Does the airline plot trial signal a new approach?

Of course, the plot sounds crazy – but then so did the plot to attack the twin towers on 9/11.

Nevertheless the pattern of the terrorist threat to the UK begins to crystallise. Where it exists, it is home grown and trained in Pakistan. Converts and young men who suddenly “find” their religion after particularly wayward adolescence are prevalent.

The common factors in all the cases have been young, mainly educated Muslim men, and resentment of UK foreign policy.

That said, the airline plot trial represents the last of the mega terror trials for the foreseeable future. The trials, as well as control orders for those apparently beyond trial, have proved a convenient element in sustaining the level of anti-terror alert in the country.

But now both these elements are on the wane. The judges have begun to shut down control orders on the basis that holding individuals without telling them the detail of the allegations against them breaches the human rights act.

One of the lessons of the “war on terror” has proved to be that attempting to go beyond the law to beat the threat tends to rebound on government.

Hence the Bush administration’s problems with Guantanamo and the rendering and alleged torturing of suspects; and the UK government’s problems with transit to rendition, rendition in UK-administered territories (Diego Garcia), and allegations of complicity in torture, together with the aforementioned control orders.

There has been an additional downside to the conduct of the “war against terror”, that of politically and security service-fed media hysteria. This remains a danger.

Despite today’s headlines, the fact that it has proved so difficult to convict the three airline plotters, the need for two long and expensive trials, and the fact that half of the accused were found not guilty of the most serious charge, has done much to sober the media’s approach.

I would argue that the media may have turned the corner in the responsibility of its coverage. Conceivably the authorities have learned something too. Let’s hope so.