Less than 24 hours before, I listened to the debate in Parliament and could scarcely believe what I heard. The government announced a “task force” whose role in part would be to identify anyone and everyone who might pose a terrorist risk to this country and to track them around the world. Are they in a dreamworld? This is from a government that cannot track immigrants even within it’s own borders. By their own admission they have lost track of an unknown number (but probably over one million) illegal entrants and over 100,000 failed asylum seekers, who are all moving about somewhere within this land! How many potential terrorists lurk behind those numbers?
Add to this their appalling record in failing to deal with known suspects already here – where now are the four released back into Britain from Guantanamo Bay? And how is it that terrorists are able to travel back and forth between here and Iraq to attack our troops and then return back to this country for “rest and recouperation” as the military would put it? 1
Not long after the identities of some of the 7th July bombers were made public, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy made a comment that at least one of those named was already known to the British security services. At the same meeting of EU ministers, the Home Secretary Charles Clarke vehemently denied this statement. He made a point of holding a press conference which was broadcast on TV news to show his fury and issue an aboslute denial. It was, he said, “completely and utterly untrue”. It now turns out Mr Sarkozy was right after all, but unfortunately the security services here did “not regard the suspect [as] a threat”. 2
So why the outburst from Mr Clarke and what was his motive? Did he know Mr Sarkozy’s claim had substance and was he deliberately trying to deflect criticism from his department at a sensitive time? Perhaps he did not have the information to hand to verify the truth or otherwise of Mr Sarkozy’s claim; then when make it an issue? Or indeed perhaps his advisors misled him. Either way, I suggest it shows he is not up to the job.
But whilst ignoring terrorists, our security services have been chasing shadows such as old-age pensioner John Tyndall, who died earlier this week just a few days before he was due to face a court in Leeds for trying to warn us of what has now come to pass.
And this evening we are treated to the spectacle of Police Officers with sniffer dogs at London terminus screaming out orders at perfectly ordinary, innocent travellers – young western european women not wearing enough to conceal a body belt (it has been a hot summer day here), rudely commanded to stop and drop their tiny little handbags on the floor for the dogs to check. It seems to me, only a moron could confuse one of them with a bomber. Not unlike the scenes after 9-11 when security were “obliged” to make body searches at airports, “at random”. If today’s bombers had used a similar strategy as before to make simultaneous attacks, there are only so many intersections between the rail and underground networks through which they would have to travel. Pity that the police with their dogs had not been deployed earlier this morning nor in the intervening two weeks. There may have been a chance of the bombers being intercepted or detered. I wonder if those same sniffer dogs will be on guard in similar places tomorrow or next week?
The Metropoltain Police Commissioner looked decidedly uncomfortable when he admitted “these bombs [today] were meant to kill”. It was obvious the security services had no inkling that a repeat was in the offing. Despite locating and searching a Leeds house that was used to manufacture earlier devices, they had no idea of the numbers actually involved.
Though the emergency services perform admirably in the immediate aftermath of explosions, both the police and the wider security services should be ashamed for not having done enough to prevent it. But, of course, nowadays they are driven above all by political correctness – for which the government must take the credit.
More murders were averted only because all four bombs failed to explode. It seems that, today God was on our side.
1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4627463.stm
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4680155.stm
Reaction to latest attacks on London
The government and the security services have let this country down. For most of the day the authorities have kept very tight-lipped about events in London and given out few, if any, precise details. As parts of the capital remained cordoned-off tonight, it has emerged that today’s incidents were no “stunt”, but were an attempt to repeat the deadly attacks of two weeks ago.