24/05/2017 Daily Politics

Good afternoon. Welcome to the Daily Politics.

Following Monday night's terrorist attack in the heart of Manchester,

the UK terror threat level has been raised to its highest

meaning more attacks may be imminent.

It means military personnel will now be deployed to protect key sites

including Buckingham Palace and Downing Street.

Election campaigning is suspended for a second day

we will be reporting on the events in Manchester.

The bomber, Salman Abedi killed 22 people and injured 64

many of the injured are still in critical care.

Police have arrested three men in Manchester this morning.

The bomber's 23-year-old brother was arrested yesterday.

Flowers have been laid and tributes have been paid to the 22 people

killed in the attack at Manchester Arena.

Eight of the victims are known to be Saffie Rose Roussos, Olivia

Campbell, Lisa Lees, Jane Tweddle-Taylor, Martyn Hett, John

Atkinson, Georgina Callander and Kelly Brewster. The Polish Foreign

Minister has said that a Polish couple who went missing after the

attack are among those killed. Thousands of people turned out

for the vigil in Manchester yesterday evening and to hold

a minute's silence to Home Secretary Amber Rudd,

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Commons Speaker John Bercow

stood on stage alongside Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham

and Greater Manchester Police Chief This morning members of the cabinet

met as the Prime Minister Theresa May again chaired COBRA, the

government's crisis response committee.

Chris Philips, former head of the National Counter Terrorism Security

office, will be with me throughout today. Welcome to the programme, the

fallout from Manchester dominating everything, huge security

investigation now under way. Where do you see... Where are we at? The

most interesting point, the things that have not come out yet which are

absolutely essential to know, it was this home-made explosive? If it was,

then somewhere in the UK, there is a bomb factory that needs to be found.

Was the device strapped to the person, a suicide bomb, or was this

a dropped case, in which case, as may have been designed to be the

first of a number, in which case, there are still bombs in the UK

somewhere. Unlike 77, backpacks, I think, they had them on their back,

I have seen pictures, or at least mock-ups, recreations, suggesting

this suicide bomber had a suitcase. -- 7/7. I have seen the same, I do

not know if that is fact or opinion, I have not heard any thing from the

police, its changes totally the way that this investigation will go. It

was quite obvious to me straightaway that this was not a one-man band who

has done this, there must be a group behind it, but whether this person

was going to drop the case and walk away, in which in which situation we

would have potentially a number of other cases ready to be dropped. We

will go through this in detail with you and others later. Am I right in

assuming, because, as you say, security services think this was not

just a lone wolf operation, that he had help, and that help is still out

there, but that is why the security alert is now up at the highest

critical level? I said yesterday, if the level goes up to critical, then

for sure, they are chasing other people. When you get a situation

like this, if it is a home-made explosive, absolutely no way that

one person can do that, it takes a lot of work, you have to get the

ingredients, you have to get the understanding of how to do it and I

don't think there is anything that says this would have been a one-man

band. We will be going through a lot of that in the next hour.

This morning's newspapers all have pictures of the young victims on

their front pages. The Sun's headline is 'Pure Evil'

with a picture of the youngest victim Saffie Roussosa alongside the

bomber Salman Abedi. The Guardian again has eight year old Saffie and

a picture of the first victim to be named, Georgina Callander. The Daily

Mail has the same two girls with the headline 'soldiers on the streets'

And The Times looks at the links Salman Abedi had with Libya. The

Telegraph looks at the raising of the terror threat level and reports

that we will be seeing troops on the streets. And finally the Mirror has

the headline 'killed by evil'. Well last night the Prime Minister

announced that the independent body, the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre

had decided to raise the terror threat from "critical" to "severe"

for the first time since June 2007. This means an attack

may be imminent. This morning I said that the joint

terrorism analysis Centre, the independent organisation responsible

for setting the threat level on the basis of intelligence available was

keeping the threat level under constant review. It has now

concluded on the basis of today's investigations that the threat level

should be increased for the time being, from severe to critical. This

means their assessment is not only that an attack remains highly

likely, but that a further attack may be imminent. The Prime Minister

last night. And this morning Home Secretary Amber Rudd gave more

detail on what we can expect to see with the increased threat level.

Good progress has been made with a number of arrests overnight and that

will continue. We have now gone to a critical level in terms of the

threat. Operation Tempora has been invoked, that means there will be

additional military personnel coming to backfill the armed police

officers, so that they can support other areas. Today we have 984

members of the military coming forward, as requested by the police.

They will be initially deployed in London but also in the rest of the

country as requested, and they will perform an important part of the

defence going forward. Let's take a look in more detail at what the new

threat level means. "Critical" is the highest terrorist threat level

that the UK can face. As the Prime Minister said, it means that a

further attack may be imminent, in the view of security and police

experts. We had previously been on the second highest threat level,

which is called "severe". Using the critical threat level is unusual -

it's only been used twice before, once in 2006 and once in 2007.

The PM said the police, as a result, had asked for military assistance

in guarding key sites around the country.

These locations include the House of Commons, Buckingham Palace

It also means that the police will be given

extra resources to deal with the critical threat level.

The terrorist threat level is set by the Joint

Terrorism Analysis Centre, which draws on expertise from the

The decision to deploy troops is for the government.

The Home Secretary Amber Rudd stressed this morning

that the critical threat level was a "temporary arrangement"

to respond to what she called an "exceptional event".

And joining us now is Professor John Gearson, from the Centre for Defence

Studies at King's College London... Welcome to the programme, in

practice, what does moving to critical mean? For government

buildings and public sector entities like universities and hospitals,

there will be different security, more enhanced security, people will

be called on to identify themselves in a way that they may not in every

single building, the decision to deploy the military, this is outside

the normal step up to severe, and in fact that is something that is going

to attract some comments. Can I clarify, some people have assumed

that because it went to critical, that means the military is deployed,

that is not the case. Two separate decisions, saying that need to move

to critical, that is an independent decision but then saying we need to

deploy troops, that is a government decision. Military deployment is not

linked, even going to critical, it could be chosen to support severe

level. This has being driven not by in my opinion a long-term considered

approach but essentially, a result of the Paris attacks, this policy of

been able to called upon the military is a profound change in the

attitude of the Ministry of Defence and the military. We began to see

more and more French military on the streets, French cities and

infrastructure. They say what is the meaning of an 18 month straight of

emergency, with military in the streets, the French have criticised

themselves for that, but Britain has been reluctant to use the military

for a number of reasons which we cannot go into now. Appropriate,

cautious use of the military is appropriate at a time of national

emergency. If we want to call this a national emergency, and by calling

this critical, they are saying this is something unusual. We have not

designated this a national emergency officially. Unlike the French,

President Francois Hollande, previous president, he declared a

state of emergency and that state of emergency. That is right, many

people thought that this is a mistake, the British approach is

predicated on normality, things may be dangerous, but normal life is

going to continue, on the other hand, when a suicide bomber, if it

proves to be a suicide bomber, let's presume it is, even if it is in a

suitcase, if a suicide bomber kills eight, nine, 10-year old, that is

not normality, I can see why the government wants to respond, the

question is whether the military do something useful, whether that be a

presence on the street or not. Is the deployment of the military more

than just symbolic? I think it is disappointing because it tells a

story that the police do not have the resources to do the job we want

them to do, once the police on the streets, and most police forces,

most of the officers I speak with would say the resources are not

there to maintain the number of officers on the streets,

particularly with guns, his officers do not have enough officers they do

not have enough officers that can carry guns to cover all the

locations for a sustained period of time, that is why they need the

military, disappointing we have got to that stage. It is your

understanding as well that it is the police that asked the government for

the military to step up, and help take the pressure of the armed

guarding of sensitive sites. I would imagine that is the case, I think

what the police want is actually the ability to respond, what that means

is having the responders available, right across the country, actually,

and what we do know is, actually, London has a pretty good response to

armed incidents, the rest of the country not so much, and this has

happened in the north-west of the country, this has not happened in

London, constabularies in that area do not have the number of firearms

officers available in London. You were saying this had gone to

critical because it was clear that Salman Abedi had not been operating

on his own, if that is the case, that means, in this police operation

that is going on, they will be getting a wealth of the tail, it is

not becoming public, obviously, quite rightly, but there is a tonne

of stuff that they will be across. Hopefully, they have some history of

this guy, they know who he is, they know who he has been playing with

over the last six to 12 months. It is not clear that they do. That is

one of the issues, and of course, we would expect them to keep this quiet

at the moment, but at this moment, I would have expected to see quite a

lot of arrests, crucially, the bomb factory, if this is a home-made

explosive, that bomb factory is dangerous, something that when you

make home-made explosives, it is extremely dangerous. And volatile.

And it can go bang at any moment. The police will be wanting to get

into that as quick as possible to make sure that other people are

safe. We have seen people moved out of flats and houses to deal with

that. With what we know so far about Salman Abedi, and his Libyan parents

and background, what do you make of where we are, was this man... Was

this man on the security radar, or was he to low-level? I am sceptic

about the concept of a lone wolf, nobody is alone, everybody has

connections that lead to the point at which they carry out violent

attacks, the picture coming out this morning in the press and of easily

it has not been confirmed by the government is a bit conflicting, on

the one hand, a device that needs more than basic amateurish mixing of

chemicals in a pot in a room and a desire to carry out a suicide

attack, on the other hand, neighbours reporting going into the

street and chanting prayers, growing a beard, doing the kind of

operational security that no serious professional terrorist would do,

they would be doing the opposite, they would not be chanting, they

would be going out of their way to where Western clothes. We cannot

ascribe brilliance to people until we know whether they were connected.

To make a suicide bomb that works is actually quite difficult. I think,

we saw on the 21st of July, 2005, that just by getting the fixture

wrong, the devices did not work. That was the one that attempted to

follow up 77. -- 7/7. Then we had the shooting of the Brazilian, Jean

Charles de Menezes, during the pursuit of those people, by the way,

they did not go down fighting, they surrendered, quite an interesting

thing to remember about suicide bombing

We know Abedi had just come back from Libya. We know he was chanting

very loudly in Arabic, prayers and parts of the Koran. And I saw one

report that said there was a black flag flying from the garden with

Arabic script on it. Doesn't that alert anybody? Let's hope so. He had

all the signs that should have been alerted. I read also that an imam

saw him and said, I am worried about this guy. Did he tell the police?

Have the neighbours told the police? Whilst this stuff may be happening,

someone has to tell the police. That is the only way we can get involved.

What do you make of it when you add what we know already to it? My

speculation is that this individual did travel to Libya and had contact

with people with links to Islamic State and may have had some

training. But he does not seem to display the professional qualities

we would expect. The question is, are there more bombs and people? Or

are there these slightly volatile individuals who may or may not have

had some connection and some training and the ability to do

damage. French intelligence say he also went to Syria. We don't know if

he was trained in Libya. We don't know what the connections of his

father were. There are reports that he fell out with the Gaddafi regime

and left. That was why they ended up in Britain. We will come to that

later in the programme. But the Home Secretary said this morning that

Salman Abedi, the suicide bomber, was known to the security services

"Up to a point". What does that mean? It probably means he may have

had contact with somebody who was on a watchlist or may have been watched

constantly by the security service. They have to make tough judgments

every day in asking for resources. If you want to monitor somebody,

especially in the current climate of encryption, we know the attacker

Westminster was whatsapping before he drove his car across listeners to

bridge. We don't have those messages yet. There is an ongoing discussion.

The question is, do these people have the ability to be ahead of the

security services? In this case, sadly, they did. And although this

is a tragic event, it doesn't necessarily indicate, well, it's a

failure of our counterterrorism efforts if anyone gets through, but

it's not a failure of intelligence. In East Germany, more than 50% of

the population were informing on the other 48%. There is that balance

between over-securitising our lives and changing our normal life. There

were reports that Abedi had links with the Libyan Islamic fighting

group in the Manchester area and that they were in Whalley range, not

far from where he lived in the Manchester area. They had raised

funds and had even been convicted tangentially with the Didsbury

mosque. We don't know that, but that is what reports say. But this group

has been described in that area of Manchester as a hotbed for Islamic

State. People watching this will be surprised that we in this country

and don't seem to have done much about it. Exactly. Since the Islamic

State has started acting as has in Libya and has committed all these

terrorist attacks, I would hope it is being monitored. We have been

through this before and the French have been through it even more times

in recent years. Has anything changed as a result of this? Well,

we are stopping most attacks, but terrorism is not stopped by security

services. Individual acts of terrorism are, and they are very

important. We ultimately have to go through the community and the policy

of countering extremism generally. That is the long term, but the

resources go into physical security. But we say this every time, that we

have to do this after an attack, and yet 22 people were killed and almost

60 were badly injured in Manchester again. It's about the hardest policy

area you can have. It's about education, community cohesion and

determined people in other countries planning attacks against us. No

country has found an answer to this. More importantly, it's a dynamic

problem. The mobilisation of people going to Syria and Libya were

different people to the 2000 we were looking at a decade ago from

Al-Qaeda. Some are the same, but it is a very traumatic problem, also

for countries like France. Professor, thank you.

Leaders around the world have been quick to declare solidarity

Here's Ellie with a summary of how the world responded.

In Paris, the lights turned off as a mark of respect. In New York, the

Empire State Building, a skyline dimmed. And in Dubai, Geneva, Zagreb

and Belfast too. The international gestures matched with words of

solidarity from world leaders, and contempt for the terrorists. I will

call them, from now on, losers, because that's what they are. They

are losers. After phoning Theresa May, the French president walked to

the British Embassy to sign a book of condolence. In Berlin, Chancellor

Merkel said Germany stood shoulder to shoulder with Britain. Other

world leaders took to social media to send their support to Britain,

while President Putin sent a telegram to the Prime Minister,

offering to increase counterterrorism cooperation. Like

many European capitals, the EU flew its flags at half-mast in Brussels.

And in Australia, Prime Minister Turnbull captured the mood of many.

This is a direct and brutal attack on young people everywhere on

freedom everywhere. Ariana Grande, the American singer whose concert it

was in Manchester has flown home, but not yet cancelled her London

tour dates later this week. Meanwhile, many other musicians

tweeted their thoughts, including Rihanna, who said Manchester was

close to her heart and suggested that the attack could have happened

that one of her concerts. And the Oasis singer and celebrated

Mancunian Liam Gallagher, who tweeted that he sent Northern Lights

to all the families involved. The world of sport paid -- he said

Lenovo and liked the families involved. Ahead of the Europa League

match tonight, David Beckham captured the mood with this tweet.

Police in Manchester say three more arrests have been made

One man detained yesterday is still in custody.

Catriona Renton is our correspondent outside

What can you tell us about the three arrests this morning? There have

been a number of developments. The three men who were arrested this

morning were arrested in South Manchester. Police had been issued

with warrants. We understand that they were arrested in connection

with this investigation. Another development was the 23-year-old man

who was arrested yesterday. He is the brother of 22-year-old Salman

Abedi, who of course was the bomber that was identified yesterday. Let

me bring you another statement from Greater Manchester Police which has

come in in the last half-hour. They are confident that they know who all

of the people are who sadly lost their lives at the Manchester Arena.

They say they have made contact with all of the families, who are being

supported by specialist officers. They say that due to the number of

victim postmortems that are to take four to five days, they will then be

in a position, with the guidance of the coroner, to formally named the

victims. This investigation is very fast moving. We have seen the

developments we have already talked about. Home Secretary Amber Rudd

said this morning that Salman Abedi was known to intelligence services

up to a point. That of course leaves a big question as to what extent he

was known to intelligence services. We understand that he had recently

come back from Libya. He would have had his passport checked by security

services when he came back into the UK. We have also heard that he may

have been known to American intelligence services also. The

central point of the investigation now is, was Salman Abedi acting

alone? Their priority is to find out who if anyone else was involved.

They need to know where the bomb was made, if there were other people

involved, and the making of the bomb, the armouring of the bomb and

if there were others who were encouraging Salman Abedi and

supporting him for he carried out a horrific attack on Monday night. The

police investigation here is fast-moving, the police working hard

with the counterterrorism network. They have also thanked the people of

Manchester for their strength and resilience over the past few days.

They say they will need to carry on with this strength and resilience

while they ensure that they can make this city safe once again. Catriona

Renton outside the Manchester police building, thank you.

And we're joined now by Lucy Powell, who was an MP in Manchester.

In your knowledge, how serious is the problem of Islamist

radicalisation in Manchester? Am not sure this is the right moment to go

into that, because I don't even want to ascribe what has happened to the

Islamic faith. Most of my constituents who are Muslim would

absolutely disassociated themselves from any act of violence or terror

like this. But I am not ascribing it to them. I did not say Islam, I said

Islamist, which is different. We have learned that there are areas

regarded as hotbeds of Islamic State in the Manchester area. Were you

aware of that? Is that common knowledge in the city? I think

sometimes, these things are given labels. There was a media report

recently about Moss side, an area I represent, as though that was

somehow a hotbed of Islamic extremists. Actually, most of the

evidence that was used in the article did not stack up because

people were from far and wide across the Greater Manchester area. The

people they were using to create that story were not there at the

same time as one another. So we have to be careful, especially in these

times, to start pitting community against community in saying that

certain areas or certain people or certain communities are somehow

responsible when they are not. These are the acts of deranged individuals

who have, in my eyes, nothing to do with humanity. How anyone is a human

being could carry out these acts more I find incomprehensible. So

it's really important, in the face of these atrocities in this horrific

terror attack in Manchester, that we don't start pointing the finger in

the wrong place. I understand that. None of the questions I am asking

you involve pointing the finger at anybody. They are trying to get to

the bottom of how this happened and who was behind it. Is there a

realisation, that Abedi was not acting alone, that there is a group

of people who helped him to do this, therefore making the situation all

the more dangerous? Well, that is what we are hearing. I am not in a

position to provide a commentary, nor would I provide a running

commentary on the operation that is under way and try to make sure that

everybody associated with this heinous crime is brought to justice.

Of course, when somebody carries out and act like this, in a sense, it

does break open that network that has hitherto remained under the

radar of the security services. So inevitably, I hope that they close

all the associates down completely and identify them all and make sure

they are brought to justice. But it is an ongoing investigation. I do

not recognise the description of areas of Manchester being hotbeds of

radicalisation. Police have named 22-year-old

Salman Ramadan Abedi as the person suspected of carrying out

the suicide attack at So what do we know about him and how

he came to be radicalised? We're joined now by our Security

Correspondent, Gordon Corera. We know that he was a Manchester United

supporter, new like cricket, smoked cannabis, made it to Salford

University, the son of Libyan parents who fled Colonel Gaddafi, he

was not from a deprived background, his father had fled the Gaddafi

regime, at one stage, but is now back in Tripoli. What else... What

else, as we try to put together a picture of the suicide bomber, what

else do we know? It is the moment of radicalisation which investigators

are looking for, trying to understand when it took place, looks

like a few years ago he was a relatively normal individual,

football supporting and so on. But associate, people in the area, have

said that more recently, they did notice some kind of change in

behaviour. Some potential signs of what is

looking certain to be radicalisation, the issue of travel

is one that security services are looking at closely, the possibility

he had been in Libya recently, was that a place in which he was

radicalised, some possible reports of other travel as well, that will

be something they will be trying to understand, was a radicalised there,

was he tasked there, was he given training abroad, what kind of travel

may there have been, also reports from France that French officials

think he may have gone to Syria. Some of this is not confirmed, but

that is going to be a very key line of enquiry. What about this group,

the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which existed in Libya to oppose

Colonel Gaddafi, although Gaddafi's security services closed it down and

took out and killed a lot of the leaders of it. There seems to be a

remnant of it in the Manchester area, he may have had a connection,

anything on that? The story of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group is

very interesting when it comes to iteration ship with Britain because

it was a group which was Islamist in outlook but was also anti-Gaddafi

and if you look at the history, in the 90s, when Britain was very

anti-Gaddafi, those people found a home in Britain, and they tended to

be able to operate here, and then after 2003 there was the deal with

Colonel Gaddafi and Britain and the Libyan regime became more friendly

and then there was more pressure on the LIFG in Britain. Very

interesting history of the last 20, 30 years, in which the Britain

intelligence services and the state 's attitude to LIFG has mirrored how

friendly or not we were with the regime of Colonel Gaddafi, which

they were fighting and opposing. I don't think we have yet heard from

the father, he was born in 1965, very strict Muslim, some reports say

that he was very anti-jihadi. Some reports that he may have been

involved with internal security in Libya at one stage but then broke

with Tripoli in 1991, may have been in Saudi Arabia for a while, then

went to London in 1992, then Manchester, and had four children,

but then went back to Tripoli in 2008, before the regime change.

Interesting timing, a lot of people from LIFG and related groups went

back after regime change. There were some deals done with former

opponents under Colonel Gaddafi in that period. That looks quite

unusual. Now, you have a lot of former anti-Gaddafi forces and

individuals who were based, back in Libya, and so it is a very

complicated mix, the Libyan opposition, full of different groups

and individuals, different factions who have been fighting each other in

recent months and years, and that will complicate the intelligence and

security gathering business for British intelligence, to try to

establish what the links are and who knew what. A final question, more

generally, where do you see the state of the investigation so far,

into Salman Abedi and those who may well have helped him? The crucial

issue is where was the bomb instructed and by who, general view

is that it was not a straightforward device, may have required assistance

from others, and they want to know was there a bomb factory in the UK,

was there a bomb maker in the UK, did it take place overseas. That is

vital to understand where the residual threat lies and how serious

it might be in the UK. That is why the threat level has gone up too

critical. Thank you for joining us. I'm joined now by the former

Communities Secretary, Hazel Blears, who helped run the Prevent strategy

under Labour and Douglas Murray, associate director of

the Henry Jackson Society, had the politicians say what they

say after a terrible atrocity like this happens, and we have stepped up

security and what is said is well said and well meant, too, but does

anything, in the end, ever change? Inevitable that in an event, and

after an event like this, people concentrate on the here and now,

this operation to bring people to justice and that is to be expected,

I want us to take a step back and think about what is it that is going

on in our country and around the world, where we have a supply chain

of people coming through who are radicalised and not just radicalised

but prepared to kill and kill themselves in the process. 7/7, that

was the first time we had experienced that in this country, a

sense of national shock that three young men brought up and educated in

the British education system could set out on a murderous bombing

mission, and it has happened again. Ten years later. A decade on. It has

happened around the world, France, Spain, Belgium. We have done some

good work in bringing communities together, the channel programme,

with direct the lies agent but we have not tackled this ideology. I

went to see David Cameron Mackay boss task force that we set up,

together with a Conservative colleague on a cross-party basis,

and gave them a paper, it was about saying, then we take part of this

ideology of hating the West, having a caliphate and a theocracy around

the world, and being prepared to murder on the basis that if you die,

you are going to paradise. It is a threadbare, worthless ideology, we

tackle fascism, Nazism, we need the same determination to be able to

tackle this ideology. Then we might be getting somewhere. At the moment,

I do not think we are marshalling our resources in the way we ought to

be, it is an existing Schalke wrecked. We need to meet it. In the

end, we only defeated Nazism because of total war. It was not the idea,

it was the total war that won. And of course I am not advocating that.

-- it is an existing problem. We do not want to believe what they say,

after all these years we seem to be in this strange cycle, Hazel quite

rightly says, not preparing to fight this ideology but politicians, from

all parties, are very reluctant to even name the ideology in question.

There is a concerted effort after an attack like that on Monday night, to

not say anything that would compel anybody to do something. Last night,

-- last month, after the Westminster terror attacks, just down the road

from here, the Dean of Westminster on behalf of this nation stood up at

the pulpit and said, we may never know what may drive somebody to do

this... Sorry, we do know! We know why somebody like Khalid Masood did

what he did outside the Houses of Parliament, we know why somebody

like this young man did what he did, they keep telling us! We just don't

want to listen. Is it, is it the Islamist ideology? Yes... Don't

recognise that? No, take Italy we do not want to recognise where it comes

from. Wethers it come from? Religion, the worst possible

interpretation of the religion, it comes from it, we are very reluctant

to face up to date. -- where does it come from. Underneath all this there

is something else happening, politicians are talking about

technical issues to do with security, but the public in Britain

and the public in Europe are thinking totally different things,

they are thinking for instance, how can it be that we may bring a couple

of Libyans who may have suffered under Colonel Gaddafi into this

country as asylum seekers, perhaps they are pro-Britain, perhaps the

most pro-Britain ever, but maybe their child will turn up to a pop

concert one night and blow up a bunch of women and children... How

can you ever know that? What does the policy followed, that we should

not have let them in? The policy issue is, the public are wondering

whether this whole idea of mass migration, of borderless world and

all of these things is such a good idea, publics are committed to a

different conclusion to politicians, it is right we have security

questions but as a country we should also be thinking about the deeper

underlying things. I may so, when Hazel says, we have two tackle this

underlying ideology and fight it, I agree, but we must appropriately

designate the problem. Hazel, we still have... You need to let Hazel

Blears speak. With Robert share some of the analysis but I am a practical

person, what I set out to do with prevent was not just described the

problem, and I agree, it needs to be named. -- Prevent. The overwhelming

majority of Muslim people are... Are opposed to this, we need to have a

series of practical programmes, court to have education, not just

the Muslim community but other faiths as well, to understand this,

to have critical thinking so that you can challenge the ideas of the

extremists, because they are very simple and actually very stupid as

well. If we have the arguments to use... Douglas, it is all very well

to have rhetoric, rhetoric can inflame the situation, you need a

careful measured view with a proper programme and properly resourced.

This programme, the Prevent programme, prime example, there has

been all criticism, but what is one of the unanimous issues with

Prevent, almost total pushback against the policy from Day 1 from

self appointed leadership of the Muslim community. That is one of the

overwhelming things at prevent, people say, I have a problem with

this bit, that bit, no, most people you hear from within the Muslim

communities, terrific examples of people, they are against any policy,

not a bit of it, they don't want any of it. I disagree. Let Hazel Blears

speak. I disagree with you again, what you are saying is, the people

who are anti-prevent the majority voice coming you may say that they

are the majority but they are not, there is a lot of decent people in

the community, young people. I'm talking about within the leadership.

They have become stars and when you get the opportunity of a leadership

platform, they are amazing, women, in the same place, you cannot paint

everybody. I did not do that. You have been listening to this, it is

quite hard to see what the policy responses. Your job, you have to

pick up the pieces from the failure of a political strategy, which,

which has led to terrorism, but I am not quite sure... What should we be

doing? What should we be doing to stop it being your problem? What we

have seen across Europe, and if you think back to the attackers from

Paris, certainly one of them was able to go back to his location in

Ulamek, 100 metres from where he was born and brought up, and hide from

the police. -- Meulen beak. There is such a disconnect between the

community and the police force, certainly in that country, what we

have seen today is something going on not quite the same but along

those lines in Manchester, and we need to break down communities that

see themselves as insular and not linked into the rest of the state.

-- Molenbeek. You said education, but Salman Abedi was educated, he

went to Salford University, studying business management, he was not some

illiterate whose mind had been warped... His mind was warped. Not

because he wasn't educated. When I talk about education I mean

education from primary school together to understand that this

kind of extremism is not something that represents your faith, not

something you want to be involved with, so you can be educated to a

top-level but you can still be driven by this ideology. Politicians

have this great faith in education, at their time, the Germans were the

best educated people in the world, they ended up with Adolf Hitler.

Indeed. That shows you the strength of an ideology. The importance of

countering it as well but you cannot count it if you simply think that it

is, that it is solvable by Hazel Blears or by Amber Rudd or anybody

else coming up with a counter at the ology, these people believe they are

acting in the name of their God, -- counter ideology. They may not

listen to a British minister. We need to have a line to them that

breaks to the heart of their warped ideology. What does that mean? What

does it mean? Douglas, what is the policy response? Not the metaphor.

The first thing is, politicians and others have too acknowledged that

when these things happen, instead of learning from them," coming

together" and all of this, we did not want this to happen, we never

wanted to get to this place where we had people, including first and

second generation immigrants in this country blowing people up at pop

concerts. There is no single way to deal with it but one of the worst

ways to deal with it is when people like Andy Burnham, unfortunately,

now the mayor of Manchester, campaigned not only to prevent

Prevent -- scrap Prevent but not even suggesting something to go in

its place, the current strategy has all sorts of flaws but it is the

best and we need some kind of strategy, preferable to no strategy

at all. On that we are agreed. The Manchester attack happened

four years to the day since Fusilier Lee Rigby

was murdered by two extremists near his barracks in Woolwich,

south-east London. And the last two and a half years

has seen yet more attacks, as the so-called Islamic State has

encouraged its supporters to launch Back in January 2015 a pair

of masked men killed 12 people at the office of the satirical

magazine Charlie Hebdo, before killing five other people

in and around Paris. Later that year,

Paris was hit again. This time a group of a gunmen

and suicide bombers attacked the Bataclan concert hall and other

sites around the city, The next month, a lone

attacker inspired by Islamic State attempted to behead

a passenger in the ticket hall of Leytonstone tube

station in east London. Then,

in March 2016, Brussels was hit airport and one at a metro station

near EU institutions. In July,

as France celebrated Bastille Day, a truck mowed through a crowd

of people on the Nice seafront. In December, a similar

attack saw a lorry plough into a crowd of people

at a Berlin Christmas market. Then in March, five people

were murdered when Khalid Masood launched a car and knife attack

here in Westminster. a man

carrying knives near parliament police and arrested on suspicion

of terrorism offences. I joined now by Charlie Winther from

the international centre for counterterrorism and Adam Deen from

the Quilliam Foundation. When you see that litany of appalling

terrorist attacks and what we know about Abedi in Manchester, what is

the theme? What is the common denominator? We are seeing the

aftermath of two decades of Islamist ideology running a mock. We are

seeing the effects of their not being a strong counter narrative.

Young Muslims are taking on this ideology of Islam is and

understanding it to be an authentic representation and acting upon it,

thinking that they are serving God. But is the lack of a counter

narrative, Charlie winter, is that partly the fault of the Islamic

immunity, that they haven't built a strong enough counter to the

Islamist ideology? It is important to keep in mind that it is a tiny

minority of people that think any of this stuff is a good idea. But it

can cause so much pain. So the size of it, in a way, doesn't matter if

you can kill 22 innocent people at a pop concert. Of course it doesn't.

Let's not detract from the scale of the atrocity. But at the same time,

when you are looking for a better way to counter this, we need to

recognise that it is a small number of people. But what do we do? What

I'm saying is that we can look to the Muslim community and ask them to

do more. The fact of the matter is that people like Abedi don't listen,

however. There is only so far you can go with that line. Do you think

that is because there hasn't been a strong enough challenge to it? Isis

's fringe, but the problem is that the Muslim community shares a broad

spectrum of beliefs with the likes of Isis. They share? They share it.

And that is something we need to have a candid discussion about.

Often, these discussions of extremism and the medieval theology

that supports these acts, it has almost been muted. It is time to

have an honest discussion. Let me be clear. You are saying there are

views within the mainstream Muslim community, which would be appalled

at what happened in Manchester, but they have something in common with

Islamic State ideology? Voids are there to be filled. If you're

Islamic education talk about an Islamic State, a utopian Islamic

State, talking about dividing the world in terms of good and evil,

these concepts can be exploited by Islamist extremists. That is what is

happening. Charlie Winter? I would be wary of saying there is a large

number of perhaps I misinterpreted it, but I think the vast majority of

people would be adamant in saying that they have no part in believing

anything that the Islamic State does. Whether that is contradicted

by a belief in the caliphate ultimately being an important part

of Islam is a different thing. But in this context, that is important.

But is the Muslim community in general, because in the end, they

are the best people to do it on the well-known principle that only Nixon

could go to China, the best people to do this is the Muslim community

itself, which oppose what is going on. Are they doing enough to make

sure that the kind of messages that Abedi was clearly getting to cause

him to carry this out are not reaching people like him? Well, it

is limited, what they can do. But are they doing all they can do? An

imam in Manchester who is moderate or mainstream will not be able to

resonate with someone like Abedi. This is a world where a lot of the

radical activity that used to happen in so-called radical mosques can

happen easily on social media. 99% of Muslims plus condemn Isis. That

is not the challenge. The challenge is to take on the ideas that give

oxygen to extremist narratives. In terms of mosques and imams, it is

not so much what they are saying or doing, it is what they are not

saying. We need to inculcate values of human rights, democracy and

freedom in young Muslim minds so that they can be inoculated from

extremist narratives. But even if we were to get this right, and I get

the sense that we are a long way from getting it right, we are

closing the stable door after the horse has bolted? We have learned

that Abedi was in Libya. We think he might have been in Syria as well. We

are told about 350 Islamic fighters who had been in Syria or Islamic

State areas are back in the Manchester area. They have been

radicalised. It is too late for them. And the two multiplying

factors we need to remember is the ease of travel, which we have all

got now, and the ease of communication, which means the very

small percentage of the radicals, the idiots, can communicate and talk

to each other and effectively multiply what they do. And of

course, one terrorist attack is a huge issue across the world. And

everyone now sees it. And individuals can talk to each other

on the other side of the world, which was never possible even a

generation ago. Is it going to get worse before it gets better? I think

so. I think Pandora's box has opened. We will leave it there.

As we have said, political campaigning has been resumed in the

wake of the Manchester attack, but the Ukip leader Paul Nuttall has

said he will resume tomorrow. We don't know what the main parties

will do. Norman Smith joins us from Downing Street.

Is there any sign of a restart of the campaign? The only sign of it is

Ukip going solo. They will start campaigning tomorrow with the launch

of their manifesto on the grounds, says their leader Paul Nuttall, that

not to do so would be a victory for the terrorists, that democracy

cannot be cowed by a terrorist act. There will have been two days of

non-campaigning as a mark of respect and tomorrow is an appropriate time

to start. I think they will be doing so on their own. I detect no

inclination from any of the other main parties to join them. The

language from Government is that they are talking about several more

days before campaigning resumes. I presume that means probably

stretching into the weekend. Who knows, maybe even beyond the Bank

Holiday Monday. The SNP are also beginning to calculate that their

manifesto may have to wait for next week. In terms of labour, they would

like to get on with it because they feel they were building up a degree

of momentum and that if there is any politics around this, it probably

plays more to the advantage of the government. That said, I don't think

they will break ranks and suddenly start campaigning. My expectation is

that Ukip will have their launch tomorrow, which will be hugely

controversial and most of the questions will not be about their

manifesto, but about whether it is appropriate to restart the campaign

when you have still got children in hospital with very serious injuries.

And we have a life counterterrorism operation goes on and maybe a

continuing terrorist threat. It sounds like the campaign proper may

not begin again until Tuesday, which would mean in the middle of a

general election, a whole week of campaigning is lost because of what

happened in Manchester. That is a possibility. I would caution,

though, that I understand there has been no formal decision within

government about exactly when to restart. That is partly because of

the nature of the counterterrorism operation, the fact that the risk

has now been raised to critical. Troops are going to be deployed.

There is clearly a nervousness and anxiety that this man, Salman Abedi,

had associates and was maybe part of a network. In other words, there is

a potential life threat. I think any Prime Minister would be very wary

about returning to an election campaign in that context. There is

also a respect factor and how the public would react to politicians

shouting the odds at each other if people in danger of losing their

lives and still have children in hospital. Indeed. Thank you for

that. That is a problem. The names of those who lost their lives are

still coming out. There are heartbreaking pictures of youngsters

just starting out in life. Given the abilities of our security services,

I would think we will see breakthroughs in the next 48 to 72

hours. I really hope so. We are at the beginning of this terrorist

incident, I believe. We have seen in other terrorist incidents, lots of

people being arrested in flats and bombs going off. So it could happen

again. Chris, thank you very much. The one o'clock news is starting

over on BBC One now. We've made great strides

tackling HIV. Imagine if we could

create a movement