Bombs in bins was and is a negligible threat, and removing bins was a totally disproportionate response. It's obviously handy for Govts to have people in a constant state of slight fear and paranoia to keep them in line, and some of the responses on this thread suggest that it works a lot of the time: people can be persuaded that *something* (anything) is better than just ignoring a negligible threat, no matter how inconvenient the result, and this sort of measure/gesture helps ratchet up the useful fear. The same is true of having trained chimps going through your baggage at airports, and anyone who questions this insanity is labelled a 'supporter of terrorism'. 'Irish dissidents' appear to be being lined up as the next bogeyman (already mentioned in this thread), despite the fact that these people are totally out of step with nationalist thinking both in Northern Ireland and the Republic, and are a handful of cranks with about as much explosives between them as a box of Standard Fireworks.
I was living in Northern Ireland during the no-bins-on-stations era, and (happily) the BTP had no jurisdiction there. I mused more than once on the irony that the only mainline railway station in the UK to have bins was Belfast Central. I have been at Belfast Central more than once hours after the concourse had been blown up, and was simply able to buy a ticket and catch the train (the first time this happened I was somewhat speechless as I picked my way through the broken glass and fallen masonry to the booking office: Not a single person made any reference to the devastation surrounding them). No bins would not help here as people would simply through the bomb into the concourse from a passing car. This speaks volumes: that people who have to face a real threat, rather than 'useful idiots' who live in a safer era than probably has ever existed in the whole of history, yet who panic about non-existent ones, have a far greater sense of proportionality when it comes to what levels of disruption they are prepared to tolerate. Daily life in Northern Ireland was awkward enough then without removing litter bins FFS. I hope nobody would wish to suggest that the RUC had less experience of dealing with terrorism than the BTP! If there was a series of car bombs (actually far more common both in NI and in IRA attacks in Britain), would we agree to banning parked cars? I doubt it somehow.
What must it be like to spend your whole life in a mild state of fear and panic? To be carrying out a perpetual risk assessment? Life's too short for this, and statistically it's incredibly unlikely that anything will ever happen to you. Still, I'm sure a number of posters on this forum can tell us what it's like to shudder every time they see a litter bin, or feel a sense of relief and warmth when some semi-articulate baboon who in a rational world would be lucky to have a job at all starts rummaging through their skid-marked smalls at the airport.
