Snake Oil

The Prime Minister has once more displayed his uncanny insight into why evil things get done. "We know why these things are done," he said. "They are done to scare people and to frighten them, to make them anxious and worried."

Well, that puts it clearer, to be sure. Whoever they may be and whatever motives they may claim to have, the people who caused today's explosions wanted to scare us, frighten us, anxietise and worry us, and nothing else. They didn't want us to get out of Iraq, that's for certain. You'd be a fool, a dupe, and a poison-tongued apologist even to think it. The slimy, despicable motives of the culprits are so obvious that Tony could inform us of them without even knowing the full details of what had happened. "It's best, for operational details," he said, "to go to the police and the emergency services and others who can give you the information." That seems fair enough. Most of us know better by now than to rely on Tony for facts, but this was, after all, a press conference.

Tony quoted the Metropolitan police commissioner as hoping to get back to normal as quickly as possible, and recommended that everyone "react calmly" and go on "as much as possible as normal" while we wait for the next hysterical raft of "anti-terror" laws to be launched upon the deadly shallows of New Labour rhetoric. If this kind of thing goes on happening every few weeks, we can forget legalistic qualms about hoods or being a teenager after nine o'clock. They'll be outlawing carpentry and rucksacks before the first tinsel goes up.

Tony got the news of the blasts in the middle of lunch with his fellow Iraq-liberator and refugee-repatriator, John Howard. I wonder what they talk about when George isn't there to steer things along. Then Tony went to a meeting with the government's "civil contingencies" committee, which had been scheduled to discuss appropriate calm reactions and possible normal continuations to the bombings on the seventh. The committee is called Cobra. Terrorism is a disease, and they're the cure.

Carcinogens cause cancer. Terrorists terrorise. That's what they are, so that's what they do. Only when one can kill people in thousands instead of dozens is one permitted ulterior motives. The bombing and despoiling of Afghanistan and Iraq may have scared, frightened, anxietised and worried a few people, but it's all in a good cause and any terror which may be felt is either an unfortunate side effect or somebody else's fault. React calmly and continue as much as possible as normal.