According to MI5 we’re living under a severe threat level. A terror attack is judged highly likely.

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Almost weekly we have repeated warnings about Russia, Iran and other hostile states targeting people on British soil. Ministers tell us to stay alert. Police tell us the threat is real. Intelligence chiefs tell us that foreign states are recruiting proxies, watching targets and plotting violence here in Britain.

Then you look at how some of our elected officials are actually protected, and it starts to feel faintly ridiculous.

Walk around Westminster and you will see the full range. At one end, there are armed police officers, specialist vehicles, trained drivers, intelligence support and the full weight of the state.

At the other, there is someone in a suit with an SIA badge, a radio and a reassuring expression.

Over the past few weeks, my team has been looking closely at the protection given to politicians in this country. I expected to find gaps. I did not expect the gaps to be quite this wide.

The threats are not new. Jo Cox was murdered in 2016. PC Keith Palmer was killed defending Parliament in 2017. Sir David Amess was murdered at his own constituency surgery in 2021.

Politicians in Britain have been living with real danger for years. What shocked me was the sheer inconsistency in the response.

Some ministers get specialist police protection. Cops with serious training, firearms, police powers, secure communications, access to intelligence and the authority to act when something goes wrong.

Others, including people holding genuinely senior office, get a private contractor whose main formal qualification is an SIA close protection licence.

The letters SIA are supposed to reassure us. They sound official. They sound tactical. They sound like something you'd read on the side of a black van in a television drama.

In reality, the Security Industry Authority regulates the private security industry. It licenses everyone from nightclub bouncers to the store detectives standing beside the self-checkouts at your local supermarket.

A close protection licence involves more training than a basic security licence, of course it does. But it still gives the holder no police powers, no automatic access to intelligence and no authority beyond that available to any other civilian.

It is permission to work. That is all. Since 2022, the close protection qualification has required a minimum of 194 guided learning hours over roughly 18 days. Courses are advertised for somewhere between £2,000 and £3,500.

We are talking about people who may be entrusted with the lives of cabinet ministers, senior MPs and other public figures facing threats from terrorists, extremists or hostile states. Yet the basic entry point can be completed in less time than some people spend on a long holiday.

Complete the course, pass the assessments, clear the checks, pay for the licence. You can now legally work as a close protection operative.

What you do not get is experience. You don’t get years of learning how crowds behave, how hostile surveillance looks, or how somebody moves in the seconds before they attack.

You don’t get the........

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