Courtesy of LBC Radio. SPEAKERS Nick Ferrari (LBC presenter) Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe Through the course of the programme, everything you need to know in the aftermath of those Paris attacks. The mastermind as he s been declared on the run supposedly taunting Police Forces across Europe; the ease with which he crosses borders. We ll have a live report from the part of Brussels where supposedly some of the killers are bred or are indeed indoctrinated to Glasgow here in Great Britain where some of the Syrian migrants will be arriving and we are also at Wembley ahead of tonight s football match, and the latest news, some form of cyber-attack as well. we re going to hear more from the Chancellor George Osborne later today. All that coming up, but as the horrific carnage in Paris was at its height, in cities around the world, security was hastily being stepped up. Few cities are closer geographically or spiritually than London and the response there was emphatic and rapid. Extra officers on the streets. Increased vigilance at key sites, and today a so-called ring of steel around Wembley as I ve just mentioned for tonight s football match. However, set against proposed cuts of 800 million in the Metropolitan Police s budget, possibly losing thousands of officers, how are they meant to cope? Well your opportunity to put your calls, your questions and possibly your concerns and fears to Britain s Top Cop as he s often called, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe is in the studio with me. Sir Bernard, you re a very busy man, thank you for finding time to come in and take calls for half an hour with me and I d like to start with that question. It was within the last few weeks that you told a number of MPs 800 million worth of cuts Commissioner, possibly 5,000 Officers. You also made the point that this would damage Neighbourhood Police and which I don't need to tell you but to explain to my listeners, that s where your men and women get to know what s going on in certain communities. How are you going to cope? Well good morning Nick, and thanks for this opportunity to talk to the people of London and I hope reassure them. There s a danger that we all go away and panic about what happened in Paris terrible, terrible events that we re all very, very shocked by but it s my job to put in place plans to keep them safe and that s what we ve been announcing over these few days. So the first thing I ve done is to order that there will be more Firearms Officers available every day on the streets. We have Armed
Response Vehicles I m not going to say how many for reasons that are obvious. How did you know that was going to be my next question Sir Bernard? But we ve increased them by about a third, that s quite a significant undertaking but I am determined that we are well-prepared should anything like that happen here. The second things I ve done is ordered that there is a full team available 24 hours a day waiting just in case that terrible thing which we hope won t happen and I think generally is unlikely to happen just in case it does happen and we ve done all that within our existing resources and then the next thing I m going to do is over the next few weeks is to decide how we create a mobile response a further mobile response but we ll announce plans of that within the coming days. What does that mean Commissioner, mobile response? Well what we d I m sure what the public understand, I know you do, is that we re an unarmed force. We re proud of that. There are only probably four forces in the world that are unarmed, despite this huge city, despite this huge country. So we have 32,000 Officers at the moment and only 2,000 of them are armed and as you know, you see them protecting Parliament, you see them well you don't see them protecting high profile individuals, and we have our Armed Response Units and we have our Specialist Team should we have to go into buildings when it s a planned event. But I think what Paris showed us, with so many attackers, with so many scenes moving around at speed, we need to have a mobile reserve. I've got a good idea how that can be achieved, and over the next few weeks as I ve worked all that detail out, we will be announcing it. It won t necessarily mean more resources but it will mean that some of our Officers have to have another skill. Have we got enough Armed Officers? I think at the moment we re fine. I point you to Paris, and you ll be aware, there are 40 times more Armed Officers in France than there are in the UK this is the whole of the country and we hear about something called multiplicity of attacks now Commissioner which just to explain it s where let s say something kicks off at a football stadium in London and then a shopping centre and then a cinema, have you got enough men and women with guns? I believe we have at the moment, and so therefore people should be reassured by that but what I ve said is that, you know, like I ve just explained to you is that we re working up plans now so that within a short period of time we ve got an extra I would think probably about another third on top of the core provision. So what I ve said to you already, the
Armed Response Vehicle element, we re increasing by a third straightaway but then the overall pool I want to increase probably by a third overall and also at any one time on duty probably double. So these are the sort of things which I think is a reasonable response because what we don t want to do surely is we don't want to knee jerk towards a new type of policing where everybody s armed. I don't think anybody s arguing for that but I think this type of attack shows that the Police have got to be ready, flexible and enough reserves in depth. And just before you take your first question Commissioner, 2,000 more spies we heard about from the Prime Minister yesterday. Fantastic. Have you got enough boots on the ground, enough blokes and women to actually all that intel that comes in, have you got enough people out in the front to actually go out and do anything with all this intelligence they get? Well first of all Nick, I m making decisions with the resources I ve got. I sense you haven t then Commissioner in the way you answered. Well I will answer your question directly, I promise you is that I m making decisions with the resources I ve got because I think this is what I need to do to keep London safe. This London that we know, we love, that I love and I also love the Officers that I lead and I ve got to keep them safe to go forward on behalf of the public. So I m making those decisions now that I can. The Government is clearly making its own decisions. You ve seen those announcement as you ve seen over the last few days, and I know because we re in dialogue with them that they are considering the needs that we ve got. I make my decisions and it s now time obviously for them to make theirs. So there could be a review on the cuts that were coming your way? I don't know. I can only say that obviously all of us, I think including Government, I was in [unclear 00:05:30] on Saturday and I know that all members of Government, the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary all take very seriously our safety and I know that they are seriously considering what does this mean for the UK and London in particular? I know they re sincere in that and of course we will hear their decisions over the next couple of weeks. Put your headphones on. It s time to get through your opportunity of course to call the Commissioner here on LBC and the first one through is Duray in Greenwich. Duray, go ahead, you re through to Sir Bernard. C: Morning. Good morning Duray.
C: Sir Bernard. I want to say firstly I think that you re doing a great job and I think the British Police Force I mean it s quite commendable what you do and I have no complaints. I would like to say I m a British Muslim and these Paris attacks that have just happened, this is literally a wake-up call for Britain and I feel that everyone It s not just our safety, it s everyone s safety and but for British Muslims, I feel that it would be good to have a Police presence, a visible Police presence outside mosques because there has been backlash and there does tend to be backlash after incidents like this. Okay then Duray, first of all C: So that s one of the things. Sorry. Okay, let s just get the I will come back to you, let s get some Police Guards outside mosques. Yeah. Well first of all Duray, thank you for the compliments about British policing because it s nice to hear. I think I believe it s right but of course it s nice to hear from someone else. Secondly, in terms of mosques, we do in terms of our high profile places. After this type of event, we do increase patrolling there. I think you might understand it s hard to get an Officer outside every venue all the time because we have to look at synagogues, we have to look at mosques, there are high profile buildings at the moment, obviously we re interested in French interest property, obviously the Embassy, but there s very there s quite a lot of French people who live in London, probably quarter of a million French people, plus all the businesses and associations. So we do have quite a lot of property that we need to keep an eye on. Some we keep Officers outside all the time, and the rest we increase our patrolling. So I hope you do see more patrolling at the mosques. Difficult at times to keep an Officer there all the time. Duray, you wanted, if you can keep it brief is there s another question please? C: Yes. No, I just I want to just I had one more thing that I think that Police do need to be armed. I mean what s happened in Paris is a wake-up call and I think it s not just about increasing some Armed Officers. I think all the Police need to Armed and I think the Government needs to give the priority to the Police in this regard, you know, if they re getting cuts, they shouldn t be getting cuts. It should be priorities for the Police because they re the ones that are Just briefly Duray, you would be happy for every Officer in London to be Armed, would you? C: Yes. Commissioner?
I think Duray, one thing we ve all got to keep an eye on. You know when politicians and to be fair people like me say that, you know, we don't want to lose our way of life just because of what these terrorists do, this is just one aspect of it. So we ve got to be really careful that we don t overreact and give these people the very thing that they want so that if we arm all our police, when generally we wouldn t do that, we ve been we ve got a great tradition and we all believe that policing by consent means that an officer can go into the middle of Leicester Square, carry out their job, enforce the law, they don't have to have a gun. Why would we throw that away ju8st because of some of these horrible people who have done such a terrible thing? So I think if that does ever come, and I hope, you know, please God it doesn t come, but if it ever does come, I don't think it should be on the back of one awful event. We ve got to think very carefully about these things but I think what we should do, which is what I ve said to Nick already, is that we should think clearly about having more Officers better equipped, more available. Let s talk a little bit Duray, thank you. Let s talk a little bit about the equipment Commissioner. You may have had sight of an article in one of the newspapers today, the Daily Mail, by Kevin Hurley. He was Head of Counter Terrorism with the City of London Police, DCS at the Met, Territorial Army Officer, now Commissioner at Surrey Police. He talks actually in quite detail about guns. He says in Paris the killers usually use an AK47 Kalashnikov, an automatic machine gun that fires 7.62 millimetre rounds at a right rate of 500 a minute. He then makes a point that the guns that your officers are carrying are simply no match. They re the ARVs, the G36C, I don't know what IO m talking about, and the AR15 defender. Both, he says, high velocity capable weapons, inadequate for combatting the newest breed of terrorist. Their calibre is only 5.56 mil, they cannot be fired automatically in a head to head confrontation with the Kalashnikov, the Police Officer will be defeated. Your guys got the wrong guns? Well Nick, I know Kevin and I like him but I think he s being foolish to talk in great detail about our capability. I ve not read the article, I ve heard an account of it. So we never talk about Operational matters and the reason But I have to put this to you now. I realise that, but I m just explaining why I won t respond in detail. Our Officers need all the benefit of surprise that we can achieve, so that means we don't talk about the sort of weaponry we ve got. We ll always review what we've got, but I m not sure what the aim is of talking in public To give your blokes and women better guns. But you don't have to talk about the detail to make that point. So I don't think it s a wise thing to do. What I ve said already, you know, to you and obviously we re saying to our staff is that we are reviewing what we ve got
and whether or not we are fit for purpose. Now over the next few days, I am going together our Firearms Commanders, and including the Team Leaders who are out there on the ground, and ask them what do they think as a reflection of what we ve seen in Paris because I want to hear from them directly. Of course we ll always consider whether we need more equipment but at the moment, I can t agree with Kevin having such a public debate about such an important thing. Is it true that many Officers in the Met are instructed to carry only 15 rounds although their magazines can carry 30? That s exactly the point that I will not respond to Nick for reasons that are I think you will accept obvious. Is it true that the long-standing Police tactic in firearms negotiations has been contain and negotiate but this latest Islamist outrage is what s known as a game changer? Well I think to be fair we thought that really post 7/7 and post 9/11. We've changed our attitude drastically, really because when the person that you are trying to arrest is prepared to commit suicide and doesn t mind being doesn t mind dying in the process of killing other people, you ve got to change your mind-set. So we ve already done that but it does show how difficult it is because as you quite rightly say, people who are old enough, perhaps us, will remember back to the Embassy siege where of course everybody stood off and right at the very end the SAS went in and did what they had to do, but that was when we thought we could negotiate with people. Here where we see, if you look in Paris, that it appears within minutes of going into that building, they started to kill people and carried on killing people, you have to intervene quickly. So that s I m afraid is a mind-set which has been changed before Paris but probably the problem has been emphasised by Paris. I know you re really loathe, and this is the last one, the French have, in this Commissioner s view, sorry Commissioner, they have better guns. Can I take it from you that if they need better guns, they will be obtained? Of course. Zane is in Wapping, you re on the radio, Zane, good morning. C: Morning all. Good morning Zane. C: Yeah so Good morning. Yeah, my view is in all the Paris attack and whatnot, your system of recruitment campaign from ISIS, they re trying to just sway ordinary Muslims to flee to them and we ve seen
recent cases of it happen. So what I really want to know is what are British Police going to be doing, specifically tackling radicalisation and whether you think it is a viable route for the Police to be in direct contact with those who own mosques and run mosques just to get a better grasp of what s going on in the mosque and to ensure that the right message is being relayed to the people who attend those mosques? Well first of all Zane, I think what we ought to remind everybody should they need reminding is that 99% I would say of Muslims are good people who want to live a good life in this country and want nothing to do with this barbaric, awful behaviour. So just because they happen to be Muslims and just because these terrorists are acting in they say in the name of Islam, that doesn t mean to say that we accept that. So I think we ve all got to be determined to condemn that sort of behaviour. Secondly, we are already doing an awful lot. We are going into our mosques, our Community Officers Nick said right at the beginning, you know, it s a broad policing tapestry, it s not just the Firearms Officers, it s not just the Counter Terrorist Officers, we ve got to be out in our communities talking and what that means, it s not just not about talking. When people trust the Police, when they know them enough to trust them, then what happens is they tell us stuff. They might tell us how s burgling. They might tell us where somebody who is wanted is hiding out and they might tell us when somebody s becoming a terrorist, when somebody s become more radical in their behaviour. So we ve got to have those vital links and more and more over these last three years, now probably about two thirds of the leads that we get around terrorists are coming from the community. So that s what we do. One, to get out there and talk to people. Number two is, where we can, we put people into something called a channel process which de-radicalises or tries to deradicalise those who seem to be on that terrible path to this awful sort of behaviour. Madeleine is in [unclear 00:14:12], you re through to the Commissioner, go ahead Madeleine. C: Morning Sir Bernard. Morning Madeleine. C: As a member of the Jewish community who as you know are a major target for terrorism at the best of times, I can see we feel particularly vulnerable at the moment like no other ethnic group in this country needs to employ security guards outside their schools and places of worship etc. as you know. I have two questions for you. What is the possibility of having bags checked at the entrances of stations, shopping centres, restaurants, theatres, proper security as a measure of prevention perhaps? And so I d be interested in your view.
I think, Madelaine, they are reasonable steps, should they be needed and I'm not sure they are at the moment. I think we ve got to bear in mind that this happened in Paris and the bag checks I'm not sure would have made any difference in any of these attacks, from what we hear, we re still waiting for the detail. We do get that sort of checking, as you know, going on an aeroplane, we do get pat downs going in to football matches, and certainly tonight at Wembley we will see that. What will we see, Commissioner, exactly at Wembley? Well first of you ll see more police officers than we normally put there. How many are you throwing at it? We ve got a few hundred that we ll be putting there and we ll also have firearms officers Is that enough, 800, I mean there s going to be, presumably there s about 80,000, it might not be a full turnout I suppose. Tens of thousands No the [unclear 00:15:41] 80,000 but I think we usually police football matches for the amount of football violence there might be there, we re not expecting any tonight so these are people that essentially they re there to reassure, we have no intelligence that someone will attack this game but the France football team, playing within a few hours of that terrible attack in the Stade de France when they were playing Germany, it would be a bit odd if we didn t respond in a common sense way. So we re going to see a few hundred officers protecting people but also, I believe, reassuring. We re going to see overt arming, I'm going to be there, symbolically really, because I think I want to be alongside The prime minister s attending as well isn't he? I believe so, I think a few people are going, I think Boris is going to, yes just show support really. Duke of Cambridge. Yes. So I think there s a few people and of course what that brings with it is a protection requirement for our people then. So our view is that we want to stand alongside the French, we want to make clear that we re with them, we want to keep them safe, I've already said that a quarter of a million of them in London, so it s our duty to keep them feeling safe as well. For the French people I'm sure seeing officers with firearms is not unusual. It will be for the Brits who are going. So I hope they re reassured by it, not worried by it but I hope also they understand that we re doing it for a purpose, which is But you don t see this Paddington, Charring Cross, Victoria Stations, you don t see that day? Well actually, no, I mean [unclear 00:16:52] British Transport Police do patrol our big railway stations with firearms, you know, you see that s the British Transport Police commitment. What I think Madelaine s talking
about as well is whether we d see bag searches on entrance to big supermarkets, big places where there are crowds of people. Yes Westfield or wherever it is. I don t think at the moment that s necessary. There may be a day when it comes but please god it s not going to be soon. Madelaine, thank you, Steve s in Epsom, Steve, you re on the radio, your question. S: Yes good morning gentlemen. Good morning Steve. S: Firstly, I would like to say I think Sir Bernard s doing a superb job for the Met. I do believe we ve got the best police in the world, I d just like to say that. I know you don t get that very often Sir Bernard, but you re doing a great job mate. Well it s kind of you to say so. A few other people disagree Steve. Yes that s enough of that, Steve, on to the questions. Sorry go on. S: Yes can you get me off my parking fine please? I wondered what it was leading to. If it s in Hertfordshire, you ve no chance mate, I'm sorry. On we go Steve. S: On a serious note in any working day in London I think we ve got something like 14 million people in this city. I think I'm right in saying I think we ve got 38,000 police in London, am I right? It s 32,000, just slightly less than that. S: 32, it s nowhere near enough and my question to you, Sir Bernard, is have you had a conversation with Mr Cameron and said look, Look Dave I need more police. We haven't got enough, I need more? And I d like to know have you had that conversation with him and what does he say to you? Sir Bernard. Well first of all I would never call the prime minister that name obviously Steve, but we do have conversations Have you asked, Prime Minister I need more men and women? No any conversation we have with government is private so you know that s a confidential thing that both they would have with us and I expect to keep the same confidentiality with them. But you know that I spoke in The Standard a few weeks ago, you ve already referred to it, Nick, and I was getting concerned as I am for the future of London, given it s such a growing city and I can see the police force reducing. And in that context and of course the terrorist threat that we already know and all the things that we ve got to do, we saw a couple of weeks ago all these protests in London, the students were out, they actually behaved well on the whole,
but there was a group within them that didn t. We had the anonymous group out the following night. The previous week we d had a big rave went wrong in Lambeth and then we had remembrance weekend. Great events, but need to be policed, I think in each of those events we had about 1,500 police officers dedicated to it. But to do that we ve got to take them out of Barnet, we ve got to take them out Croydon, you know, we haven't got a separate box. When these big things happen, when we have to respond at speed to the events of Paris, I've got to work within the pool of people I've got. We've got 32,000, we know So there are gaps now, if you re putting more men and women out there to do counter terror. Well the way we re doing it at the moment, Nick, is what we do we call it flex, but what we mean is we pay people overtime, broadly. How much is that costing, Commissioner? It costs significant amounts of money, it will already cost a few hundred thousand, it will go into the millions over the next few weeks. So as an emergency service our best way of responding to emergencies, if it s a big one, is to ask the people we ve got to work longer and harder and that s what we do and they re very good at it. That s where we sort of make this thing work. We know that public spending is tight. We re not immune to that but I said if we could keep at least 30,000 cops I can make this city safe, if it drops below that I start to get worried. Even post Paris you can keep this city safe with 30,000? I mean if you ask me I mean I would love to 40,000, I d love to 500,000 but in reality money is tight. So I've said I don t want to lose any but we think we can make it work at 30. And when it comes to keeping the city safe who s more difficult to identify, Commissioner, home grown terrorists or people who ve sneaked in to this country? On the whole you re more worried, of course, about the ones who sneak in, because you may not know they re there, you don t know where they are, you don t know who they meet. The ones we ve got at home, on the whole, we believe that our security services have got a very good handle on them and we work together hand in hand How many are we talking about, 650, 1,000? It s been common knowledge, we ve talked over the years, we don t talk specific numbers but you know, 4,000, 3,000 to 4,000 people across the United Kingdom, not just in London, but very significant numbers here in London. So therefore we ve got to keep an eye on them, and that demands resources, it s got to be done. What we ve all said, you cannot look at all of them all of the time so you ve got to prioritise and we do reasonable things. We tried to be proportionate in our monitoring of these people and make sure that we know where they are, what they re doing. But as
we ve seen, probably in Paris and Belgium or France and Belgium, it s not easy to predict where someone who has started becoming radical moves to a position where they re going to do something. These are not always rational steps that we can logically say right, they ve just achieved milestone five, let s go and lock them up. These are difficult decisions which is why the head of security service, Andrew Parker, and myself have talked about these are difficult decisions, we believe we re getting them right most of the time but it s not, it s entirely possible one of them gets through, that s what you saw in numbers in Paris on Friday of last week. And how concerned should we be about the arrival of potential migrants as might have been the case in Paris through the Syrian channel? I think what we ve got to do is wait for the detail of that case. I think everybody s said of course there s a risk, if you ve got porous borders and you ve got migrants coming through there s a risk that terrorists are hidden amongst them or people who become terrorists get hidden amongst them, there is a risk. But none of us have yet seen clear evidence of that, there s clearly been reporting of it over these last few hours that if like people were found with certain passports that that passport might have been used in Greece. Well instead of might have shall we just work out what happened? as a police officer I just want the facts. And if it is the facts? Then we ll have to create some new policies no doubt or see what it means because we ve got to work out tougher border control in Europe? Well certainly. This country s actually got quite good border controls compared to the rest of Europe. As we know they ve got two problems at the moment in Europe. One is you ve got millions of people wandering through Europe and number two is you ve got limited control over the borders. But I think what we all are wise to do and I've said that we have analysed what s happened about firearms, so therefore we are making, I hope, a rational and logical response, let s work out who these people were, they re talking about eight people at least, who were they? Where did they come from? Did they use other passports? Who set them off on this trail? Where did they get the guns from? Where did the ammunition come from? How come they crossed European borders, it would appear, with the same ease as the Eurostar train? Back and forth as they fancied. But I think, Nick, this is where we ve got to work, let s see the facts. But of course we think, in the UK, this is quite a hard thing to go across borders. You get in to continental Europe, driving from Belgium to France is not that big a deal. It s like us going from here to Scotland. You just drive over it, you don t even notice the border s there. Different countries have different borders.
Are you a fan of the Schengen Agreement, commissioner? That s a political thing that I'm not going to get involved in Mr Ferrari. What I would say is we always want good secure borders, we want to make sure that those people we want to get out, keep out, they stay out. We want to make sure that the people we want to keep here don t leave the country borders you re a fan of the borders, you re not a fan of the Schengen Agreement, Commissioner? I'm a fan of keeping this country safe. I'm a fan of making sure that, for example, let me just give you one quick example. If somebody commits a murder today, I want to make sure they don t leave this country, so we can arrest them and equally if there s a murder from somewhere else I don t want them coming to this country to put people here in danger. Good strong borders make sure that we can assess the risk and find out who we want to leave and who we want to enter. Just before the final question from Cameron, a question from me, Jeremy Corbyn is not a fan of the shoot to kill policy. Commissioner, are you? I don t know what exactly he s said and I don t know what he means by shoot to kill. The law is this, the law says that the police and anybody else can use reasonable force and reasonable force to do one of two or three things. First of all, to stop a crime. Secondly, to arrest somebody who s putting somebody in danger. What it means generally, if somebody s life s at risk police officers intervene and they know that somebody s going to armed or otherwise so dangerous, and then we have a policy to stop them. Now stop them might mean killing them but we don t have a shoot to kill them policy but of course in these very difficult circumstances, you imagine the officers, we saw some pictures didn t we, of the French officers who went to that theatre, were going forward and were suddenly shot at, it might have been terrifying. There was one, I though incredibly brave officer who stood where he was, stood behind a pillar and he was going to have a go wasn t he? Well what guts does that take? And in those half a seconds, those few seconds, they need all our support. My officers need to know that we re all behind them, that the decisions they take in that half a second are going to be unencumbered by thoughts that put doubt in their mind. So we work within the law and we make sure that the people on the other side, the terrorist, knows that we re as determined as they are, as ruthless as they are, there s difference between us. We work within the law. So how unhelpful are comments such as these from Mr Corbyn? Mr Corbyn s got to account for his own statements, I can only make clear we do not have a shoot to kill policy, we work within the law but the officers have some difficult decisions, they deserve all our support. Cameron s in [unclear 00:25:43] for a final question. Cameron. C: Hello, good morning, Sir Bernard.
Good morning Cameron. C: compliments but I'm not going to go too much in to it. Straight to the point. Thank you. C: How do you think you would prevent suicide bombings, because to me it seems a very hopeless case that if someone wanted to go in to a public place, like Trafalgar Square, or anywhere, where there s 100s of 1000s of people at one time and just blow himself up then how do you possibly prevent that, what s the solution to preventing that sort of act? The best defence, Cameron, I always says is good intelligence and people say what does that mean. I ll tell you what it means, is that when we know that John Smith is going to go and kill somebody we arrest them before they get there. So you don t want to wait until somebody hits you before you react. So our job, together with the intelligence service, is get intelligence from abroad, from this country and then keep an eye on them and take them out before they get to that point. So when they buy the explosives, when they re creating the explosives, when they re thinking about getting a gun or they obtain a gun. And over this last year that s happened on seven occasions when we ve intervened, in different parts of the country, including London, to keep people safe. Of course if they arrive at the scene, they ve got a bomb on, and all the things that we, the terrible things we know about it s a very difficult situation. We do have plans, we do have training for this and we do our best to resolve it, but it s not easy but your best chance is before they get there not on the day they arrive. And the Prime Minister talked about those attacks yesterday, Commissioner, I think he said seven attacks as you ve just mentioned. Were any of those on the scale of Paris? No and I think the prime minister confirmed that, which is that they were clearly threats to life, had we not intervened we believe that within hours or days that there would have been life lost. So these are dangerous people. This is not, they re thinking about it, this is not they ve got a motivation to do it, this is on the point of doing it, they ve usually got hold of some material, they ve got hold of weapons and our officers have to go and make sure that they don t get away with it. But they re final decisions, Nick, you know, we can be looking at people for weeks, months, and suddenly you ve got to, you hope you know when they get hold of a gun. You hope that you know when they got hold of [unclear 00:27:42] to bombs. But it s not a perfect science and that s why we all say it s entirely possible that one day they get through but to date we ve been successful together. And lastly I know you ve come in essentially to reassure, to make sure Londoners are vigilant but to reassure them as well, a final message if you would Commissioner. Well first of all I hope that people are reassured, you know, this is something that happened in France, and in particular we ve seen in Belgium, there s clearly a fringe Franco-Belgium access there where
you ve got people who are very, very dangerous and they ve had a series of attacks over the months, so this is something in another country not ours, but I think it gives us fair warning, it gives us fair planning time, so I hope people are reassured that we are making sensible decisions with government about the right tactics, the right level of involvement, the right level of resourcing, to make sure we keep people safe. You should go about your normal life, as I am, just enjoying life and go to the football match tonight, enjoy it, we re there to keep you safe. If we ever think there s a particular incident or a particular threat we will let you know. we know that the threat level is severe but we are taking reasonable precautions. The British police together with security services are the best in the world, I believe, we ve seen great success over the years, so you should be reassured on that. I think we all need to make sure that we don t knee jerk to something that we regret in year five. These are things that can change policing, can change the way all we live our lives, very quickly and then we could regret them later. So let s just think through this terrible event in Paris and all the things that we ve seen in Belgium and France over the last few months, but let s not overreact and I think you know, we will keep people safe but enjoy your life, that s what we re here for. From my listeners to the men and women working with you, good luck and thank you for coming in. You ve been listening to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, here on LBC where news is next.