The person whom Blair fears the most is someone whose pedigree stretches back impeccably through the Industrial Revolution, the Civil War and even unto 1066, the Norman Conquest.
In other words, a white middle-class young Englishman. For just as there are very small numbers of Muslim youngsters who feel deeply enough about what is going on in Iraq to commit their lives to making a protest, so there will be very small numbers of English youngsters, whether Muslim or not, who feel just as deeply.
For, we must remember, this person or persons would be a small proportion of the 60% or 70% of the population who believe that the invasion of Iraq was unjust, that immense cruelty and suffering is going on there, and that Blair stretched the truth (or untruth) about Saddam Hussein's armaments in order to take the country into war. So there will be some young people -- white, intelligent, sensitive but temporarily deranged perhaps -- who might already be very close to the same cast of mind of very small numbers of Muslim youngsters. They would be able to walk past CCTV cameras at a railway station without ever being remarked upon by security people watching their monitors.
So, while some white unemployed yahoos attack the mosques (as they are likely to in the coming days as a glorious break from boredom), and the imams and elders of the mosques try to exercise restraint on those young members of their flocks who show signs that they might be bombers -- even to the point of repression that might make things worse -- then one or two young non-yahoo Englishmen might now be making careful contact with those who might lead them to an Al Qaeda connection.
"Nonsense!" one might say. If one says that, then one is very naive about human nature and the facility (if one is informed by neuroscience) with which the frontal lobes of the brain between the ages of puberty and about 30 years are able to take up a cause or a philosophy or an obsession way beyond the norm.
Apparently the London Metropolitan Police are advising businesses how to take security precautions. Of course, the non-naive businesses with highly intelligent people in charge are already thinking very seriously about their future in London. According to the BBC, a large unnamed business with 1,000 staff was actually going to run a security exercise a little later on the morning of the bombing.
In the next few days, Blair will have to make an assessment from information from his secret service and others as to whether Al Qaeda has a sufficiently viable network in Europe (or this country) which is able to repeat the London bombing at some important psychological moment in the coming weeks or months. Or days.
For, it is to be remembered, the invisible profits and fees of the financial firms within the City of London make up the largest tranche of this country's foreign export earnings.
On the evening of 10 April 1992, the day after the General Election, the IRA bombed the Baltic Exchange building in the City of London. All sorts of extravagant security measures were then taken in and around London. But these were designed only for the punters. What Blair also did, probably within days, was to open serious negotiations with the IRA -- secretly at first but more publicly thereafter. In that way, not another bomb was exploded in the City of London and city traders and their thousands of office staff could feel easier.
The morning of 7 July 2005 will also cause Blair to take action. We can't expect that negotiations with Al Qaeda would take place (though indirect secret discussions will already be going on in Iraq, to be sure) but we can also expect that some decision will be taken that is far more effective than the cosmetic pantomimes that are now going on by the London Metropolitan Police in order to persuade credulous people that they will be protected from now onwards.
Keith Hudson
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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