Lucky - we were this time

Yesterday began and ended in a very surreal way for me. It ended being surrounded by a group of punk rockers on a late night train home from work. They were very friendly, all German and all with exceptionally large spikes on their heads. They were a bit naffed off that their plane had been delayed, though.

The day started oddly too. Ben Shephard appeared to be in my bedroom. In that haze of semi-consciousness I realised my girlfriend had turned on GMTV and was watching intently all the live reports on the 'chaos' at the airports.

I didn't know GMTV did rolling news. Evidently, Ben Shephard didn't realise either, given his gaudy attire - and the fact they still managed to find time to run the 'win £10k' competition amidst this chaos.

But still, in time of threat and terror, it's important to show those doing the threatening and terrorising that they won't win - by getting on life with normal.

I wonder if they would have still run the competition had the story not been about the arrests of 20-odd people, but about a dozen planes blowing up in the sky?

I also wonder if the woman who rang Radio 2's travel line to ask if the duty free shops were still open would have felt the same need to check that she'd be able to get her 200 L&B tax free?

I ask the question not to poke fun at GMTV, but to make a serious point: Just how close were we to not being at a 'phew, that was close' sentiment but one of utter disbelief and horror.

We'll probably never know. But it's not the first time attempted terror plots have been foiled, and it is a safe bet it won't be the last.

Perhaps the most frightening aspect to yesterday is that we got lucky this time. All the money in the world won't guarantee another group of would-be bombers will slip through the net in the future, causing untold carnage.

Toparaphrasee a well-quoted from the IRA at the height of its campaign against mainland Britain: "We only have to get lucky once. You have to be lucky everyday."

However, it was much easier to get lucky against the IRA - their bombers didn't want to die too,
which somewhat reduces their options. They had to conceal their bombs somewhere, and get out of the way. Many described it as cowardice.

But how do you combat people whose brains have been so bombarded with the most twisted ideology of Islam going that they are prepared to die?

Well, you work even harder to make sure they don't become so disconnected from society that they become prey for the preachers of evil and hate in the name of Islam.

Those who have blown themselves up in recent years in the name of a jihad aren't the preachers. Bin Laden still rocks around in the Afghan mountains, as do many of his henchmen across the world.

They pick on generally intelligent young men who feel isolated from mainstream British society, largely because they belong to a minority religion. Making sure they don't feel isolated is the toughest task of all - teachers, councils, the police, they all have a duty to make sure that these young men can be poisoned by making sure that, from an early age, they are shown the evils of what has been done.

What can the Muslim community do? Well, it needs to make sure it turns in the people it suspects of promoting terrorism. That already happens, but the wider public needs to see what is happening. Actions speak louder than words, they say, and it is never more true than now.

Many Muslim communitites do link with the police, but the wider community needs to see it happening so more people feel comfortable going forward.

The evil preachers of hate need to be exposed for what they are. Spineless, shameful, cowardly mouths. Take Omar Bakri, the preacher of hate exiled from the UK after speaking favourably about the 7/7 bombers.

He was banned from coming back from the Lebanon after those comments. Surely the best place for man who promotes violence against the West is in the Lebanon? Fighting alongside those terrorists who believe everything the likes of Bakri spout?

Funnily enough, when the bombs started falling around him, he asked to come back to the UK, on humanitarian grounds. That makes him a coward. It makes all those imposing war on the West cowards.

They are the ones the Government needs to target, cutting off their supply of disillusioned youngsters. We all have a part to play in that, because we can't get lucky every time.