Mick Hartley

Salman Rushdie in The Times:

Britain has in his view been far too complacent about the rise of extremism. “Both Thatcher and Blair made the same mistake, which was the so-called Londonistan policy where you allow these [Islamist] groups to set up shop here in the belief that if you do that they won’t attack this country and that you can monitor them.”

Labour became much tougher on suspected terrorists after 9/11, raising concerns that civil liberties were being brushed aside. “The War on Terror was always a terrible phrase,” says Rushdie. “You are never going to defeat terror. But I sometimes think that liberal opinion in this country doesn’t see that there actually are enemies.

We just saw in Mumbai a demonstration of the extraordinary barbarism that people are prepared to unleash on the world. How many of these attacks do we need before we understand what’s going on?”