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We were lucky. Had the 2006 bomb plot against transatlantic flights, whose perpetrators were convicted yesterday, come off, we would now be living with the consequences of a tragedy that might well have eclipsed the Lockerbie bombing and would certainly have resulted in far more deaths than the 7/7 attacks.
It used to be customary for our public figures to declare, following acts of terrorism, that evil men would not be allowed to change our British way of life.
No one makes such claims now: the reality is that air travel is far more disagreeable, time-consuming and inconvenient as a result of the actions of the men convicted yesterday.
The conviction, following an earlier trial, is a tribute to the persistence of the police, the intelligence services and the Crown Prosecution Service.
As Tony McNulty, the former security minister points out, this is a vindication of the actions of these agencies when many people after the initial arrests declared that this was yet another attack on the Muslim community.
And indeed, complaints of this kind are common when arrests following any alleged terrorist plot do not result in convictions.
But the threat presented by these British Muslims of Pakistani origin was real. And there may be other plots in the future — MI5 has suggested that the British al Qaeda commander behind the attacks may still be alive in Pakistan; certainly there are others who will use British Muslims to attack Britain.
Some investigations may not result in individuals being brought to trial but they may still be worth undertaking.
What we should be doing now is considering all the security measures that we would have implemented had the plot succeeded — because there will be other plotters, possibly including Somalis.
We might well have considered more drastic action against radical Muslim preachers, reworking human rights laws to enable us to deport extremists to their countries of origin, our approach to immigration; on these issues the Government's record has been patchy.
We should debate remedial measures now rather than wait until a plot succeeds, when any reforms would be undertaken in the heat of the moment in haste.
Certainly, the plot here leads right back to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
And the reality is that the fight against terrorism in Britain is, in great part, being waged by the Pakistani government in its fight against extremist Islamic groups in border areas.
That puts the debate about our involvement in Afghanistan into sober perspective.
Duncan demotion
Alan Duncan's demotion by David Cameron from the shadow cabinet was overdue and is right.
Mr Duncan, as this paper first revealed, was exposed as a hypocrite when he was secretly filmed by an activist, complaining about the treatment of MPs following the expenses scandal: “No one who has done anything in the outside world is going to come into this place again.”
Plain speaking on the part of MPs is always refreshing; trouble is, Alan Duncan was in charge of the party's handling of MPs' expenses, as a member of the Commons Estimates Committee.
He had voiced very different views on the matter when he appeared on radio and television, expressing, in the most moving terms, regret about MPs' behaviour.
The moral is not that all MPs must be tightly regimented when it comes to expressing views but that those with responsibility for particular issues cannot say one thing in public, quite another in private.
Mr Cameron, with this demotion, has recognised the extent of public contempt for MPs because of their abuse of expenses; he is right.
Boris gets tough
It is not just MPs who have been shown to have abused publicly funded expenses and allowances. There have been scandals involving members of the Mayor's staff, too.
Accordingly, Boris Johnson is to impose “random testing” on City Hall expenses.
Plainly it is necessary, but what a dispiriting reflection it is on the probity of public servants.
Reader views (1)
Terrorists in our midst is a result of the Labour parties policies of multiculturalism and so called 'diversity'. Most of the 'immigrants' do not integrate with the ethnic population, but settle in towns already occupied by their fellow countrymen and are not interested in British culture. This needs to change, but it won't with this government in power.
- Mike, deal. kent, 08/09/2009 17:41
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