鈥淚t鈥檚 not a question of 鈥業f...鈥�, but a question of 鈥榃hen...鈥欌�� While still in post, former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Stevens consistently warned the Government that a terrorist attack within our borders was very much on the cards. Sadly, Thursday 7 July brought his words to life in central London 鈥� and in the most brutal way imaginable.

How, though, do you neuter the suicide bomber? Could those utterly disgusting attacks on London鈥檚 Underground and bus networks have been prevented?

Short of completing a full and thorough search on every passenger 鈥� which would necessarily grind commerce and tourism in the Capital to a halt, aside from being totally impractical 鈥� the answer is: 鈥淧robably not鈥�. That said, we must do something to tighten the net that allowed Al-Qaeda loyalists Jamal Lindsay, Mohammad Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer and Hasib Hussain to perpetrate their acts of evil.

With the inquest ongoing, the London atrocities have shown up some truly alarming lapses in national and civil security. MI5 and MI6 鈥� headed up by Eliza Manningham-Buller and John Scarlett respectively 鈥� have seemingly failed to penetrate those British communities where extremists reside, and effectively monitor the activities of an estimated 3,000 British-born (or resident) individuals who are known to have trained at terrorist camps in Pakistan and elsewhere.

If there are indeed 鈥渉undreds鈥� of bombers walking our streets 鈥� as Prime Minister Tony Blair suggested during the General Election campaign 鈥� why have there been so few arrests and prosecutions? Why was the national threat level reduced a matter of weeks before 7/7?

It鈥檚 worth harking back to another 鈥榗ancer鈥� that once plagued this country 鈥� Nazism. In the 1930s, MI5 was told by Government ministers to monitor British sympathisers to the Nazi cause. The Security Service was then able to identify and track all those suspected of being Enemies of the State. When war broke out, every pro-Nazi in Britain was duly arrested and interned. Hitler鈥檚 potential 鈥楩ifth Column鈥� disintegrated.

Instead of placing national security at the top of the agenda, our current crop of politicians expend all of their energies on not wishing to upset special interest groups. A politically-correct stance for which we have already paid a high price. Unless and until that situation changes each and every one of us is at risk from The Enemy Within.

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