Tackling terror

Until last week, it was thought that the jihadi threat was subsiding and the security services were increasingly able to disrupt any serious plot. The recent attacks involved knives or rented cars – deadly in the wrong hands but a far cry from the 7/7 attacks, or the seven-aircraft Heathrow aircraft bomb plot thwarted in 2006.

Yet now, for the second time in our history, a suicide bomb attack has been perpetrated against the public. And this might show that things are getting worse. That as Isis is forced into retreat in Iraq and Syria, the jihadists are preparing to return to Britain with deadlier skills and tactics. While al-Qaeda focused on military and economic targets, Isis considers young girls at a pop concert to be ‘crusaders’. The terrorist threat seems to be evolving yet again.

As the threat adapts, so should our response. No politician will want to do anything which might be interpreted as trying to exploit the Manchester attacks – yet security is a valid issue in this and every other election. How we react to the threat of the jihadist menace must form part of the debate. Offering words of comfort while condemning the perpetrator is the easy part, and one that now seems to fall part of a grotesquely familiar routine repeated after every fresh atrocity. It is time to move beyond praying for Manchester, Stockholm, Nice or other similar cities – and move on to a firm discussion about how to keep these cities safe.

Fighting terrorism requires very tough, practical measures. There is a need for surveillance, raids, arrests and incarceration, however ugly they might sometimes be. But as the intelligence services are the first to point out, they can never tackle terrorism on their own.