How we are sleepwalking as a country when it comes to terror threats - Yorkshire Post Letters

TYP, October 8, comments of the head of Britain’s security services concerning the very real threat to our democratic principles and way of life merely serve as a reminder of the tragic death of our very own Jo Cox on a Yorkshire street.

It isn’t that long ago that at the abortive attempt by the newly elected Donald J Trump to visit our shores and have ‘tea’ with the late Queen Elizabeth II was temporarily called off, which did finally take place amid maximum security that a concerned president, following a briefing with his own security chiefs gave a warning on the fact that we appeared to be ‘sleepwalking to disaster’.

This was based on the information he had that Britain had ‘a minimum of 3,000 disruptive and highly dangerous elements within our communities’, adding that you do not know who they are and where they are, but all intent on doing us harm in varying degrees and in numerous situations. He could have voiced his concerns about Russian cyber crime, an even bigger threat to national life.

The peace and stability of the country are the priorities of any Government, the last Conservative one and the present one under Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership, so why, even after the most recent riots on our streets, do we continue on a daily basis to scale down the likely sources of wholesale disruption against the background of the ever widening wars and conflicts in the Middle East, marked by terrorist elements in active pursuit of settling old scores and aiming to make life for us all as unsettling and difficult as possible.