The Register has published an even more opinionated piece on the actual scale of the recent terrorist threat. It’s calling it an idiocy outbreak and compares the recent events with yobs burning cars for kicks on a saturday night. The fact that the author is a former armed-forces bomb disposal operator serves to highlight the disconnect between the message being banded about by the official mouthpieces and the actual substance of the events.
I may not agree with the tone of the article completely, but the substance is spot on: the risk posed by a bit of petrol and a domestic gas canister in the back of a car is rather low, and mostly to its carrier, not the public. The media and the government would do well to call it like it is with the public – a successful attempt by a few deranged individuals at gaining notoriety, normally dealt with by slapping ASBOs around – and moving on to paying attention to the actual risks that abound around us.
These guys were never going to hurt anybody. Now, thanks to the hysterics of the headline writers, they’ve managed to damage the economy, curtail our freedom and make us late for our holidays. I think they’ll be very happy with themselves indeed.
