Global terrorism and the failure of democracy

IF we believe in the merits of our Western civilisation, founded in the universities of medieval Christian Europe, we must now demonstrate them by drawing upon the accumulated wisdom of past generations in seeking to meet the deadly threat posed to us by the suicide bomber.

Nothing was more inevitable, as those of us who have lived through the troubles of the past 30 years or more in Ireland knew at once with a sinking heart, than that the bombing of innocent travellers on the London Underground would be followed by the tragic killing of an innocent person by the Metropolitan Police.

According to their commanding officer, in an ill-timed and injudicious statement, the Metropolitan Police were “playing their socks off” at the time (as if this were a replay of the Lions in New Zealand).