For me personally, the attacks in London are still sinking in as the number of casualties rise, and as the stories and pictures of what happened this horrible Thursday morning are told.
I just can’t help but feel this is just a totally pointless act. Whilst in no way advocating the bombings in Madrid last year, you could at least see the political impact they caused. The results of the Spanish general election held only days later were fundamentally altered, and not long after the new government pulled their troops out of Iraq.
That just isn’t going to happen in the UK. Tony Blair is fresh back in office with a strong mandate, and he’s seen enough protest against the war in Iraq to last a life time. The government hasn’t changed it’s policy and it still won’t. Whilst I never supported the war in Iraq, I do agree that now we are there, it’s probably best we try and help rebuild the county to the best of our ability.
In fact they will have had very little impact at all. We British, Londoners especially, are a very resilient bunch having experienced a fair amount of this pointless stupidity over the years. And of course the Blitz and years of IRA attacks didn’t effect any change in government policy either. If anything such attacks only serve to bring people closer together and bring out the best in us all.
What has been effected (and only in the short-term) is the good feeling in London (and across the UK) gained from winning the 2012 Olympic Bid. After the highs of Wednesday, the attacks bring our celebrations to a premature end. But we have 7 more years of celebrating still to come.
Then there is the G8, and this will certainly have taken the leaders eye of the ball—a very important ball of poverty and climate change. I believe they can now stick one final finger up at the terrorists (I prefer the term ‘bastards’) and leave Gleneagles with an even stronger resolve to help solve these problems than perhaps they would have done before the attacks.
Whilst I now continue with a renewed sense of pride in our great country and it’s people, my thoughts are with those individuals and families effected by this tragic event.