What happened to the ash cloud?

One day we are told that there is an ash cloud over the UK, that the rule is if there is any ash then there is no flying and that it won't move away for a few days at least. The next day we are told that safety tests showed plane engines could cope in areas of low density ash. Was the five day flight ban an overreaction or is the lifting of the ban premature; or both?

The BBC have done one of their famous u-turns where whatever the Labour government do is correct. Yesterday they were insinuating that Boris Johnson didn't understand the science and was asking reckless questions and that public safety was the priority, this morning they are reporting that Lord Adonis has denied that the decision to lift UK flight restrictions was the result of pressure from the airline industry.

This is a government who cannot see a problem without making a knee-jerk decision and they have been caught out again. I wouldn't trust Gordon Brown or any of his team to tell me the time let alone run a government department.