US and UK raises security alert in the UK to Severe

old news!! and quite a lot of political point scoring.

Most right wing newspapers link it to a knife attack in a Jewish area of London, where an overweight, middle aged muslim man with mental health issues ran around with a knife until he found 2 people slow enough to injure - I know that sounds flippant but in comparison a few hours later 6 people were stabbed in a school in Tacoma,WA. What most papers did not report is that about an hour earlier he also stabbed a muslim man, UK law uses the offenders thought process to decide what is terrorism so the first may not count!

But whilst the right were making a lot of noise and somehow linking Starmer recognising the State of Palestine to the stabbing incident, this court case ended and reporting restrictions were lifted showing what really scares MI5.... https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/apr/30/neo-nazi-who-planned-mass-gun-attack-convicted-after-mi5-undercover-sting - within hours the threat level had been lifted. And journalists all got very excited - even though none will be able to tell you what exactly the words really mean -and neither can I. If you want to try and make sense of the system it's explained here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Threat_Levels

Note that lowest TWO levels in this sytem have never been used, nor were they in the 12 years of the previous system. Not shown on that page is the system before that, in which I had practical experience, and the low level in that hadn't been used since the early 70's.

Basically the UK has been living under a terrorist threat warning for around half a century, but we still have a mostly unarmed police service and they don't seem worried. And the "61016" announcements on trains (travel by train and you WILL hear them) have become part of one line comedy routines. So don't be put off - but please, when they say don't leave your bags unattended they do mean you!

Thanks for the post Frank II.

old news!! and quite a lot of political point scoring.

Whether it is political point scoring, a mislabeled terrorist attack, antisemitism or attempted murder, I think it is important, as Frank II pointed out, "be more alert to your surroundings while in the London area". If you get stabbed by some lunatic, I doubt you will care much about what they call it in the newspaper after the fact.

The chances of being stabbed by a lunatic remain fairly slim in London thankfully, even compared to last week when there was a different terror alert status.

The threat levels tend to move between substantial and severe reasonably regularly.
The decision to change it is not a political decision. It is made by JTAC, the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre and will have been based on a wide range of intelligence and advice.
The situation is slightly more complicated than usual due to the range of potential threats and the likely actions of certain states, not helped by the situation in the Middle East.

What doesn’t get explained is that the threat isn’t necessarily imminent. From memory I think Severe means a potential threat in the next few months. If the level is Critical it is a likely threat in the near future. That is the only threat level I would personally worry about. It tends to get raised to that if there is very specific intelligence or an actual event and doesn’t stay at that level for very long.

In all honesty I’m not sure that being ‘alert to your surroundings’ is that helpful for the average tourist. If you don’t know what is usual what are you being alert to?

Just go about your trip as you normally would. If the police tell you to do somethIng, do it and don’t leave your possessions lying around.

to clarify, the political point scoring came from those making noise around the announcement, not those responsible for it.

I, being old school, will remain at Bikini Black unless I have to go to London in which case I might rise to Special. And those terms make no more and no less sense than what is currently announced. I'm always alert to my surroundings - and there are far more things worrying me!!!

It is ironic that the root cause for this is the actions of countries many thousands of miles away from whom the UK government is quietly trying to distance themselves.

I already fear this thread is becoming too political so best leave it there.

The implications are things like a large comedy show was completely evacuated and cancelled due to an unattended bag being identified. This is the kind of thing that due to the elevated risk level will now be treated with utmost seriousness.

I enrolled in the US State Department STEP and they forwarded the alert. Mildly concerned, but not changing any plans in visiting the UK this month.

So … Keep Calm and Carry On ?

mc.crewe noted above that, “we still have a mostly unarmed police service and they don't seem worried” - The police responding to the attacker wielded tasers, not firearms.

"It is ironic that the root cause for this is the actions of countries many thousands of miles away from whom the UK government is quietly trying to distance themselves." I've no idea what that means, because MI5 has been warning for some time about the sort of home based threats reported in the Guardian link above, and the alert was timed with that case (presumably so that it couldn't affect the jury). There's nothing really political about this discussion, it's been about perceptions of risk, and perhaps misunderstandings across different societies.

But if I was an american taxpayer I'd ask questions about how the embassy manages to spend so much money and still produce something as meaningless as that notice. Or why they wait for UK warnings and repost them instead of being proactive based on events they must be aware of - if they think the Goldars Green incident was that serious why didn't they post something straight away? Have they said anything about the car bomb in Northern Ireland last week?

This is what the UK government advises regarding travel to the USA:>https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/usa

To spell it out the FCO advice for the USA is-

Terrorists are very likely to try and carry out attacks in the US. Terrorism attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places visited
by tourists and foreign nationals such as: crowded places and mass gatherings, transportation networks, sporting and cultural events, places of worship and religious sites, hospitals and clinics, schools and universities.

Apart from Tacoma, only about a month ago there was a foiled school shooting in Ellensburg, WA (serious enough to lead to two pupils being arrested, only apparently foiled because they couldn't apparently (and a bit surprisingly) access firearms). Yet that incident was barely reported. Neither school incident was terrorist related.