15th September

This morning, a partially exploded bomb caused a fire in a Tube train at Parsons Green, injuring 29 people, none seriously. The bomb's charge failed to detonate. In a sense it's reassuring to know that however murderous or sinister their intentions, terrorists remain human beings and thus are susceptible to human error. If I were ISIS, I wouldn't even have bothered attempting to claim credit for this one. Although obviously they did. I'm pretty convinced that on more on one occasion, ISIS have taken credit for something they haven't instigated and there's some jobsworth jihadi behind a desk somewhere who has to make those decisions.

Less flippantly, it's difficult to avoid repeating oneself when these incidents arise and it's foolish to pretend that their frequency both here and around Europe this calendar year isn't a concern. But equally I'm not any more scared than I was before they took place. It's an unavoidable fact of life that at any point you could be in the wrong place at the wrong time and suffer life changing injuries or worse. But I'm surprised that the Tube hasn't been targeted again in the past 12 years and I maintain that's because of the excellent work of our security services who I continue to have faith in.

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