Skipper

Cliches spring to mind about what a difference a day makes. Yesterday London and the nation were celebrating and today we are morning an unknown number of citizens about their normal business, struck down in pursuit of a creed virtually alien to us all. We all knew that an attack on London was not just inevitable, it was a matter of 'when'. Now we know. Al Quaida have not openly claimed the atrocities as their own but we will probably learn of their confirmation 'ere long. Having said that, the Madrid bombings were not claimed for a long time and the twin Towers atrocity, of course, was denied by Bin Laden for several months. The timing was not just inappropriate regarding the Olympics, they were deliberate to make the G8 leaders take notice.

To be honest I'm surprised the attacks have not come sooner than they have. When on the Underground in London I have been keenly aware that anyone can walk on, leave a bomb and then escape with impunity. The same goes for buses. I'll be interested to see if suicide bombers are behind this as this sort of attack does not require suicide to work so dreadfully well.

What does one do about it? The awful thing is that there is very little one can do. It's almost impossible to deter people bent on suicide and all we can do is: rely on intelligence, be ever watchful and try to muddle along as usual. Pathetic advice but is there any better available? The liberal answer is to solve the Palestinian problem and then the Iraq one but that is like two thousand Gordian Knots intertwined. The USA is reluctant to intervene when so much clout is wielded by the Jewish lobby in that country. No, we just have to batten down what hatches we are aware of; wait for the fury to subside- as it may have done in the case of the IRA- and thank our stars we're not muslims living in London as I fear they are about to be in for a bad time of it. A further irony was that the Chief of the Met, was actually on Today, Radio 4 to state that his force was the best in the world for combatting terrorism as it worked so closely with intelligence. A short time later his record was put savagely to the test.