Remember this, it is not how but when will the next atrocity take place, because this green & pleasant land will always be a target. And trust me I have been involved in one of the worst.
Believe me, getting out of Afghanistan and Iraq will lessen tensions. The current paranoia has been more damaging to our way of life than the deaths themsleves. It has made a potential terrorist of every one of us in the eyes of the powers that be. The Captain of your aircraft cannot be trusted to take a 150ml pot of yoghurt through security but Plod can take his assault weapon through with impunity? Don't make me laugh.
Richard Ried incidentally was a nutter and was causing concern as soon as the doors were closed. There is NOT a wide conspiracy of British born white European Islamic killers at work out there.
My real concern is the inablilty of the Police to use common sense. They now come across as just box ticking social workers in dayglo yellow or gun/tazer packing rambo types. Something has gone wrong somewhere. Even back home in Scotland, they're just men in black combat uniforms ( and blackshirts !!!! history anyone ? ) that never fail to intimidate.
Richard Copeland who carried out the nail bombing on the Pub in Old Compton Street was a white British male, but that Pub could easily have been the terminal building at Gatwick or Heathrow.
All I am saying is everybody needs to get used to the authorities asking what they are doing at certain times & locations. You are never going to stop it.
Think this through. I have to explain to the state what I am doing in a public place because someone they don't know, might be going to commit an atrocity. Hence more and more people find themsleves being questioned as potential mass murderers?
Option a) Planespotter
Option b) Mass murderer
Do we go Israeli and introduce bag searches at the entrance to Tesco?
Given that in a free society, there IS no way to prevent this sort of "potential attack", what's the result?
Loads of PCSOs and a few token Police raking through your possesions at certain places designated under Section 44, not to prevent an atrocity, but to be seen to be doing something. Should a PCSO open my bag and find a bomb, we're all gonna die regardless. It's security theatre, the real work is done by MI5 / MI6 behind the scenes and out of sight. The men in dayglo Poice uniforms are just part of the pantomime that is security theatre.
Finally, the added danger is that once these people have purpose and budget and we give up hard won freedoms, there is little mechanism for scaling back on security as "you never know" or "just in case" mainly becasue politicians are too scared in case someon points the finger in the remote chance something does happen.