@Steven Jones
"Note that this is not a small thing for Paul Chambers. In this time of paranoia and CRB checks he will have trouble getting employment in many areas, he's already lost his post as a trainee accountant. All this for a questionable joke"
You say potAYto, I say PotAHtoe. You say joke I say bomb threat. Normal people don't go around threatening to blow things up, and when they do as jokes they use more joking terms like "someone should blow them the fuck up" or "the service would be better if they were a pile of glowing radioactive slag"
not "You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!"
"which would in the vast majority of cases passed everybody by and nobody would have been any the wiser."
But they were, so your point is moot. Were no-one the wiser no-one would know - but they were, so they did.
What he tweeted was fairly public, I see no real difference in tweeting that or stating it out loud in the airport itself - and if he did the latter no-one rational would be complaining when he gets arrested and charged.
" If nothing else, it is the sheet arbitrary nature of this. If you doubt it, go do some searches on Twitter for threatening words. There are plenty of people out to kill David Cameron, Gordon Brown or almost any other public figure you care to name. All, one trusts, in jest."
Being a politician must enhance the likelihood of being a target of serious and non-serious threats. Most of which will be non-serious, however anyone standing for office (and especially office at that level) should expect this sort of thing. One suspects the coterie of special branch "new friends" offsets that somewhat. There is a big difference here.
The man was stupid, I agree, but he was maliciously stupid, the consequences of his actions could have been very serious - from disruption to other passengers and airport workers through to diluting the seriousness in which bomb threats / reports are taken (in case it has passed you by there are people out there who want to blow up airports - just Google Glasgow Airport and you will see).
It is about time people manned the fuck up and took responsibility for their actions.