Three innocents wounded, a knife blade glinting under Swiss station lights, and Scotland Yard suddenly remembers rail security exists. The report lands like a damp cloth on a fevered brow: the UK’s counter-terror units are to ‘review’ transport security. Again.
One almost expects a memo from the Home Office titled: ‘On the Inevitability of Stabbings and the Need for a Review Cycle’. The Swiss, efficient as ever, will handle their incident with their usual, almost boring competence. We, however, shall perform our national ritual: a flurry of consultations, a rise in the threat level, and a slow return to torpor until the next blade flashes.
The intellectual decadence of our age means we treat symptoms, not causes. We forget that a nation that cannot secure its own trains has already lost a quiet battle. The Fall of Rome, you see, did not begin with barbarians at the gates.
It began with a weary centurion who sighed and said, ‘We should review the wall’s maintenance schedule.’ Rome is always falling, and we are always reviewing.
