Someday soon we are going to suffer a terrorist attack in the UK. It’s not that it could happen, it will. What happened in Belgium, France and Germany, and almost in Australia, will happen here. And it will be equally as horrible and every bit as shocking.
We have done remarkably well since the 7/7 attacks. The police and security services have kept us safe through a combination of operational excellence and good luck. The IRA were undoubtedly a bunch of vile terrorists but the unwitting service they provided gave us a better state of preparedness. In the last decade, poor Lee Rigby was the only known victim on home soil. Not so abroad.
An Islamic fascist took out British holidaymakers in Tunisia and wrecked the country’s tourist industry. His friends did the same in Eygpt and are doing the same to Turkey. We are winning most of the time, but mostly won’t be good enough when they strike.
It takes one suicidal maniac to change everything. It only required 11 murderers on 9/11, four on 7/7 and just two to kill Lee Rigby. But there are hundreds of these people living free in our community.
Who is to say they won’t turn up at a sporting event, or a concert as they did at the Bataclan? If they want to, it’s easy enough. The 02 Academy in Bristol now screens visitors but the security guards will be helpless if a couple of psychopaths turn up with kalashnikovs. The thin blue line, so much thinner since Theresa May got her hands on them, can only keep so much of the peace. The next atrocity is so much more likely because of Mrs May, slashing away at police numbers and concentrating resources on MOD bean-counters rather than front-line soldiers, seamen and airmen. It is all very well employing ever more highly paid civil servants to procure equipment but it is not very well to slash the numbers of our armed forces who happen already to be paid a fraction of those whose jobs involve sitting in front of a PC in a warm, cosy office. These are the priorities in Britain today.
There are so many easy targets it’s just not true. A suicide murderer need only steal, or even hire, a car, pack it with explosives and – hey presto! – the streets are covered in flesh and blood. We need to be 100% successful in our efforts to stop terrorism. They need us to be 99% successful and one of them will get through.
Of course, we should get on with our lives. What other choice do we have? But terrorism is coming and it’s coming soon. What happened in Germany will happen to us. The only question is when.
