HOW would you feel if you were Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and contemplating forty winks between duties, or looking forward to a good night's kip after a particularly exhausting day at the office, glad-handing battalions of visiting dignitaries?

Safe? Would you be happy and relaxed, knowing that London's finest, specially recruited to defend you against everything from terrorist attacks to rickets, were out there, eyes peeled, senses heightened?

Well, no, actually. You'd be wondering who the hell will be sitting on your bed this time when you are awakened by an intruder in the dead of night? Osama Bin Laden, perhaps.

No-one could possibly blame her, given the latest appalling breach of royal security. Two members of Fathers4Justice, dressed as Batman and Robin, evaded armed guards to reach a section of Buckingham Palace underneath the Queen's balcony. Jason Hatch, the man dressed as Batman, scaled the wall and spent several hours on the ledge.

Television pictures, meanwhile, beamed his picture around the world, compounding the embarrassment for those entrusted with the job of safeguarding the Royal Family in a volatile and unstable world.

Home Secretary David Blunkett, the man at whose desk the buck will eventually stop, defended the actions of the police, after a meeting with Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Mr Blunkett said that Batman and Robin had been spotted on security cameras and armed police took the entirely correct decision in identifying them as protesters rather than terrorists.

Sir John added that his men hadn't shot the intruders as their clothes and behaviour marked them out as something other than terrorists. So can we now assume that anyone intending to blow up Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, Harrods or my favourite bookies has only to dress up as a cartoon character to have uninterrupted access to their target, waltzing past security guards and armed police with a cheerful grin and flamboyant wave?

I'll bet Good Queen Bess will sleep peacefully tonight, but under the bed rather than on it.

It's 22 years since she awoke to find a chap called Michael Fagan on her bed. Ten years ago a naked American paraglider landed on the roof off the Palace.

In June, 2003, self-styled comedy terrorist Aaron Barschak gate-crashed Prince William's 21st birthday party, dressed as Osama bin Laden and last November a Daily Mirror reporter got a job as a palace footman before a state visit by President George 'Dubya' Bush. Now it's Batman and Robin.

There is another side to all this of course. Supposing Batman and Robin had been met with a hail of bullets. How would the media have reacted? Headlines along the lines of: 'Innocent protest ends in slaughter' and 'Armed cops blast crusade dads'.

I used to write them and know how these things go butouldn't want the job of deciding who lives and who gets shot. That's one reason why terrorists are holding the high cards. They know who they are.