They have to engage with the public openly. Even Stephen Timms acknowleged that.

[Paul K]

Him walking and Clegg on the Tube..... can't see many meetings being late lol At least he isn't whining about the restrictions in place for MPs to stop them from totally screwing the expenses system.