Let the Olympics be a memorial

Polly Toynbee wrote in the Guardian Horror, exactly as foretold. All we didn't know was that 7/7 would be the date. Every Londoner imagined this over and over in every rush-hour train and crowded bus, glancing warily at one another, eyeing packages and bags. Only a matter of time. After Madrid's 10 terrible blasts during their election, how could London escape? "When not if", the head of counter-terrorism said long ago. Tony Blair himself echoed those words, "When not if". So throughout the election we waited and feared, but it never came. There were only black alerts on public buildings, no sinister terrorist "chatter" detected by security services. So maybe our intelligence services really were able to listen and prevent calamity, it was hoped. It began to feel almost safe.... What bitter irony and terrible perfection of timing this was, just as London celebrated its glorious, unexpected Olympic win. Many thought the Olympic bid impossible because of Britain's part in the Iraq war. Surely Paris would win, with most of the world anti-war, anti-Bush and hostile to Blair? But on Wednesday in Singapore it seemed that anti-British feeling was fading. Live 8 gave us back some moral fame. Anti-war voters here were warming to Labour's bold attempt at rallying the world for Africa and climate change.... But maybe now the bombs will give the Olympics an established pride of place in the national psyche, setting aside the usual "Nothing works" (even in the Evening Standard). The Olympics may now turn into an iconic memorial for those who died and were injured yesterday.

I am happy that Britain got the Olympics, and I hope that they can keep it safe from terrorists, but I hope that the response of the British to what happened on 7/7 will cause them to focus even more directly on the threat of terrorism, and that we will see less of the inane comments that I omitted in my extract of Ms. Toynbee's article.

Scott Burgess blogged To be perfectly honest, I don't really want to discuss the bombings, but it seems unavoidable, really. There's no point in summarising news reports, or rehashing some of the more obvious responses, like George Galloway's. I'll just focus on a couple of reactions that caught my eye. We are, of course, used to seeing much nonsense in the columns of Polly Toynbee, but one of her statements today quite literally made my jaw drop:

"George Bush is the one person who could and should have felt beholden to give a good response to this disaster, in support of his ally. But with typical inadequacy it was beyond his imaginative grasp to be extra magnanimous either to Blair or to the world in his offers on climate change, aid and trade. What a fine contrast it would have made to the bombers if this had redoubled the west's determination to do the right thing. It would not be giving in to terrorism, but denying it the oxygen of justification."

It's hard to know how to react to this. My initial thought was something along the lines of: "When did she write this? How long did she think it would take for Bush to modify administration policy on three major issues? How many hours was she willing to give him?" But the truly extraordinary thing is that he had, in fact, just done what she so bizarrely accuses him of not doing! From the Guardian, in an article headed Bush concedes ground on climate change (subhead: US adds its name to communique acknowledging human role in global warming): "Amid signs that the bombs had galvanised the summit into action, George Bush offered Europe a tit-for-tat deal on trade and conceded ground on global warming" Perhaps Ms. Toynbee did not see that article. I will call it to her attention, and I fully expect her to praise Mr. Bush for his imaginative grasp in providing so fine a contrast to the bombers. I look forward to bringing her retraction to your attention.

Dont hold your breath waiting for her retraction, unless you look good in blue.