Brighton, early hours of October 12, 1984
The IRA's bomb killed 5 people and injured many more. Its intent was to assassinate the Prime Minister and murder as many of the Cabinet as possible.
Twenty-five years on the perpetrators are all out of prison and at least one (unrepentant) perpetrator was recently welcomed in the House of Commons, as Stephen Glover indignantly writes.
I always wonder what the response to such a vile act - trying to kill all the leading members of a government in one fell swoop - would have been in other countries.
I fancy the United States wouldn't have rested until every perpetrator was either dead or behind bars. If a dissident region under the authority of the United States had been involved half a million men would have been on the ground within a month.
The French would no doubt have brought back the guillotine for the occasion.
Very bad. Also bad: the conceit, on the part of the woman whose father was murdered, that she may forgive the murderer in his name.
I don't think she forgave the murderer in her father's name. This was a crime against her as well and she is allowed (and enjoined by the New Testament) to forgive those who trespass against her. What none of us can do is forgive on somebody else's behalf.
I may have read too much into her actions.