Whatever the truth of this latest scare the terrorists must be laughing their socks off at the amount of disruption this has caused in the West.

I travelled to the UK yesterday in a plane that was more than half empty and had to go through extensive security checks at Boston airport to get on the plane. The least problem brings on major paranoia from the authorities and everything gets backed up even more. I wonder what the cost of all this in lost business and man hours would come to.

These guys don't need to carry out their threats - they are making their point quite nicely right now.