On 15 Sep, 14:46, (Neil Williams)
wrote:
On Sat, 15 Sep 2007 12:08:46 +0100, "tim....."

wrote:
You've never flown to the US then! It's the pits, makes the
UK controls look trivial.

I will admit I always liked the non-uniformed informality of the UK
approach. They could quite easily have tightened it up without losing
that typically British friendliness.

Neil

Yes, I tend to agree.

Of course the whole issue of uniforms is one that is surrounded by
many theories, and is a favourite topic of study by psychologists and
the like. Maybe the uniform does suggest to people (not least the
officers themselves) that they are taking things seriously/to be taken
seriously. Of course the cynic would suggest this change of image is
really for the benefit of the law abiding GBP* as opposed to those
wishing to break the rules - however I'm more of a sceptic than a
cynic so I wouldn't necessarily be in complete agreement with such a
simplistic line of argument, though I think it likely such
considerations were at least a factor (even subliminally) in the
change of policy. Of course it isn't possibly to entirely disentangle
considerations of how the image of the newly-uniformed Immigration
officers will come across to the GBP as discrete from how it will be
seen by the wider world.

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* GBP - the "Great British Public".