London bombings

I’m sure by now everyone has heard of the terrible events that occurred yesterday in London, from the explosions on the Underground to the bombs planted on buses. Whilst it was horrible to watch the events unfold on television, I think that overall the situation is not as bad as the media have made it out to be, although that’s not surprising seeing as they tend to overreact to most news events. My take on what has happened is as follows.

First of all, before everyone starts panicking about how Britain is beseiged by terrorists, let’s put the whole thing into perspective. According to the Office of National Statistics, there are in the region of half a million deaths each year in England, of which perhaps a hundred are down to terrorist attacks (most likely less than that). That means that about 0.0002% of deaths in this country are caused by terrorists; hardly a massive amount, although of little condolence to those who have lost loved ones as a result. I know people who have been worried about travelling into London today, which is understandable – I might be going into the city a couple of times myself in the coming weeks. However, you’re more likely (by a factor of at least ten) to be seriously injured falling down the stairs on the way out of the house than someone trying to plant a bomb on the train you’re catching to work.

Secondly, let us not forget that we’ve fought terrorists in the past, and almost every time they’ve been defeated. From Hitler’s plans to rule Europe (I count him as a terrorist as he used violence and intimidation to achieve his political goals) to the terrorists who took over a dozen innocent people hostage at the Iranian embassy, we’ve fought them, and, even if took a long time and a lot of sacrifices, we’ve beaten them in the end.

Finally, whatever our friends across the channel and Atlantic might joke about British stereotypes, the one that always shines through is our resolve to keep on going, regardless of what happens. I can remember when the IRA bombed the Arndale Centre in Manchester (thankfully no one was killed or seriously injured, but it was a close shave) in 1996. Did everyone suddenly stop shopping in Manchester, lock their doors and stay at home? Of course not; instead we all kept as much a sense of normality as was possible. The same goes for when the Brighton Grand Hotel was bombed, an incident which almost wiped out dozens of senior government figures (we came close to losing the entire Cabinet) – including the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Under the circumstances, most non-Brits might have expected, not unreasonably, for the Conservative Party Conference the next morning to start a bit later, or even be postponed for a day. Not in this country though; after a quick speech redraft Mrs Thatcher addressed the conference at 9.30am with the immortal phrase which still rings true today:

This attack has failed. All attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail.

In fact, if you look at the reaction round the world to the attacks on London, the people who are panicking more than anyone else are the Americans, who seem to be worried that their transport system is also at risk. In contrast, we were about as relaxed as anyone could be, given the circumstances, and I was amazed to see how quickly the emergency services and train workers got everything back up and running again – by the end of the evening most trains and tube services seemed to be operational, if not running at full capacity. Some services are still unavailable and there are constant security checks going on, but things seem to be returning to normal much faster than one would expect.

Thankfully, everyone I know who may have been in the London area was okay, and as it happened most of them were far enough out of the city centre to be unaffected by the attacks and the resulting traffic chaos during the day. I was a bit worried as quite a few people I know are working down South, either on industrial experience or have gone back home and got a summer job, but after a few emails I found out, much to my relief, that they were fine.

My main concern now is that there will be a knee-jerk reaction from the government, similar to that in the USA after September 11th. I’m already unhappy with the concept of indefinite detention without trial, and I certainly don’t want to see ID cards pushed through on the basis that they would stop attacks like the one yesterday from being repeated. I have more faith in the British Government than its US equivalent, but I’m worried that the Tories will suddenly withdraw their opposition to schemes like ID cards or even do a U-turn and back the Government’s plans. The House of Lords aren’t supposed to block proposals that are manifesto promises (of which ID cards are one, although judging by Labour’s past record they might not bother keeping their promise anyway), but they seem to be determined to make an exception in this case so I guess we’ll all have to see how it all pans out in the coming months and after the Parliamentary recess.

I think we were all very lucky not to suffer more loss than we did in the attacks, especially seeing as they were right in the middle of rush hour in one of the biggest cities in the world. I’m still keeping an eye on the news and see the quintessentially British sense of resolve, duty and standing firm regardless of the odds, shining through as people return to work.