The Spectator’s notes

It is not possible to speak of a terrorist incident as being a good thing, but if it were, these latest would qualify. First, no innocent person was killed in London or Glasgow. Second, information was immediately collected by the authorities, thanks to the would-be killers’ bungling, and more will follow. Often when terrorists are captured they do not break under interrogation because they have been trained as ‘soldiers’. But I gather from experts that failed suicide bombers are in a different category. They were trained only to die, and so they have not been trained to live. Having survived, they start blabbing. There is good reason to hope that this will happen in the case of the singed fanatics in Glasgow (at least the one who is not badly injured). Third, it is helpful that more people are now aware that terrorism is not necessarily linked to ‘deprivation’, and is also a middle-class problem. This has always been the case, and it is nothing new that doctors are involved. Osama bin Laden’s number two, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, has a degree in surgery (does it make him extra good at cutting off hands?), and the now dead leader of Hamas, Dr Abdel al-Rantissi, was a qualified physician. But the latest harvest of medicos, if it results in convictions, will rebuke the NHS, which tends smugly to assume that anyone working for it is automatically a decent person. Educated professionals make the most dangerous terrorists — the least corruptible, the most self-righteous, the most resourceful, the most twisted. It is good to know our enemy. Finally, the Glasgow incident may help to shake Scottish complacency. Despite the fact that there are racial tensions in Scotland (there have sometimes been revolting attacks on asylum-seekers), the lack of a major terrorist incident allowed Scottish politicians to imply that it was only horrible England which brought such disasters upon itself.