I don’t ever remember there being Troops on the streets of London, not even during the height of the IRA’s mainland bombing campaign.
On the radio
Callers ring into radio stations to share their thoughts and opinions on "what should be done" about the Manchester bombing.
Sometimes a voice would come through pitting the surface of the randomly obvious and socially acceptable offerings of my fellow Londoners.
One caller tried to talk about the number of arms the British and the Americans are peddling around the world and how this might have an effect on the current climate of terror.
The radio presenter did not have much patience for this kind of talk and cut the man off mid flow.
A young Muslim woman also had to suffer ignominy, having irritated the presenter by saying there was no connection between Islam and the bombing.
One nut job pointed out last month's American airstrikes in Syria had killed around two hundred and fifty people, many of them women and children. The right wing presenter gave the guy enough rope with which he fashioned a complicated knot made of conspiracy theories about 9/11. I won’t go into his arguments here - what would be the point? I have better things to talk about than planes with no wings and no luggage. Whatever the argument the guy was trying to make about the suffering of civilians in Syria was lost once his breathing laboured and he began to swing from his 9/11 noose.
The common consensus among the callers seemed to suggest that troops on the streets were justified, and we needed to up the security levels. But our policies of increasing security, containment, surveillance and the decision to bomb Syria are clearly not working.
Foreign adventures
I remember MPs at the time of the vote on whether to join the bombing campaign in Syria suggesting that bombing Assad's forces and terrorist positions would somehow make us more secure.
I couldn't help thinking more pictures of dead and dying civilians coming from the region mixed with the knowledge that we were now directly involved in the war was helping the terrorists. By bombing Syria, all we were doing was adding more weight to the argument for a holy war against the West; we were helping extremists persuade the vulnerable the West was their enemy.
Election campaign to resume tomorrow
Theresa May will probably offer - for our security - tighter controls on immigration, a new strategy for those fighters returning from Syria, and undoubtedly more surveillance. She will outline more of the same old same old - it will just be a little stronger, a little more concentrated.
The end to reckless military adventures
Unlike Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn is offering an alternative strategy. One that begins with putting an end to the UK’s involvement in reckless military adventures. Maybe this is a step in the right direction - at the very least it would make the work of those seeking to persuade others to kill themselves and our children a little harder.
Whatever the arguments, the British government's current policies to date have done little to reduce the risk of terrorism. If anything the level of extremist violence is escalating.
