Update from me...

Hello, I'm back after a break. My wedding to J on Saturday in Norwich Cathedral was the best day of my life. More on that later. For now, I'm back in London and for the next 48 hours I will be working with some of the other survivors and families of the 7/7 atrocity to put across our message about the need for an independent inquiry into the bombings, particularly in the light of the news today about what was known about the 7/7 bombers as early as 2004.

There isn't time to type up much or to read your emails and comments, so apologies for that and will read them tonight after I have done the media stuff I have promised to do. I have just been carried over the threshold of our house by my gorgeous husband, put down my bags of wonderful wedding presents, jumped into a suit and am off to do interviews in ten minutes. You can see me and some of the other survivors and families on BBC News 24, ITN, ITN Special investigation tonight, C4 News, Newsnight, BBC London early evening news programme, Panorama, CNN, BBC Breakfast, various radio stuff, and you'll see us all again tomorrow, when the stakes will be raised.

I have been asking for an inquiry independent of Government and the Security Services since December 2005. It has been frustrating not being able to say exactly why I was so determined to make the point that the 7/7 bombers were not the ''clean skins'' who came ''out of the blue'' as we were told. In fact two of them were part of a criminal network of men bent on destruction that was known about, they were tracked and followed and then let go. We all make mistakes. I do not blame people in the security services for their mistakes and failure to use intelligence. It is failing to admit mistakes and then trying to cover up mistakes which is unforgivable and inexcusable.

It is the public who daily run the risks on the tubes and trains and uses, in the shops and clubs and streets. It is the public that the Government and Security services are sworn to serve and protect. It is the public who deserve truthful answers about what was known before 7 July and what happened on and after that day. It is the public who have been failed, and who continue to be failed by the overt politicisation of intelligence, by the posturings of politicians who pass legislation but who do not tell the whole truth. It is particularly distressing for those who were most affected by 7/7 - the families, the injured and the survivors, to find out that perhaps the ringleaders of the London bombings could have been picked up and might have been facing sentencing today along with their acqaintences - or friends - in the Crevice plot that was stopped. And I promised many of these people that I would do what I could in my small way as a blogger and writer, to get an inquiry into 7/7 over a year ago.

It's not just survivors and families who are calling for an inquiry. It is many members of the public, including many British Muslims who are adding their voices to the calls. The Lib Dems and the Tories are also calling for one. There is much to learn about July 7, and what could be learned and shared would help us understand, help us prepare, help us deal with the aftermath of terrorism, as a country of many faiths and races who seek to live peaceably and productively together, and undoubtedly spare suffering and save lives in the future.


To demonise a million Muslims in the media on the grounds that any young British male could without warning rise up and strike at his fellow citizens in the name of religion, is appalling. In fact, there are about 40-50 wannabe murder cells, there are about 2000 criminal plotters who would like to ape the murderers of July 2005 - so far. This is bad, but dealable with. This is a fluid and determined network of fantatic murderous criminals. To call them ''terrorists'' makes them sound glamorous: to call this a ''war on terror'' that means '' the rules of the game have changed'' is playing into their own propoganda. They are criminals, pure and simple, planning murder and mayhem. They are beneath contempt, and a disgrace to their country and their religion.

Why should an entire faith, an entire group of that faith's practioners be demonised because of the actions and plots of a few death-cult politicised nihilistic fools? The men sentenced at the Old Bailey today have as much relevanance to the rest of British Muslims as animal rights extremists have to 'the British vegetarian community ' ( and now perhaps with this analogy you can see why talk of 'the Muslim community' is misleadingly simplistic and facile).

ID cards, detaining people without charge, the horrors of Guantanamo, rendition and torture outsourced to less apparently-high-minded regimes, clamp downs on peaceful protest, shredding of civil liberties and political soundbites and tough talk do not help and they do not work. Tracking and stopping such death-cultists is a matter of applying intelligence, often intelligence that comes from ordinary British men and women, (including of course British Muslims) and staying calm and clear-eyed, not hysterically over-stating the danger we face and glamorising such plotters by calling them players in a ''war on terror''


There is no excuse for obfuscation and denial any more. It is time that our voices were heard, and that an inquiry, a proper one, independent of Government and the security services and the stakeholders in our security was held.

Back soon. Deep breath.

Meanwhile...Please can you sign this?