Link: BBC ON THIS DAY | 29 | 1976: Explosions rock London's West End.

Hardly breaking news, but sobering reading for those who tell us that everything has changed and that 19th Century notions of civil rights no longer make sense in 21st Century conditions. Terrorism is not new. There have always been political inadequates and posturing psychopaths for whom the bomb is more interesting than the ballot.

The men who planted 13 bombs on this day in 1976 walked away to plant more, and more. They were led by men shrewd enough to know that if they instilled fear, acted within bounds that would not lose all public sympathy and demonstrated sustained capacity to act, they could achieve a political victory. Under Tony Blair's weak leadership (and with support from the American Irish community which funded decades of terror) they did.

The men who planted the 7/7 bombs have planted their last. The approach of their political leadership is less subtle than that of the IRA. They give our society such a stark choice that, however pathetic our leaders, surrender is not an option. Only the insane death cult that is Islamism could reason that their actions are more threatening. Only a leadership as weak as ours, could reason that their plans justify the immediate surrender of our civil rights.