The New Terror Alert System

John Reid has announced that a new terror warning system is to be launched. Code-named Contest, the new system will be viewable on the Home Office and MI5 websites. The new simplified system is part of the government's counter-terrorist strategy.

It is a sensible idea and was one of the recommendations made by the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) in the wake of the London bombings last year. The Current seven-tier system will be replaced with five levels.

• Low


• Moderate


• Substantial


• Severe


• Critical

However, with the Government's habit of playing politics with terror alerts (as also happens frequently in the USA), it is unlikely that the level will show anything safer than Severe.

The home secretary revealed that the UK has been on a "severe general" level since August last year, equating to "severe" on the new scale.

He defined severe as the threat of a terrorist attack being "highly likely".
Source

Of course, when the country really was under attack on July 7 last year the threat level had been reduced from "severe general" to "substantial" just beforehand despite the security services being aware of plots. So quite how useful this new system will be is still a mystery.

Tags: Terrorism