Category Archives: London Terror Attacks

7/7 attacks, four years on

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If you haven’t, read the liveblog from the day, have a look at the one year on post, much of which still stands (though, thankfully, this country seems to be rather less hysterical about terrorism these days), and flick through the London Terror Attacks archive.

It’s important not to forget those that died. But although a memorial is being unveiled later today, the thing about terrorism remains that it exists to terrorise.

Four years on, the level of fear in London is back to what it was on 6th July 2005. People carry on their lives quite happily. The underground is packed with people not even giving a thought to the possibility of being blown up on the way to work. The majority of commuters this morning will not even remember that today is the anniversary of those deeply unpleasant events.

This is the best memorial.

Despite the best efforts of the terrorists – and the tabloid-whipped politicians scrabbling around in their wake with plans for detention without trial, stifling protest, DNA databases and countless other pointless draconian measures – our way of life has not been changed.

We, the people of London, were attacked – not the politicians, and not the innumerable armchair warmongers from around the world. The politicians and sabre-rattlers could do well to learn from our response – we dusted ourselves down, had a quick look around, and carried on with our lives.

The terrorists, hoping to have a major impact on the lives of everyone in this country, managed merely to kill and maim a few score innocents. They hoped to become heroes – they ended up little better than animals. And, four years on, they have been all but forgotten.

This is how it should be. If terrorists attack us to scare us and make us change our way of life, what better response is there than to carry on as if nothing has happened?

Did anyone else spot that the head of MI5 has quit?

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What with all the exitement yesterday, what with Blair being questioned by the police, the investigation into bribes over British arms deals with the Saudi dictatorship being dropped “in the national interest”, the official announcement that Princess Diana’s death was an accident (like, reeeeaaaally?), and another announcement that 2,500 Post Offices are to close in the face of a massive public outcry (including a petition signed by 4 million people), the lack of articles about the resignation of a minor minister is understandable, but the resignation of the head of MI5? Does that really merit such little coverage? Especially considering that

“Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, who has been director general of the security service since October 2002, said she had been planning the move since before last year’s terrorist attacks on the London Underground.”

So she’s been in the job for just over four years – hardly a huge amount of time – and has decided to quit following a major terrorist attack about which many questions remain unanswered – and yet this merits only six short paragraphs in the Telegraph and a grand total of 57 articles worldwide (as of 4:45pm on December 15th 2006, according to Google News)?

Erm… Shouldn’t there be a few more questions asked as to precisely why? Especially considering that, apparently, her resignation was agreed as far back as May, yet only happened yesterday, when there was so much other stuff going on that our poor overworked newspaper hacks were struggling enough as it was…

Update:Realised I forgot to point out the single most important bit:

Manningham-Buller agreed her resignation back in May while Charles Clarke was still Home Secretary. She is not leaving until the New Year when her successor is confirmed. Yet the decidedly low-key announcement was only made yesterday, a day more packed than any in a long time with big important stories…

Monday update: More from Rachel and Blairwatch.

Obligatory one year on post

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It is 9:20am on Friday 7th July 2006. At this time on Thursday 7th July 2005, I had been hunting around the interweb for quarter of an hour, trying to find out whether the bang that I’d heard tell of was anything sinister. It soon became clear that it was. Meanwhile, across London, Rachel, Holly, Steve, Mitch, Bumble Bee, Hamish, Weaselbitch, Yorkshire Lass, Andrew and countless others were having a rather worse time of it, stuck in the dark deep underground, many surrounded by scenes they’ll never be able to forget.

Make no mistake, being in a city during a major terrorist attack is not much fun.

BUT.

Though the response on the day from the emergency services and volunteers alike was hugely impressive, the last 12 months have not given much room for hope that anything has been learned. A public inquiry has repeatedly been ruled out, despite so many questions still left to be answered and so many reccomendations ignored. Those in charge of the Metropolitan Police have, throughout this time, done little other than repeatedly shooting an innocent man in the head, stirring up anger and resentment through raids based on little evidence, crushing political dissent near Parliament, making repeated public statements of their inability to prevent further attacks, and taken to pointlessly whacking huge numbers of officers in tube and mainline stations on random days (often Thursdays), ostensibly “to reassure”.

Today, central London is packed with police. Thousands of them infest the city in their luminous jackets, milling around aimlessly – and scaring the living hell out of everyone chugging in to work and trying to forget the events of last year. Do they have torches, first aid kits and breathing apparatus so they can dash below ground and help out at the first sign of a repeat performance? No. Are they searching everyone trying to get on the underground? No. Is their presence on the streets today anything other than a pointless, wasteful PR stunt? No.

Because how can the police and security services prevent further attacks when they still have no idea quite what caused the last lot? Nobody has any idea what made four Muslims with British passports become so filled with hate that they wanted to kill and maim indiscriminately. There may be no answer to the “why?” – but there’s surely a better one than the standard “they were eeeeeeeeeevil”.

So, while we sit back at midday for the two minutes’ silence and think about those people a year ago whose lives were ended or forever altered through the actions of a small group of maniacs; while we ponder what life must be like in Iraq, Israel, Afghanistan and the Sudan, where events like 7/7 come almost daily; while we think how grateful we are to have got through it – think also about how little we know about that day and the events leading up to it, and call for a public inquiry.

And then, once that’s done, let’s get on with our lives – the best possible way to stick two fingers up at the tiny minority of bigoted, faith-drunk totalitarians who want to change the way we live with bombs.

Update: A reminder.

Busy weekend…

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As if by magic, as England get booted out of the World Cup and the country basks in a heatwave, all sorts of New Labour unpleasantness has bubbled to the surface once more, the stench cunningly hidden by the reek of booze-addled mourners. (Note to Blair: Beckham resigned as Captain in a timely manner in order to enable his successor plenty of time to settle into the job before the next major tournament… Hint hint…)

So, this weekend has seen rumours of another 1,000 troops being sent to Afghanistan, where “we face defeat” – just the most prominent of a vast array of stories which would tend to suggest (as if we didn’t know already) that the government is staggering around grasping for a purpose like a Blunkett without his dog.

So, why has the Home Office suspended all research projects? Dsquared was on the case, ready to trawl through the dross with an army of volunteers, but “Research Thursday” was cancelled without fanfare or prior warning.

“A spokesman said: ‘There’s a pause while we reaffirm what the department’s main objectives are. Research has got to feed into policy and we want to do research into high-priority areas.’”

These high priority areas are, it would appear, likely to include finding ways of removing protection from government whistleblowers, providing further justification for again rejecting calls for a proper inquiry into the 7/7 attacks, changing public perceptions that Blair has failed on crime (note to the Home Office – it’s easier to be “tough on the causes of crime” if you, erm, actually do some research into what those causese might be), changing businesses’ perception that the government will always sacrifice their interests to those of the United States, finding ways to overturn the centuries-old right to trial, getting over yet another defeat in the Labour heartland, hiding the ridiculousness of the utterly barmy (yet strangely sinister) protest exclusion zone, finding excuses for deportation tactics so harsh that even former Home Secretary Jack Straw thinks they’re a bit off, and coming up with yet more excuses for holding any and all of us for 90 days without trial, courtesy of Gordon Brown.

Expect more anti-terror nonsense throughout this week in the run-up to the anniversary of the 7th July attacks on Friday, as Gordon tries to show us how tough he is and the rest of the government continue to try and make excuses for the utter lack of any progress in protecting us from swivel-eyed maniacs with bombs.

What, you don’t seriously think you’re any safer now than you were this time last year, do you? Of course you aren’t. It is still just as easy to smuggle a load of bombs onto the underground, a bridge, a bus, a train etc. etc. etc. as it was on the 7th or 21st July 2005.

Because no matter how many draconian, high-profile measures they put in place supposedly to prevent another attack, no matter how many armed police they put on the streets, no matter how many people they lock up just in case, preventing another attack is impossible. Just look at Israel.

Nothing nicer

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Than early morning rumours of bombs on the Underground again… No idea yet if genuine, mind, so I’m probably just scaremongering here.

Update: Looking like just rumours. Can’t find any confirmation at all – probably people jumping to conclusions because (due to the wonderful efficiency of the London Underground) this morning the Metropolitan, Hammersmith & City, Circle, Northern and Jubilee lines all had major delays – a combination of broken signals and knackered trains, apparently…

You see, terrorists, this is the trouble with attacking the Underground – we’re so used to delays that unless we’re caught up in the middle of it we’ll just swear for a bit, get pissed off with our fellow commuters, and then find alternative routes.

Blair and grammar

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The importance of grammar, part 4,673: At today’s press conference (amid much guff), Tony Blair commented on the 7th July bombings:

“He said he knew of ‘nothing that would indicate [the security services] should have known or been able to prevent the attacks”‘”

Which, of course, strictly speaking means he knew of nothing that would indicate the security services should have been able to prevent the attacks. So if the security services don’t need the ability to protect us from terrorists, why the need for all this new, intrusive legislation, eh?

(And here the pedantry ends, for the time being – although I might ask why, if Jack Straw’s Foreign Office policies won’t change under Margaret Beckett, there was any need to remove him? Couldn’t she, as “a safe pair of hands” – despite the lack of evidence of this from her time at DEFRA – equally tackle Lords Reform, Straw’s supposed new task as Leader of the Commons?)

More buried news

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More buried news (an ideal day this – keep an eye out, people): BBC – No charges follow Menezes ‘leak’

“No one is to face charges over the alleged leaking of confidential papers from the Jean Charles de Menezes shooting inquiry, it has emerged.

(Hat tip to Cedalion) Keep an eye on The Government Says and delightfully Orwellian-sounding Government News Network…

Update: Here we go – the Insolvency Service has published the figures for the last quarter: up 7.6% on the last quarter, and 17% on the same period last year. That’s 1,428 compulsory liquidations, 2,011 voluntary liquidations, and 23,351 individual insolvencies. So much for Labour’s safe pair of hands on the economic tiller, eh? (Update 2: Maybe I read that wrong – the BBC says this is a 73% rise…

Anger

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This makes me rather cross – especially after the fuss made about the official fund that was set up in the aftermath of the 7th July bombs (which I linked to the next day – although the press release has now vanished from the Mayor of London’s site…). Just as the powers that be are prepared to abandon victims of miscarriages of justice, they also seem quite happy to ignore the victims of terrorism. Lovely, aren’t they?

Spot on

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Simon Jenkins is spot-on in the Sunday Times:
“The streets of London are alive with like dangers, with people who shoot, kill and maim dozens of people a year. We fight them all, whatever their proffered and spurious justification.

“So what purpose was served last week by police crying, ‘They’re still out there and trying to get you’? What good are daily briefings on ‘the inevitability’ of another attack? Street killings are inevitable, too. Apart from the gratuitous damage to public confidence and business, why stoke the very fears, hatreds and antagonisms that the bombers want stoked? Just get on and find the bombers, without publicising their allegedly awesome power to deflect blame from any deficiencies in public safety. Half the British Establishment seems to have signed up to the League of Friends of Terrorism.”

Read the whole thing. Then mark the irony of the front page of the Times being dominated by the story Third terror cell on lose…

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair is a trigger-happy psycho who wants us all dead

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That’s my interpretation anyway, and I’m sticking to it. He does strike me as the sort of man who, next time the terrorists strike, will sit back with a smug grin on his face and say “I told you so – we should have shot everyone in the head”. (Forgetting, of course, that had he done his cunting job properly the buggers wouldn’t have succeeded in the first place… Grrr…)

MI5

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MI5 – apologists for terror (applying the government’s logic, at any rate):
“Though they have a range of aspirations and ’causes’, Iraq is a dominant issue for a range of extremist groups and individuals in the UK and Europe. Some individuals who support the insurgency are known to have travelled to Iraq in order to fight against coalition forces. In the longer term, it is possible that they may later return to the UK and consider mounting attacks here.”

Race

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British stoicism goes to shit – nice one. As if it’s not bad enough that everyone who looks a bit foreign is being stared at suspiciously on the tube and made to feel deeply uncomfortable, attacks on “asian” people (which may or may not include Brazilians these days) have risen significantly since the bombings. Due to the same ignorance which leads people to get confused about the different Islamic sects, this has included attacks on Sikhs and Hindus.

So, what started out as a fight between “us” and a small group of fanatics has seemingly started to expand to take in not just every Muslim on the planet, but into a full-on racial division throughout British society. Which is one of the least British things going – the last time we had such a racial split was just after the Norman Conquest.