The Guardian reports that the UK may finally be thinking of lifting the insane “one bag” rule that has caused so much chaos at airports over the past year. About time too. As far as I can see, the restriction does absolutely nothing to increase security. From my point of view all it does is encourage me, yet again, to buy a new carry-on bag so that the things I used to carry on in two small bags now fit into one bigger one, and waste a lot of time while I put everything in one bag prior to going through Terrorization, and take it all out again afterwards. Of course it does stop people from trying to board carrying two maximum-sized roller-bags, which makes for a lot more room in the overhead bins, but this is a matter of volume, not of the number of bags.

Update: I spoke too soon. According to the BBC, the UK government is planning to screen luggage at major railway stations. How? With many services it will take longer to screen the passengers than the gap between trains. Screening all of the luggage on a busy intercity service leaving London will take at least half an hour, probably longer. And how does this improve security if all the terrorists have to do is make sure that they board the train at one of the less busy stations that isn’t deemed worthy of a bag-screening system?