Tim Montgomerie from ConservativeHome,com notes in an e-mail to me this morning:

It is politically vital that the police have proof that this is a genuine plot. After recent episodes – not least the false arrest of people at Forest Gate – people have declining confidence in the intelligence used by the police and government. If the intelligence is correct – and up to ten planes were targeted by terrorists (all destined for America) – it might wake a few Britons up the danger of the terrorist threat. Britons have already largely forgotten the 7/7 attacks and those attempted just two weeks afterwards. I fear, however, that Britain is increasingly ‘Spanish’ in its reaction to these incidents. Within hours there’ll be pundits blaming the invasion of Iraq and Blair’s support for Israel for making Britain vulnerable to these attacks.