A lone wolf terror atrocity will return to our streets …but he can’t kill us all
Pathetic ISIS-inspired losers can't defeat us and the black flag of ISIS will never fly over Downing Street
WHERE will it be next time?
At a German beer festival or a sun-kissed French beach?
On a train speeding across the open borders of Europe or in some quiet suburban church?
Or will Islamic terror come once again to our British streets?
All we can say with chilling certainty is the horror will happen again and very soon — an eruption of merciless cruelty carried out in the name of Islamic jihad, a senseless act that rejoices in the mass murder and maiming of the innocent.
We even know what the perpetrator will look like.
He will be young, male and Muslim, almost certainly with a history of petty crime.
He will — before he started growing that wispy beard — have been partial to weed and women.
He will be a miserable little low-life whose CV includes failed attempts to make it as a DJ or rapper.
He may have tried and failed to get to Syria.
He may have been raised in Europe or he might have arrived here last year, one of Frau Merkel’s undocumented newcomers.
But you can bet your last Euro that he will be a pathetic little loser who is taking his revenge on the Western country that gave him everything apart from a reason to stay alive.
Islamic terror gave him a reason to die.
With its self-pitying rhetoric and incendiary call to arms, jihad promises everything the real world denied him — self-esteem, glory and revenge.
Related stories
And count on this — as the emergency services scrape his remains off the pavement, the headlines will call him a lone wolf.
For we have moved beyond the time of the terrorist “spectacular” — 9/11, 7/7, the Paris attacks of 2015, and into the age of the lone wolf.
Sometimes he has a dopey-looking accomplice but this new wave of atrocities, coming so fast now that we do not have time to mourn the dead, are usually carried out by an army of one.
ISIS might be on the run in its blood-stained little sandbox, pushed back by air strikes and Kurdish militia, but its acolytes here are as lethal as cornered rats
But the lone wolf is never truly alone, for every lone wolf is plugged into a network of evil that would love to watch us burn.
And the lone wolf — the psychotic outsider, full of self-pity and resentment, shouting “Allahu Akbar!” with his dying breath — will be with us for many years.
ISIS might be on the run in its blood-stained little sandbox, pushed back by air strikes and Kurdish militia, but its acolytes here are as lethal as cornered rats.
This is an openly sectarian conflict, jihad-crazed Muslims versus the West, yet now we hear the comforting clichés like “terror has no religion” and “Islam is a religion of peace”, pious banalities will not save anyone the next time the knives or guns come out.
An unknown number of young male Muslims are deeply unhappy with their lives in Europe.
Thousands believe their disappointing lives can be given meaning by inflicting death on innocent civilians.
Much of this resentment has been brewing for decades — as in France, where seven million Muslims have been left to rot in the miserable suburbs.
Some of it is more recent, like Chancellor Merkel’s unilateral decision to allow more than a million Muslim migrants into Germany in a year.
A humanitarian act future historians will note as national suicide.
Even now the silly Frau can’t concede she has made a mistake.
The West has given a home to people who despise everything it stands for and it presents the great challenge of our generation
And while the UK has stronger borders, better security services and tougher laws on guns than France and Germany, we are far from immune.
The RAF serviceman who was nearly abducted in Norfolk could have suffered the same fate as Lee Rigby.
The West has always made the arrogant assumption that our free, open societies would absorb other cultures and magically convert them to our tolerant views.
Every new attack reminds us that it has not worked.
The West has given a home to people who despise everything it stands for and it presents the great challenge of our generation.
The pathetic little losers currently dominating the news with their acts of sadism are not Nazi Germany. Islamic terror, for all its horrors, does not pose our society an existential threat
The next lone wolf is out there now, sharpening his butcher’s knife, cleaning his gun or trying on his suicide vest for size.
What are we going to do about him?
We could start by keeping some perspective.
The pathetic little losers currently dominating the news with their acts of sadism are not Nazi Germany.
Islamic terror, for all its horrors, does not pose our society an existential threat.
The black flag of jihad will never fly over Downing Street.
Yes, this long hot summer of terror will claim more innocent lives.
But we would do well to remember that our parents and grandparents survived — and triumphed over — far greater threats to their existence.
The lone wolf, the new poster boy of Islamic terror, is in the end a pitiful wretch who wages his filthy war against the unarmed, the defenceless and the innocent.
And he will never kill us all.
Labour's digging its Owen grave
HARD to believe but Labour leadership challenger Owen Smith would be even worse for the party than Jeremy Corbyn.
Smith believes that Labour can rule once more if only they can be a bit more left wing.
Dream on, comrade.
His retro revolutionary rap is bad enough but his shameful attitude towards women is from another century.
Smith suggests that Labour should, “smash Theresa May back on her heels”.
And here’s why the Labour Party has never had an elected female leader in 116 years.
Here’s why the Tories are on their second female Prime Minister while a potential Labour leader promotes his manifesto in the language of domestic violence.
The Labour Party is standing in its own grave.
But it just can’t stop digging.
Johnny Rotten still inspires me
FORTY years after he inspired me in my misspent youth, Johnny Rotten continues to be an inspirational figure in my life.
But these days John Lydon inspires me to eat right, go to the gym and never, ever dress as a male nurse.
Ignore the Scottish 'anti-Brexit' myth
IT is a referendum myth that everyone in Scotland voted to stay under the Brussels jackboot.
True, the Remain camp was more enthusiastically embraced north of the border than south.
But it is simply wrong to claim – as the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon, above, constantly does – that everyone in Scotland is weeping bitter tears into their Irn-Bru over Brexit.
On a turnout of 67.2 per cent, 1,661,191 Scots voted to stay in the European Union while 1,018,322 Scots voted to get the hell out.
Why do those million-plus Scots always get forgotten?
It is not an insignificant number.
Scottish actor Alan Cumming offensively claims from his American home that Brexit was caused by “the stupid English”.
No, Alan – it was partly caused by more than one million sensible Scots.
Obama's no 'unity President'
BARACK OBAMA gave a stirring speech at the Democratic Convention – but then Obama always gives a stirring speech.
Sadly, real change seemed to be beyond Obama’s reach and “the unity President” leaves the Oval Office with his country bitterly divided – between black and white, rich and poor.
Even his own party is divided between Hillary Clinton’s supporters and the Bernie Sanders fans who can’t stand her.
Unity?
When it comes to unity, President Obama took America to the back of the queue.
Prince rant pencil pusher should be shown the door
THE taxpayer-funded British Council, which promotes British culture, launches an inquiry into its boss Angela Gibbins over her response to a Facebook post which cruelly called Prince George, three, a “f***ing d***head”.
Why is there an inquiry?
Gibbins doesn’t deny her vitriolic comments about the child.
There is no reason for not sacking her NOW.
I’ve done events for the British Council from Sweden to Hong Kong.
But if Gibbins keeps her £80,000-a-year job, I will not touch the British Council with a barge pole.
Sex and drugs ... and ISAs
AS a final rusty nail in rock music’s coffin, the New Musical Express has taken to weeping and wailing about the UK leaving the corrupt, anti-democratic, job-destroying European Union.
The NME – for generations the scurrilous bible of youthful dissent – warns its readership that leaving the EU will hurt their “savings”.
What savings?
When did NME readers stop spending every last penny on sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll?
In my day, the NME sold 250,000 copies every week.
Now it is free.
How long before they can’t even give it away?