A little debate has sprung up between Neil and I, its roots in the accidental execution shooting death of the Brazilian electrician in London. I read about the shoot to kill policy, and Neil says the number of armed policemen is so low that it makes little difference anyway. The UK is not like the US in that respect, people do not walk around carrying guns, even the police. The UK police wouldn’t shoot first and ask questions later. Even the revelation that 2,100 police officers in London are now licenced to use submachine guns and pistols, with training direct from Israel, and that the shoot to kill policy, in place since the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US, but curiously never used until after London was directly attacked, will budge his opinion.

I agree that Jean Charles de Menezes was under suspicion, maybe for good reason (perhaps he was kind of shifty in other ways), but we’ll never know the truth because of all the emotion that is now associated with him. The police have conceded that he ‘had nothing to do with terrorism’.

I reckon London is different now. The IRA bombings back then were different to what has been experienced in the past weeks, and people will be on edge, alert to any activity deemed outside their realms of normal behaviour. The Brazilian bloke was shot seven times because he was deemed suspicious enough, the Muslim man in Nottingham was beaten to death because he was brown, and therefore representative (to the assailants) of the bombers.

If I was one of the police officers chasing de Menezes, I know I would be thinking, He might not be a suicide bomber, but what if he is, and I fail to protect the people around him?

If I was being stared at because I was South Asian or Arabic, I know I would get nervous, and maybe start shifting in my seat, maybe start sweating (I won’t because I’m ethnic Chinese and I’m tattooed so I’m used to being stared at anyway). Maybe try to keep my mind from noticing the stares, by rooting through the bag I always carry.

I reckon London is very different now.