Westminster

Working south of the river in Lambeth for a few years in my twenties, I used to walk across Westminster Bridge regularly, mostly for a bit of lunchtime exercise. I saw the London Eye being raised out of the river, Portcullis House being built, and the London Marathon run past. It's normally such a beautiful place to be, with the majestic Thames flowing beneath one's feet and really quite glorious architecture all around. Westminster Bridge always felt like a breath of fresh air, a wide boulevard on London's normally choking and congested streets. So it was with total horror that I watched the helicopter camera footage of a grey Hyundai charging along its pavements yesterday, ploughing into pedestrians before crashing into the railings of Parliament. Those lovely wide pavements had been turned into a weapon and used against our capital's citizens and visitors.

Having lived in London in July 2005, I remember the aftermath of a terrorist attack on our city all too well. The shock and disbelief, the sadness, the fear. The relief of a lucky escape for those who knew it could so easily have been them, of which thankfully I was one. But there was also the resolute determination amongst Londoners to rise up, come together and carry on as normal. And I know that London will do this again now, nearly 12 years on. It's a city that will survive anything that is thrown at it.

But the MPs in Parliament angered me yesterday. Not one of them was hurt, but they have made the incident all about them. They were drinking tea and ambling around lobbies in their safe little bubble while over 20 people sustained catastrophic injuries on the street outside. A policeman died protecting the MPs and their self-serving interests. Lucky Theresa May, instantly whisked off in an armoured car, while a man lay bleeding to death at her gates.

"This was an attack on democracy", they cried. Actually, thanks to fast-acting security services, he didn't get that far. The IRA did far more damage to government property and staff. And democracy? Yes, Parliament, that well known democratic institution, where (thanks to the first-past-the-post system) most people's votes don't end up with an MP representing them in the Commons, where the upper chamber's amendments to a bill can just be laughed at, and where we currently have an unelected Prime Minster being puppeteered by Paul Dacre and Rupert Murdoch, meaning she is ignoring half the voting population's wish not to leave the European Union at all. No, this ended up being a dreadful attack on innocent individuals caught up in a horrific situation by a mere twist of fate, and terrible bad luck. Parliament is destroying democracy all by itself.

"No terrorist will divide us", they shouted. No, you are also too busy dividing the country yourselves, by doing nothing to stop the anti-immigrant sentiment and racial hatred in our towns and villages, doing nothing to allay the fears of EU nationals living here with perfect right to do so, doing nothing to appease the devolved nations, doing nothing to make the rich poorer or the poor richer and society more equal, and doing nothing to accept that a 50/50 vote is not a mandate to pursue a hard Brexit at all costs, leaving millions of us too upset for words.

"The emergency services are amazing," they cooed. Well, of course they bloody are. And all the more amazing for managing to keep going while you cripple them of funds and rob them of their morale. Thank goodness that St Thomas's Hospital lies opposite the Houses of Parliament so that medics could be on the scene on foot in seconds. But how many of those injured who had to be transferred further afield were kept lying in ambulances and corridors for hours because there are no spare hospital beds in London?

Think, MPs, of what you were spared. Think of the men and women outside on the street who were killed because he couldn't get to you. And may it make you more humble. You are the privileged ones, and you must never abuse your power.

And London, as ever, I love you. My thoughts and heart are with you today.

A Song For Jenny

This was a poignant, unbearably sad portrayal of one family trying to come to terms with the devastating consequences of the London bombings on July 7th 2005. Jenny Nicholson was murdered by Mohammad Sidique Khan as he exploded a device in his backpack on a Circle Line Tube train just outside Edgware Road station. Jenny would not normally have been on that train, but a problem on her usual line meant that she had had to find an alternative route to work.

Her mother Julie was a parish priest. She had to not only come to terms with the worst loss possible, that of her own child, but also somehow reconcile her feelings of anger and hatred towards the bomber, and understand the consequences for her belief in God, the God who allowed this evil to happen in a world that He had supposedly created.

You see the family in their happy innocence at the start of the film, then the half attention to the news, the dawning realisation that something awful has happened, the panicked search for the missing Jenny, the confusion in the hospitals, the initially clinical visits by family liaison officers needing DNA and photographs, and then the terrible moment of truth when Jenny's body is finally identified. Julie does not flinch from seeking the reality, from visiting the site of the bomb, from holding the hand of her daughter's decimated corpse, and looking at photographs of the carriage with Jenny's remains inside. Julie explodes with rage at stupid questions, repressed emotions, and the photographs of Khan on the television. She has to distance herself from some of her family, and fill herself with love and strength for her surviving children, and her daughter's partner. She has to grieve for the grandchildren Jenny will never now be able to give her. She also experiences astonishing moments of tenderness and kindness from the police officers working with them, and a cabbie who takes her all the way from London to Reading free of charge after she tells him her story. He says it is so that she knows that there are still good people in the world.

The film ends at Jenny's funeral, with a very long journey of grief still left to travel. Of course nobody could ever really properly get over such a tragedy. The film makes it clear that some things are just too horrendous for words.

52 Londoners lost their lives on that terrible day. My own split-second decision that morning meant I was not among them, as I left for my Piccadilly Line commute through Russell Square half an hour later than usual. All of us who avoided being caught up in the carnage by the narrowest of margins or a momentary intervention of fate realised just how lucky we were, and how it could so easily have gone the other way. As easily as four suicide bombers manage to board London's public transport system entirely undetected in the height of the morning rush hour.

I wrote something for Guardian Witness this week, which was published yesterday, on the tenth anniversary of the bombings. That day, and the ones that followed, are ones I will never forget. I was humbled by my city's grace and resilience and how we all, somehow, managed to carry on. In many ways, we had no choice. Yet we did. We had been granted that choice. We had been spared. This time.

Unable to get to work I returned home to the sanctuary of our lounge,
 where I switched on the television and realised what I had avoided by sleeping in that morning.