JANUARY 2006

Blair's "No" To Public Enquiry, On 7/7 London Tube Train Bombing

In the league table of terrible tragedies, how close behind such outrages comes the sheer bombasticidity of a British Prime Minister, apparently perfectly prepared to pile even more pain upon surviving victims of savage, terrorist attacks ?

That those still suffering so much [ in various ways ], from the London tube bombing horror which was recently heaped upon them - should, so to speak - have the proverbial salt rubbed right into their wounds -- by their own government -- surely should be construed as completely unthinkable, obviously unbearable, patently unacceptable and totally unforgivable.

Yet that's precisely what Premier Blair's deliberate & coldly calculated decision to dismiss calls for a public enquiry -- with damned near despicable disdain -- amounts to.

"Tough!" He seems to be saying, " Get over it. You shut up and get on with it, while we go on doing what we want to."

Well, there's at least one particular London tube bombing survivor -Rachel from North London http://rachelnorthlondon.blogspot.com/ - who is definitely not going to shut up.

No, Prime Minister.

Never. Ever.

And furthermore -- nor will many more.

Rachel's been writing a regular blog relating to our capital city's 7/7, underground rail system's shocking bombing story -and more

It's a 'must-read' - and you'd better believe it. Has This Old Brit or Richard ever lied here before ?

And from this day on they are both are right behind Rachel, et al -- as is a veritable bevy, of great British bloggers.

So, be sure to spend some time scrolling your away around Rachel's blog. There's a helluva lot to look at - including contributions from fellow survivors' -- and many sincerely concerned kindred spirits. Along with loads & loads of links.

Additionally, there's a two page spread written by Rachel for today's Sunday Times - (posted below this article JBraddell,editor)So be sure to read that too.

And now of course there's the online, public petition for a public enquiry.

This Old Brit says we should all sign it; to prove to all our politicians - from all the political parties - that we, the British public are NOT a pushover. And that we will not be pushed around. Not by any terrorist - nor by any politician.

British parliamentarians/politicians are expressly elected to 'serve' the British public. So they should be shown, by all available legal means, that the British public will never under any circumstances, simply submit to subservience.

Politicians prevail and/or prosper, mainly, courtesy of public apathy. They thrive on the individual's indifference.

And that's not right. That's not how life in 21st century Britain should be. Not for any of us.

Regardless of our personal, political party preferences.

posted by Richard at Sunday, December 18, 2005

The July 7 questions that still haunt victims

Rachel North, a survivor of the London bombs, says the case for an inquiry is overwhelming

I have just come back from watching a play called Limbo: Stories from 7/7, performed by the Verb theatre group. A dramatic perspective on the events of July 7 2005 in London, it was presented via a collection of monologues revolving around a group of fictional characters. I saw it with Richard, a fellow survivor from the Piccadilly line train bomb.

The poetic and passionate performances of the young actors and the emotional reaction of the audience made us both realise how raw the wound left by the events of July 7 is, not just for us who were there and who still smell the smoke and hear the screams in our dreams, but for so many people who live in or who love London.

The attack on the Tube trains and the buses that summer morning was an attack on all of us, anyone who lives and works and travels in this busy, bustling city. About 3,000 people were directly affected: 52 died, hundreds were injured and thousands hurt in a way that cannot be seen from the outside.

The public were the targets, not politicians or those in power. Ordinary people continue to feel they are the targets of terror attacks, every time they use public transport.

Last week the government announced that there was to be no answering of people’s questions through a public inquiry. Instead we are to get a “narrative” of what happened on that day, created with the help of material gathered from intelligence and security agencies and the police.

“But the people on that Tube already know what happened, that is not what we are trying to understand,” Kirsty Morrison, who was on the King’s Cross train, told me. “What is important is why it happened and how it can be prevented from happening again.” If we learn from July 7 and after, it might lessen some of the suffering next time around. It might even save lives.

Miriam Hyman was evacuated from King’s Cross and spoke to her father, John, before she boarded a No 30 bus to make her way to work at a publishing company in Canary Wharf. Her parents searched hospitals for days before they discovered she had been killed when the bus exploded in Tavistock Square. Had she known that the “power surges” initially reported were bombs, her father said, she would not have taken public transport. Did a lack of public information contribute to her death?

Shortly after Miriam was killed it became almost impossible to make mobile phone calls. The mobile phone networks did not work in the first hours after the bombings. Hundreds of thousands of frantic people tried to find out what had happened to loved ones and I have heard dozens of painful accounts from fellow survivors of how they were unable to contact their families and friends. Were the networks deliberately closed down? If so, was that for fear of terrorists using mobiles to detonate bombs? We would like to know so we can understand and forgive some of the lonely agonies of that morning.

Many of the people I have spoken to are full of practical suggestions to improve the response to the aftermath of a disaster, stressing to me that their desire for a public inquiry is out of a desire to get something positive from the experience.

We’ve talked about the communication between carriages, or lack of it, whether each carriage, or the train driver, should carry first aid kits, torches and hammers to smash windows, whether breathing apparatus should be kept in stations for rescue workers and whether there should be guards on trains.

What could be done to improve lines of communication between London Underground’s network control centre and front-line staff? Half an hour after the Tube bombs exploded, a Tube worker described how his boss was still telling him that it was a power surge, while at the same time Sky News was interviewing witnesses describing the carnage. He also asks, “Did tunnel dust, which has been allowed to build up over several years, contribute significantly to the choking difficulties experienced by the survivors?”

My fellow passengers have talked to me of the confusion after the event. The emergency services have been praised for their efficient and calm response: I did not see any ambulances at Russell Square when I emerged 25 minutes after the bomb went off in my carriage. I went to hospital in a black cab.

After I left I heard how volunteer nurses ran to help the injured, and how the ambulances eventually came, and the bravery and kindness of the shocked ambulance and hospital staff is not in doubt. But when 20 survivors and I struggled out of the tunnel at 9.20am we were met not by the medical attention I had promised them as we walked through the tunnel but by scenes of confusion, shocked London Underground staff and bemused commuters.

In the days and weeks that followed many survivors were left alone, traumatised and isolated. A Family Assistance Centre was set up in Victoria after the bombings. Survivors who dropped in talked positively of the experience. But the name misled many, who thought it was only for families of the dead, and so never availed themselves of its facilities, which included counsellors, victim support staff and representatives from the Red Cross, Salvation Army, social workers and volunteers.

Later the centre, renamed as the 7th July Assistance Centre, moved to smaller premises. But the Data Protection Act meant that all survivors and families who had registered under the old name had to be deleted from the database. Many survivors were left in the dark once more.

I set up a website support group for fellow passengers, who contacted me when they read my online diary of the week of the bombs. We have done our best to care for each other since we struggled off the bombed train.

Could more have been done to help victims afterwards? Could better administration have enabled a more co-ordinated response? The Red Cross has recently begun to organise survivor meetings, but few know of them and they are poorly attended.

The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority claiming process has been criticised, and the London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund inevitably does not cover those who walked away apparently uninjured.

But many survivors who fall into that category have nonetheless been profoundly affected. Not being able to use public transport in London, for example, is debilitating and expensive. Could a greater awareness of the victims’ plight have ensured those who needed help got it early on?

It is natural for victims of violence to feel anger. What has impressed me over the past five months has been the commitment of survivors to try and make things better; helping each other back on the Tube, acting as “travel buddies”, e-mailing supportive messages.

But there is also anger at the perceived lack of help, suspicion about what the government may be trying to hide and frustration that despite repeated claims from politicians that they speak “for the victims”, victims’ voices are not being heard.

“If the government feels the threat of terrorism is so great that it needs to introduce laws that severely compromise our civil liberties, why does it feel that it is not worth a public inquiry?” asks Kirsty Morrison. “Laws will not stop this from happening again. Understanding why it happened might just begin to.”

No Public Inquiry - Some Reasons

By quarsan at Sat, 17/12/2005 - 06:32 - on Blairwatch
The official reason is that holding an inquiry would 'distract' from fighting terrorism, thus making those advocating an examination to be aiding and abetting terrorists.
Or is there another reason? Could it be that it's to save face?
Two of the four suicide bombers who killed 52 people in the July 7 attacks were scrutinised by MI5 last year but were not considered to be a threat - source
Providing a timeline will not answer serious questions about the bombings, the Independent helpfully list some of them:
Why was the terror alert downgraded before the beginning of July?
Was Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, guilty of complacency by insisting before the explosions that the capital's security was "the envy of the policing world"?
Why did the security services lose track of Mohammad Sidique Khan?
Was a vital piece of intelligence about Khan, who is believed to have made contact with terrorists overseas, overlooked?
Was there a fifth bomber? More explosives were found inside a rucksack in the car left by the bombers at Luton station, suggesting a fifth man could have been involved.
Have police resolved this question? And if there is a fifth man, is he still at large?
Were the July 7 bombers linked to the alleged July 21 attackers?
Could a third cell still be at large?
If there was a connection, does it mean there is a wider loose network of terrorists lying low plotting their next outrage?
Who was ultimately behind the attacks?
What do the security services know about him and how firm do they believe were the contacts between the bombers and senior figures in the al-Qa'ida network?
Were mistakes made in the handling of the disaster?
Why were the explosions on the Tube put down to electrical failures after the real explanation should have been apparent?
Given that the final blast took place on a double-decker bus in Tavistock Square, was it a mistake to keep buses running after the Tube blasts?
Were the attacks motivated by the Iraq war? This is the question ministers are desperate to avoid. They deny any link can be made, but Muslim leaders insist it cannot be dismissed as a factor. Khan claimed in a video message that the attacks were in response to "atrocities" committed by the West against Muslims.

posted by Rachel at 12:00 PM