More terror threats

I’m a few weeks late with this, but I’ve been thinking about the nine year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Almost a decade has passed and I still can’t watch those images of the burning Twin Towers without gasping in complete shock. It both fascinates and sickens me. At the time I remember thinking I was watching part of a film. I was 14 and had never seen anything like it in my life. But the horror of that day was just a pre-cursor of what was and still is to come in our society.

The news today of a foiled terror plot on London and other cities makes my blood boil. I’m not even going to try and go into all the Al-Qaeda stuff, because I don’t and never will understand. Why human beings desire to kill other human beings. Why some are so intent on mass devastation to the world that they sacrifice their own lives in the process. How they possess such an intense hatred for innocent people who live their lives differently to how they do.

“America will never ever forget the events of 9/11.  We will always be bruised.” someone I met in the USA told me in 2005. And though they have moved on, cliché as it may sound, I could definitely sense the devastation at Ground Zero when I went there.

If the latest foiled terror plot is true, and not just a media exaggeration, then thank God for the people working to eradicate these plots to destroy humanity.

It’s a complete pain in the arse not being able to take bottles of water on the plane when going abroad. It’s a ball ache having to put your Chanel makeup in a Sainsbury’s sandwich bag at the airport. It’s also really annoying being frisked to death and having a good pair of tweezers taken off you before boarding the plane.

But I would rather every single one of these pedantic procedures a hundred times over, than risk being blown up halfway over the Atlantic by a delusional extremist believing they are doing the right thing.

It makes me sick to think there are people like this walking next to us in the street or sat on the same bus. 7/7 was a revelation. This time the killers were born and bred Brits. And their plots will continue to be foiled but they will do it again. It is just a case of when.

Mummy Miliband's Dilemma

After years of hard slog, sleepless nights and endless campaigning, when your youngest son becomes just one step away from reaching the zenith of his political career, a mother’s heart must surely be bursting with joy and maternal pride.

It’s understandable she would be excitedly babbling to anyone in Waitrose who’ll listen, that her son is the new Labour Party Leader whilst conducting the weekly shop. It’s understandable that she hold a ‘Congratulations, Mummy’s Little Soldier!’ party in her dining room. Any proud mother would be completely justified in her excitement and happiness for her hardworking son.

But spare a thought for Marion Kozak this week. A woman for whom the phrase ‘bittersweet’ is the understatement of the millennium. One half of her is proud as punch for her darling Ed, the underdog. The other half is wracked with sorrow for David, whom everyone, including himself, had pegged as the new Gord.

It was bad enough that Marion’s two beloved boys were competing in the Labour Party race in the first place. She is said to have told people that it would have made her life much less stressful, had her sons become academics than politicians.

So she must have anticipated some form of sibling rivalry. But this week’s outcome is a lifetime away from the tantrums over tricycles, way back in yesteryear. The position in which Marion is in this week must make her yearn for the days her boys wrestled over the biscuit tin.

Poor David, assuming he was a dead cert for the job he had spent months, if not years, prepping for, had already written his acceptance speech when out of the blue he was suddenly shafted at the eleventh hour by his geeky little brother Ed.

Now David’s political career is in doubt – and can things ever be the same for the Brothers Miliband again? A schoolfriend of the brothers said: "They cannot be the same after this. I have seen it (politics tearing families apart) happen and I can see it happening between them."

What then for their poor mother? She was said to be so distraught about the results of the contest that she could not bear to even watch it. Are we to assume that all Miliband family soirees of the future will be exercises in walking on eggshells? Snarls over the Christmas turkey?

Seriously though, I feel for all involved in this delicate situation. For Ed, who cannot fully bask in the glory of his achievement because it is undoubtedly tinged with guilt and sadness for his brother. For David, who had been the Leader favourite for years, and has had a shock to the system with Ed’s ‘usurpation’ spoiling the natural order of things. I met David three years ago, when he was Environment Secretary and I was on placement at Manchester Evening News, shadowing the Political Editor. Although a bit cocky, he definitely had the ‘je ne sais quoi’ I personally think is a requisite in politics, and I would have put money on the fact he would one day be in the running for Prime Minister, which is why I was more than a little bit surprised when I heard he had been abruptly ousted.
But I especially feel for Marion, whose conflicting emotions this week, must feel like turmoil.
Still – worse things have happened at sea.