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What is the biggest division within the Western world since September 11, 2001? Why are we split over Iraq, Afghanistan, policing, human rights, immigration, community cohesion and a dozen other subjects? It is, at root, a disagreement about threat. This is what Tony Blair explained so lucidly to the Chilcot Inquiry yesterday. On the one hand are those who think that the attack on the Twin Towers proved that there is a global threat to our way of life. On the other hand is a coalition of people who argue that this threat is absurdly exaggerated, or that it is caused by the West's own aggression.
The disagreement plays out everywhere. In this newspaper today, John Yates, the head of counter-terrorism at the Metropolitan Police, raises the problem of what is known as "profiling". How should the authorities check passengers queuing for an aeroplane? Those who pooh-pooh the threat - or say that it is increased by the police's concentration on particular groups - want only random searches (or none). They put "fairness" first. Those who believe in the threat want to use methods which most effectively foil it. They take their stand on "common sense".
Sir Paul Stephenson, who became Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police last year, is interested not in politics, but in policing. Unlike his predecessor, Sir Ian Blair, he does not want policing to be permitted or prevented by negotiations with endless political/community/ pressure groups. He sees it as a contract with the public. That is why he has pursued a relentless policy of stop-and-search in relation to carrying knives in London. Knife crime has fallen.
He rejects "proportionality" about who is stopped and searched if it means that you don't find the knives. Knife crime in...