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.

----------
* GBP - the "Great British Public".

On Sat, 15 Sep 2007 09:41:26 -0700, Mizter T
wrote:

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

This wouldn't surprise me, nor would the theory that security and
immigration queues are allowed to get bigger because that shows that
"Something Is Being Done" (tm), while employing more staff and
improving procedures doesn't.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.