While the Met has been running annual ad campaigns for the past two years calling all Londoners to denounce anyone looking or behaving a bit different, the Greater Manchester Police is planning a campaign targeted at hair salons. The Manchester Evening News reports:
HAIR salons could soon be in the frontline in the war on terror. Police research shows women are less likely to take on board security messages.
Now experts have pinpointed hair salons as the perfect place to target them.
They plan to show videos while women are having their hair done to encourage them to report suspicious behaviour on a special hotline.
Greater Manchester Police has been chosen to co-ordinate a national publicity campaign which will also feature national TV and radio adverts, posters and videos in railways stations, on buses and next to major city roads.
Ads broadcast in hairdressers' salons calling for denunciation have little chance of detecting a terrorist, but will help fuel a climate of mistrust that promotes discriminatory and racist attitudes.
There are fears the threat of terrorism has drifted off the agenda with the onset of the global recession.
This is a poor security trade-off.
(hat tip to (Barber) Shop out your neighbours to the police, Mancunian terror propaganda plan makes us less safe and Thank god for Boris (or, why I'll never get my hair done in Manchester))