Two questions from a parochial, isolated US citizen:

1. The newspaper article uses the phrase "know to be haughty". My intuition tells me that phrase informs the British public about aspects of Baroness Neville-Jones' personality, but it means almost nothing to someone not steeped in British newspaper cultural references. Can someone explain that phrase?

2. Where does the "Mirror" fall on the British newspaper spectrum: "reliable" or "less reliable" or "out and out tissue of lies"?

1. being haughty would be something like "unafraid to complain and taking a superior air when doing so". The sort that would say "My bags, boy" to a bellhop. A pretty traditional attitude for a Baroness to take on.

2. Mirror is a tabloid, generally considered somewhere between less reliable and a "tissue". Certainly prone to revel in the slip-ups of snobby government officials.

I'm not getting the point here - we all get pissed when they launch into a lecture about how important security is, and start treating us like criminals due to common mistakes. I imagine if I had some kind of ranking above said security employees in the grand scheme of things I might be letting out a bit of an outburst as well!

>I'm not getting the point here - we all get pissed when they launch into a lecture about how important security is

I think their point is that she is the figurehead of the group setting the minor rules that govern the security protocols that she is complaining about. I think it's irony, but it seems irony is like Lupus ...

The article was thin - it seems more that she was complaining about being spoken down to and mini-lectured on why "security is important" rather than the simple fact that the spray bottle was against regulations.