Our response to terror attacks must work in the real world, not just on paper

The threat from extremists is unrelenting – and we must be unrelenting too in learning lessons from the Manchester attacks

The bomb detonated by a young local-born suicide attacker in the Manchester Arena, killing 22 people and injuring 500 more in May last year, was one of the most harrowing acts of terrorism in this country.

It is right, therefore, to learn the lessons. Today, we report the findings of an inquiry into the response of the emergency services to the atrocity, including the remarkable failure of the fire service to attend the scene for two hours because of communication errors.

Lord Kerslake, who carried out the inquiry on behalf of Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, tried to emphasise the praise in his report for the swift and brave responses of most of the blue-light services. But the important part of his work must be to ensure the confusion that kept valuable emergency workers away from the casualties should not happen again.

It must be understood that, although the inquiry was commissioned by a city region, the lessons must apply nationwide. And one lesson here is that those in charge of emergency services on the ground must have the authority to respond as they see fit, unless there are overwhelming reasons from above to hold back.

Mr Burnham’s telling comment, that guidelines were “right on paper but wrong in practice”, needs to be acted upon.

The other practical lesson, a secondary issue, is that systems for setting up temporary emergency phone lines need to work better – again, something that has national application.

Lord Kerslake’s inquiry is not the only one to have been carried out into the bombing. Even more urgent than the lessons for responding to a terrorist attack are those for preventing another such horror in the first place. Last year the security service carried an internal inquiry into whether it should have identified the bomber. He had been known to the security services and the police, but had not been regarded as a threat.

A review by the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation found that MI5 might have been able to prevent the attack, having dismissed two pieces of intelligence on the bomber that were “highly relevant”. But he had not, for example, been picked up by the Prevent anti-radicalisation programme.

It is significant, as we also report today, that referrals to Prevent, having fallen last year, are now believed to be rising again – with a lot of the increase coming from far-right suspects rather than Islamists. The threat of politically inspired violence is, in the words of the security services, “unrelenting”.

The response of the security and emergency services in learning the lessons of recent terrorist attacks must be the same: unrelenting.