London’s resilience and humanity make this city what it is
As in the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings, tolerance, openness and a shared sense of community triumphed
with visitors and security passes and the professionalism of doorkeepers and police in the Palace of Westminster created calm and oversaw a process that extended no special favours to anyone. Anyone who thought they’d be allowed out learned that the same rules applied to everyone.
Then there were the qualities it revealed in London. There are so many clichés about London: that we are together, we are a diverse, open and tolerant city — actually, it turns out that they’re not clichés. They’re the values by which all of us as Londoners live every day. On the way to the Tube after we left the abbey I heard a young man on his phone talking abusively about Muslims who had done this.
But he was an exception. We shall not be divided by some fanatic who decides to destroy the lives of a countless number of people. That responsibility to maintain unity sits on all of us.
Over the days ahead, the memories of this will settle and the immediate trauma will recede — but not for those who are bereaved, not for those children on Westminster Bridge who will never forget the horrors they encountered when they came to London.
And there are things that have to be done by government. Learning from 7/7, we must ensure that counselling and support is available for those affected, that there is a memorial service to remember the dead and to reflect on what happened. There should be a lasting memorial to those who died and to the emergency staff who, like PC Keith Palmer, showed such courage.
London genuinely is resilient. On the Underground to work this morning I was struck by the way the Tube was as crowded as usual, with young women putting on make-up or checking their phones. So much has changed for London, and so much remained the same. That’s what we have to be proud of. We were neither cowed nor intimidated and all of us, even if we were unharmed, received messages of love.
After 7/7, the people of London showed resilience and humanity. There has never been a better demonstration of the tolerance and openness that makes this city what is.
But we showed our essential humanity on Wednesday, too. Think of the heroic efforts of rescue teams and the police, not to mention the acts of kindness of the strangers on the street who helped the wounded.
When I was the minister for humanitarian assistance I heard the Queen read from The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder: “There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”
That sense of concern, of solidarity for the people whose lives have changed for ever, lives on in London.