to think the general public are living with their heads in the sand.

[violetsarentblue]

I've just read this:

Britain's threat level has not changed - it has been at "severe" since August 2014, meaning a militant attack is considered likely.

It's worrying to think there has probably been a lot of stuff going on, for a long time, that we are never ever told about.
It's very worrying.

The media is tightly controlled already when it comes to matters of national security. As individuals, we have to choose our media carefully and be discerning readers and viewers ie thinking about sources, bias, word choice etc.

Increasing government control of the media would not make me feel safer. In fact it would have the opposite effect. Oppressive regimes always exercise tight controls over the media. It doesn't serve to make people feel safer. Instead it makes them feel disempowered and heightens confusion.

Btw. I am convinced of what the next target will be. Security at these facilities are horrendously lax.

Btw. I am convinced of what the next target will be. Security at these facilities are horrendously lax.

Gosh, well you'd better tell us so we can avoid it!

You can't live your life in constant fear. Yes, a terrorist attack is possible, but so is getting hit by a car or a house fire or any number of other tragedies that happen up and down this country every day.

Regardless of ISIS or any other terrorist group, life still has to go on. The likelihood of being caught up in an attack, while horrifying, is minuscule in the grand scheme of things. People still have to go to work and school and to the shops.

I don't think people have their heads in the sand, they just know that they can't stop an attack happening and need to just get on with things. What other choice is there, really?

I also think (maybe naively) that most peoples daily lives aren't affected by these things. Unless you live in a big city, the middle east or travel around a lot, most people in England are safe aren't really affected on a daily basis.

Just because people don't let the increased terror risk affect their daily lives it doesn't mean that they are unaware of the likelihood of a Paris style attack. There is basically nothing we as civilians can do about it. When we spend every moment of our lives being terrified to leave our homes the terrorists win.

I totally agree with aplaceonthecouch that the government taking control of the media would be a terrible idea.

YABU most intelligent people know that we live with a constant threat - tbh I'm glad I don't know the details of what our security services are dealing with on a daily basis / it would just give others ideas!

I remember, living in London in the 1980s, that we knew the same about the IRA.

There are millions of people living in the UK and in France, and the rest of Europe. There are hundreds of millions in the States. Terrorist attacks are horrible, awful, but statistically you are still more likely to be killed in your own car. And I don't notice many people terrified of driving.

Transport Diana?

I'm enjoying a day in London.... Wouldn't have occurred to me to cancel. Life goes on.

How do you know the security services are doing a wonderful job?

I said I think they're doing a good job. I don't know, nobody knows for sure.
Somebody pointed out that they are probably preventing things all the time, only we never get to know all of what they do.

So in my books, they are doing a good job.

OP I think people are generally aware of the terror threat. However what they are not aware of, or choose to ignore, is the direction of travel. That in the coming years this won't get better, it will only get worse.

I am constantly amazed by the ignorance regarding immigration stats, birth rates and demographic change in the UK and across Europe which will make terrorism more and more prevalent until serious civil disorder breaks out. The widespread support for open borders and handwringing over "refugees" demonstrates this clearly. The very obvious harmful consequences are being overlooked or deliberately ignored by the impulsive and foolish.

The terrorist threat is also very useful to the government to push through dodgy laws "to protect us"....

OP, you might like the book May the Lord in his Mercy be kind to Belfast - it's a fantastic book based on the experiences of people who lived their lives in Belfast through the Troubles.

Sorry, that's slightly random - meant to add that it feels very relevant today.

What would the general public being 'mindful' of this risk look like to you?

Terrorism is impossible to predict and affects an infinitesimally small fraction of the population.

I'm a British expat living in the Middle East. We have had a few terrorists threats/ attacks this year. I only kow about them through my job. The general public and media are NEVER told to keep order.

No i known, as im sure most of the uk population does, just want can you do. You have to go about your day to day life. Mind you as a child of the 80s living in the uk i grow up like other mntters with the ira threat.

Sleep, I was just thinking that I lived through bomb threats at my Catholic school in the Seventies, IRA bomb blasts in London during the Eighties, including Harrods, which I worked near at the time, and was caught in one of the last IRA bombs, in John Lewis Oxford Street in 1990. If we lived and worked in London, we just had to get on with it. To me the level of threat now is is similar, though the terrorists are somehow more shadowy.

OP, you might like the book May the Lord in his Mercy be kind to Belfast - it's a fantastic book based on the experiences of people who lived their lives in Belfast through the Troubles.

Sounds interesting Sadik.

OP, I thought everyone knew this?

I'm a Londoner, grew up hearing IRA bombs. Use the Tube. We are all very very aware. There's always that moment on the Tube when something makes you think "shit - is it going to be now?" People get on the Tube with mahousive bags every single day. And the Boxing Day sales always make me wonder, and the New Year celebrations....

slight puzzle for me today - could be erroneous reporting? - about Britain considering raising the level of threat. I thought the next level up was "specific intelligence of imminent hit" - and before that we are at the lowest one.

I have to get on with my life. Better to die on my feet than live on my knees.

YABU

I'm actually staggered at the number of people who say things like "well, its going to happen here sometime". Do they genuinely think they are saying something deeply profound and something no one else has ever realised?

How can that be?

OP I also grew up in the 70s and travelled to work in the 90-s when the IRA blew up London Bridge, it was only because XH wasn't in a hurry that morning I wasn't on the platform when the bomb went off. Some things we have no control over but we knew the chances.

Theresa May is pushing through the Snoopers Charter on the back of the fear of attacks sacrificing the individual right of privacy for the group right of protection as she claims. You don't see much about how draconian her policies are because fear and ignorance are tools the government wield to keep the public in their place.

I grew up in Northern Ireland during the 70s and 80s. Carrying on as normal is the only way. Especially nowadays - if we knew everything, many people would be constantly paralysed with anxiety whipped up on social media and normal life would become impossible.

sausage I was at London Bridge station that morning too!