Spooks’ shame
THE MI5 failures which led to the slaughter of 22 innocent people by Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi were appalling.
It is true that the security service’s vigilance has saved a huge number of lives since 9/11. And that the volume of terror threats it monitors is immense.
At the time of the attack in 2017, the agency was under huge strain trying to keep tabs on scores of dangerous Islamist extremists returning from fighting with IS in Syria.
But there is no avoiding that its negligence over Abedi proved catastrophic.
The son of poisonous Libyan fanatics should have been referred to Prevent years earlier.
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Key pieces of evidence were then ignored. His return from fighting in Libya was not treated as significant.
Four days later he massacred concertgoers with a home-made bomb which might have been discovered if intelligence flagging him as a genuine threat had been acted on.
Yesterday’s TV apology by the chief of MI5 was unprecedented. He was right to say sorry to the victims’ families.
MI5 must learn from its mistakes — and ensure they are never repeated.
Gray to red
SUE Gray’s hiring as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff stinks.
This supposedly neutral top civil servant, whose Partygate probe damned Boris Johnson and played a large part in his resignation, has outed herself as a committed Labour cheerleader.
One minute she’s privy to state secrets working at the heart of the Tory Government. The next she’s masterminding Starmer’s campaign to topple it.
Allies of Boris are convinced he was the victim of a “stitch-up”.
It is certainly staggeringly tin-eared and inept of Starmer to offer her the job — and for her to accept it.
Many already believe Whitehall’s civil service is institutionally left-wing, obstructive and rooting for a Labour Government.
Starmer and Gray have made mugs of anyone still denying it.
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Tax madness
IF Boris Johnson is so desperate for corporation tax to be slashed, why did he agree to raise it as PM? That observation aside, he’s not wrong.
What is the point of our hard-won Brexit independence if not to outflank the competition with far lower tax rates to lure investment and jobs?
The Aussies are openly seducing British workers with higher pay and sunshine Down Under.
We, by contrast, are imposing the highest taxes in 70 years — including six per cent more extracted from businesses next month.
The Treasury’s coffers may be bare. But that is crazy.
