I have often thought that the life of a top-class politician in a high-profile country must be pretty intolerable. Not only his/her life but that of his/her neighboroughs as well. I remember an article in a newspaper how the value of property in some part of Islington fell because Tony Blair moved in there. The reason being that life there became so uncomfortable as the people living there could not go to their homes without being checked by security-people.
Being a PM of Britain or Preisident of the USA must be terribly awkward because there is no chance of being able to go anywhere without security-people following you around.
This raises a question, which level of politicians have bodyguards in which country. Even though the British PM is very protected and you could not approach him without being checked first, we remember the election-campaign in 2001 when John Prescott, the government´s second man, while campaigning in Hull had an egg hurled at him. Hepunched his perpetrator in the face, which won him a lot of sympathy. However, many Americans said that the idea of being able to throw something at the Vice-President in the Us is simply insustainable.
Even though the PM´s are protected,opposition-leaders aren´t to the same extent. I remember myself, it was either 1991 or 1992, not sure, but I saw Neil Kinnock in a London supermarket. People around were whispering:”Look, there is Neil Kinnock” but there he was all alone doing his shopping. He was at the time Labour-leader and a potential PM.
Former US Presidents and British PM´s have their security personnel still around them until the end of their lives, of course the secret service carries out risk-analysis like Maggie Thatcher needs more protection than James Callaghan(If he´s still alive, I don´t know) or John Major.
How about in Ireland? I´m sure that Bertie Ahern does not pop in a supermarket alone, he sure has bodyguards, surely also Mary McAleese.
The need of bodyguards of politicians of minor countries was highlighted when the Swedish PM Olof Palme was assasinated in the Stockholm street in 1986. He wanted to go to the movies with his wife and he told his bodyguards to go home, he always hated them anyway. Well, on that night he was shot by a gunman believed to be Christer Petterson whom Palme´s wife recognised but the evidence was still not enough to convict him.Petterson is dead now, so that mystery remains unsolved.
A more recent example from the same country four years ago when the Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh was fatally stabbed at a supermarket in central Stockholm. That happened on the days preceding a highly charged euro-referendum campaign in which Mrs Lindh was a very vocal proponent of Sweden switching over to the euro. When she was stabbed as she was alone, many people thought that it had to do with the referendum but it turned out that it didn´t as the stabber was a disturbed person who had seen a famous face.
However, many people in Sweden then thought that had not the Plame-assasination taught anything. It is extremely naive of the top politicians to walk among the general population thinking that nothing could happen to them.
The politicians are the bodyguards´bosses and they must obey the politicians. Many times politicians want to shake hands with ordinary people on the street, a scenario of utmost nightmare for all bodyguards.