Back to work...

I struggle with what's happened in London.

I was vehemently against the Iraq war, and I didn't think going into Afghanistan (which was, after all an American quarrel) was the best of ideas for the UK. But I really can't see any angle from which these utterly cowardly attacks actually make a point.

I disagree firmly on many things Tony Blair and Ken Livingstone say and do, and don't exactly see either of them as the most sincere of polititians, but what both said on Thursday was spot on. Tony Blair spoke with passion and hurt - something you don't get to see from him very often. And Ken, if nothing else, says what he feels, and in this case, he spoke for all Londoners:

"...In the days that follow look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and fulfillil their dreams and achieve their potential.
They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live.
They don't want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail."

The last couple of days I have been reading the diary of one of the survivors (here), and wandering to and from Charing Cross in the mornings, its amazing to see the amount of people who have decided to abandon the tube, at least for the moment. When Nik and I went to see the recording of Dave Gorman's new radio series, Genius, last night (and it was very good - very funny) I had to take the tube to get there... I was slightly nervous, but I know that its fairly unlikely anything will happen at the moment - the security is far tighter at the moment, and people are very wary of people getting on and off the trains.

It was weird travelling though - I changed trains at Euston to go down to the Angel station, and there's only one station in between - King's Cross. It's closed at the moment, so we weren't stopping, but we slowed down, and as we passed through, the carriage went silent and most of the passengers looked up from what they were reading or looking at and stared out of the windows at the empty platform. It was a genuinely sad moment, and nothing was said.

I am pretty angry that people like the nutjobs that carried out the attack think that this is a valid way of getting a point across, that they have so little regard for human life, that they pevert a faith which teaches peace and love (like my own) to justify wreaking such havoc and pain on innocents. And I am one of the lucky people - I wasn't near enough to either be hurt or see anything first-hand.
The one thing I pray for, more than the people who did this are caught, is that this doesn't begin to a period of attacks on Muslims. They aren't to blame for this. Any anger should not be directed to them.

And to hear that the BNP have used a photo of the bombed bus in some election leaflets for a by-election in London makes me feel physically sick - its almost the same disregard the bombers had for the people of London. How can someone be so disrespectful and callous?