"The terror threat to the UK has been downgraded from critical to severe. Home Secretary John Reid said the change was made because an attack was "highly likely" but not "imminent".
The change in the threat level means the ban on taking hand luggage on to flights from the UK has been lifted, although some restrictions remain.
Meanwhile, a British Airways flight from Heathrow to New York has been turned back because a mobile phone - banned at the time - was on board.
The change in the terror threat level was made by the Joint Terrorism and Analysis Centre based on latest intelligence."
Even though it is hard to see what aspects of the "terror threat" could have changed between Saturday morning and yesterday evening to justify the downgrading of the threat level, we must believe that the change was made for security reasons. It would be excessively cynical to suppose that the downgrading had been driven by the obvious failure of Heathrow to cope with the ban on hand luggage, would it not?
Just because The Guardian reports:
"Last night John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, was meeting with John Reid, the home secretary, and Douglas Alexander, the transport secretary, to try and resolve the chaos still at some British airports following the increased security measures. Mr Prescott made private visits to Stansted and Humberside airports yesterday to talk to the public and staff about security
measures. "
this should not be taken to mean that the security threat level is driven by considerations of airport chaos, should it?
Because if that were the case, one might start to question what had driven the threat up to the critical level in the first place...
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