Vocal Voices

The chief coroner of England and Wales, Mark Lucraft, concluded the London Bridge victims were unlawfully killed. In doing so he refused to criticise MI5, the police and the other emergency services.

How right he is.

Yes, the barriers should have been better, yes, things could have been done differently, and yes, 20:20 hindsight is useful.... for the future.

But the emergency services, the individuals at the scene, were working with what they had at the time, and they did their level best to make sure matters were not worse. They deserve our thanks and praise.

Going to have to disagree with you, WM - IMHO those conclusions were a whitewash.

Both MI5 / police before the event and the emergency services on the night failed to perform as they should have done. They have demonstrated through this that they are hardly fit for purpose.

And to criticise the family of one of the terrorists for not doing more despite the fact they reported him to the authorities is verging on insulting. Great incentive for families in similar circumstances in the future, isn't it?

Ossie, it's fine to disagree, especially when we are comparing different things.

I am talking of the action of the members of the emergency services at-the-time. They did their best with the situation, as they saw it happen, and there is no way, none, that they could have exercised, practised or trained for that. It was what it was....

Intel might well be able to identify a 'possible' threat individual or individuals but what it cannot do is predict how they will operate at any given time.

The media would have us believe that the problem is A, he / they will definitely do B. so we must do C.

The real world is not like that, and that is how these atrocities happen. And the blame-game-after-the-event serves no purpose.... except to remove the blame from the real perpetrators.

If anyone is looking to put responsibility on anyone for the Westminster bridge attack it should be placed firmly with the murderers who committed it.
I may be being oversensitive but I did detect in the media coverage since the attack, attempts to blame the security services for not stopping it, whilst barely mentioning those who committed the atrocity.
The fact of the matter is imo that there are very many more individuals like those three who would like to do us harm. Just by weight of numbers some will succeed.

I agree with you Frank, you too Crommers xx

Cromwell is absolutely right. These people are out there in numbers that we cannot follow each and every day 24/7, no country could, some of them will get through.

If and when they do get through we should not blame our security for failing to stop them, we should always blame these monsters for doing what they do.

Workingman wrote:we should not blame our security for failing to stop them, we should always blame these monsters for doing what they do.

I quite agree.