No snakes on Lembit's plane

The Sunday Herald quotes some good sense from the boss of Air Welshpool:

In the next edition of Flight Training News, Lembit Opik, the popular Lib-Dem MP and a pilot himself, will let rip against the security hysteria. He says: “The unavoidable logic of the ever-tightening noose of security leads directly and quickly into a police state … What has happened is a very real compromising of our civil liberties … Risk management, not risk elimination, is the sensible approach.” Airline security needs “informed decision-making”, he goes on, adding: “Ministers are only concerned with checking everyone who gets on a plane, rather than figuring out why some people board for the wrong reasons.”

Opik called on the government to “make realistic plans with airports and airlines now, not during the next alleged plot, when the temptation for knee-jerk over-reaction is obviously greater. Long term, the solution isn’t found in turning Heathrow into an overcrowded shanty town of frustrated travellers … the challenge is having proportionate responses.”