On the evening of July 7, 2005, Tony Blair sought to reassure a shattered nation with the following promise. The terrorists, he vowed, would never win. “When they try to intimidate us, we will not be intimidated,” declared the then prime minister. “When they seek to change our country or our way of life by these methods, we will not be changed.”
Stirring words. Sadly, however, they proved to be flatly untrue. Two decades later, it’s becoming ever clearer that the terrorists are indeed winning, that we are indeed intimidated, and that they have indeed succeeded in changing our country and our way of life. And if anyone doubts it, let me point out that we are about to pass the fifth anniversary of one of the most contemptible episodes in modern British history: the driving from public life of the Batley schoolteacher.
