Gary Monro’s blog

Today Great Britain commemorates the end of World War II.

Her Majesty, the Queen, led all today’s events which included a lunch for war veterans, a fly-past and a service in Westminster Abbey. A Lancaster bomber from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight dropped one million poppies on The Mall in remembrance of the war dead.

Her majesty said,

“An act of remembrance is an act of honour to those who sacrificed all…and to those who had the wisdom to build peace.

“Sadly we cannot claim that the world has been free from war or terror for the last 60 years but in Europe at least we have been faithful to all those who lost their lives in that great struggle.

“It does not surprise me that during the present difficult days for London people took to the example set by those of resilience, humour and sustained courage, often under conditions of great depravation.

“That example and those memories should be kept alive by the younger generation as they in turn strive to keep the peace in our troubled world.

Today isn’t actually an especially historic day as far as the War itself is concerned. The decision was taken to hold it on a Sunday, in July, where families were most able to take part in celebrations (rather than on specific dates such as VE Day or VJ Day).

Many of the veterans attending today’s events are very old and it is unlikely they will ever again honour on such a scale the sacrifices they and their comrades made during the war.

These people fought valiantly for our country. We may never see their likes again. These people didn’t complain about the discomforts of their situation, didn’t demand their ‘rights’ and didn’t seek the easy way out. They dug in and fought and it is because of them, their toughness, their obstinacy in the face of privation and their bloody-minded determination to defeat the Nazis that the rest of us can live in freedom today.

They are the very best of British and we are proud of them.

(more…)

Sometimes, say, when we’re on the Tube, and I want to tell my wife something but I don’t want anybody around me to know what I’ve said, I tell her in Hindi. (She’s from India before you get too puzzled).

Now my Hindi is poor to the point of being atrocious (although it’s probably better than yours) but I can usually get my point across. Can’t understand a word she says in reply but I can make my own point.

The thing is, I often forget that this language I’m speaking in isn’t actually the secret language between me and my beloved that I seem to think it is. I absent-mindedly assume nobody else understands it. Even in India I still have to stop myself saying, in Hindi, something that is intended for her ears only.

The day will come when I say something unflattering about somebody who is within earshot and they’ll understand exactly what I said. I’ll let you know what happened. If they allow me to continue living (I say some nasty things at times…)

Today’s television news viewing has taught me at least one thing: these ‘experts’ are nothing of the sort. Mostly, they’re giving personal opinions which, on balance, are no more accurate than yours or mine.

Now, for those of you sighing at these words and thinking, ‘Gary, you wally. Do you mean you’ve been believing them up to now?’ I have to reply, sheepishly, that, yes, I do often defer to talking heads. Especially when they seem so sure of themselves.

But as myself and Mrs M watched the various reports we heard the following, apparent, motives for the terrorists:

“They want to create division within the UK”
“They want to create panic and terror”
“They intend to destroy our way of life”
“They want to provoke an authoritarian response to their actions”
“They are acting to impress foreign Muslims”
“They are trying to drive a wedge between British Muslims and the rest of the people”

And so on.

I think the tendency of some of these commentators is to imagine what might be the result of this outrage and then assume that was the intention.

Since I am as expert as the rest here’s my take:

This was an act carried out by people with a visceral hatred of the west, who wanted to hurt us in any way they could, who wanted to show that they could, who actually could and who, therefore, did.

I honestly don’t believe it was more complicated than that.

The papers are, understandably, full of London news today. I will continue to blog on this attack on our city but I think there’s a case for distracting ourselves with less depressing news also. So I shall be posting about unrelated matter too for that reason.

Lord Stevens, who retired last year as London’s Metropolitan Police Commissioner believes the London bombers were British rather than foreign.

In today’s News of the World he says,

It is true that such international terrorists may have provided expertise, know-how or even possibly foot soldiers for this week’s onslaught. But essentially, sadly, this will almost certainly have been a home-grown operation.

I’m afraid there’s a sufficient number of people in this country willing to be Islamic terrorists that they don’t have to be drafted in from abroad.

As I reported yesterday (my, don’t I sound like a front-line war correspondent?) Lord Stevens isn’t the only one who rejects the idea of a large, foreign directed conspiracy behind the bombings. That there were ‘only’ four blasts - and not the dozen or so that could really have made a point - suggests even to me a smaller scale operation. There’s a big gap between what was and what could have been.

Lord Stevens continued:

We have already convicted two British shoe bombers, Richard Reid and Saajid Badat, there were the two British suicide bombers Asif Hanif and Omar Sharif who killed themselves in Israel, plus upcoming terrorism trials involving British nationals that I cannot discuss now for legal reasons.

I warned in these pages some months ago that there were up to 200 home-grown terrorists willing and able to slaughter innocents for their perverted view of Islam…and I got some stick for being so outspoken.

But today, after 7/7, I’ve absolutely no reason to change my mind.

He attempted his own profiling of the bombers:

In my view, the London bombers will not fit the caricature al-Qaeda fanatic from some backward village in Algeria or Afghanistan.

They will be apparently-ordinary British citizens, young men conservatively and cleanly dressed and probably with some higher education. Highly computer literate, they will have used the internet to research explosives, chemicals and electronics.

They are also willing to kill without mercy—and to take a long time in their planning. They are painstaking, cautious, clever and very sophisticated.

Lord Stevens also suggested that, in the end, it will be the Muslim community here that will beat these terrorists. He said that, after 9/11 when he

asked for their [Muslims’]help to stop al-Qaeda exporting its horrors here, they responded immediately.

Muslim calls to the Yard’s confidential information line went up from 20 to 200 a day. Now, after 7/7, I am convinced the London bombings will unleash a tidal wave of information to police about extremists from the Muslim community.

British Muslims must give any information they have to the police. It is the right thing to do both for their religion and for their country.

In other related news life in Birmingham is returning to normal after security alerts saw the evacuation of the popular Broad Street district. Some 20,000 people were asked to leave the area and go home after police received “a real and very credible threat”, West Midlands Chief Constable Paul Scott Lee has said.

What concerns me about the aftermath of the London bombing is how the politicians are going to play it politically. Leaving aside Galloway who has already made hay while the blood-soaked sun shines, will we see the government pressing for even more authoritarian security measures?

This government already has a track record with authoritarianism - ID cards, imprisonment without trial, religious ‘hatred’ legislation, the invasion of Iraq - so, given its mindset, it possibly thinks something draconian would be justified.

The problem for those of us who want to maintain our liberty is that, at times like this, the general public would tend to react in the same way as our authoritarian government. It’s important that we describe liberty not as some abstract idea that you can switch on and off as you please, not as some cultural ‘add-on’, along with voting, cricket and the Sunday roast, but as the very essence of a cultural and traditional mindset that actually gives rise to the national character and way of life that we enjoy. Liberty is one of our country’s vital organs; remove it and you have removed something essential to our character, something who’s loss forever alters what we actually are.

Less abstractly it’s worth pointing out that authoritarian powers may (or may not) be fairly exercised by the government initially introducing them; they may (although they may not) be introduced with the purest of motives. But once these laws are created they’re open to use and abuse by this or any other government of the future. It would be a tragedy for us to only get to understand the value of the liberties we have through losing them first.

And even the most draconian law will not stop the determined terrorist (and most are pretty determined, let’s face it). The French resistance of World War II illustrates this point. (I hasten to add right now that those French people were not terrorists; but they were fighting an underground war where secrecy and stealth were vital to their success - rather like modern day terrorists). The Nazis against whom they fought were ruthless in their determination to stamp them out. Yet, despite torture, killing and reprisal executions (the Germans would shoot a number of civilians after a resistance attack) the resistance attacks continued.

Futhermore, as Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary has had the decency to admit, his ID card scheme would not have stopped the London bombing; it would not have saved one life. I would add that the Home Secretary’s desire for control orders - to be able to detain people, without trial, in their own homes at certain times of day - wouldn’t have helped either. It’s not as if the terrorists were able to carry out their acts only because we couldn’t detain them. We don’t even know who they are.

In the end, you can slip quietly into a police state but you won’t get a peaceful state. The terrorists, inconvenienced perhaps, will still do what they want to do. At best, draconian security laws can make it more difficult for them to operate. But it won’t stop them.