Fear a powerful weapon

It is interesting to look at the headlines and how the press and politics work together. On Friday Theresa May announced the raising UK's terror threat level from "substantial" and the Prime Minister appeared and said that Islamic State extremists are attempting to establish a Islamic state and that they a threat to our security. Dutifully the press ran just the headlines the politicians to give them the mandate to use emergency  powers to rush through legislation by publishing stories that whipped up fears that we are about to be attacked by a group of extremists.  

The fact remains that your chances of being killed in a terrorist attack are extremely low, in fact your more likely to die falling out of the bed, or drowning in a bath. Yet newspapers are printed with headlines that are all full of doom and Politicians appear with grave faces to warn us that Jihadists are planning atrocities on British soil. The chances are we are at no real greater risk today than we were the week before. The threat is always there as long as conflict remains part of this world.

We have been here before between 1971 and 1997 when Provisional Irish Republican Army were not only carrying out attacks in Northern Ireland but were also attacking mainland Britain. The chances of a terrorist attack in those years was greater than the chances of it happening today. Britain didn't crumble then and there was little knee-jerk reaction from the Government of the time. They just got on and dealt with the problem and the people just got on with there lives. Just as we did when the Germans were bombing the nation overnight during the Second World War, people got up in the mornings and just carried on.

Just after Theresa May announced the raising UK's terror threat, Conservative MP came out of the woodwork to tell us how frightened we should be and how real the risk was. The David Cameron said he would need new measures like:

• Emergency legislation to make communications data available to police and security services 
• Working with the Kurds to make sure they had the arms needed to battle IS militants 
• Assisting the US by providing intelligence gathering 
• Delivering aid supplies to communities displaced by IS 
• Changes in levels of policing in the UK, especially the numbers of armed police

And all this based on raising of a threat level not because of a piece of specific intelligence, but due to developments in Syria and Iraq where terrorist groups could be planning attacks against the west. It is all based on fear and no evidence that those fears are real.

 In this country we have dealt with the threat before and one we have the experience to deal with again. It was done in the past with out panic and without any special measures being put in place. Back in the days of the Provisional Irish Republican Army campaign it was harder than it is today to detect the terrorists entering the country, because it is far simpler to cross the Irish sea than it is to come into the UK from the Middle East. Some of  what the prime minister wants is just reactionary drivel that might impress some but probably will have no affect on curbing the threat.

The fact is the world has never been a safe place, there have been wars and conflict from the dawn of mankind and it not going to go way soon. The threat of war is always around the corner as is the threat of a terrorist attack. Yes the world is a more dangerous place than it has ever been but that doesn't mean we need to leave in fear. All we have to do is understand the threat so we can take the right measures to analyse the risks and then put in place measures to minimise them.  The knee-jerk reaction that we have seen start over the weekend is not the right response and will result in poorly thought out polices that hurt the freedoms of the people of Britain more than the terrorist themselves.