My city and local area is abuzz with activity following yesterday’s anti-terror raids. All day, journalists, cameramen, politicians, police officers and curious members of the public could be seen along the Stratford Rd. By the time I got home from work, the only people around were the police in fluorescent jackets and the Newsnight team, with the intrepid Richard Watson presenting from outside a barber shop.
The two policemen guarding the mobile phone shop looked bored. A man passed by and asked them whether it will re-open, as he had given the shop a ‘very expensive’ handset for repairing. He was assured it would. Whereas the police had finished with the bookshop down the road when I went for a stroll in the evening, the policemen in fluorescent continued to guard the phone shop at 6:30 am when I drove by to work today.
It is difficult to gauge what local people think. People are clearly scared and concerned, but there is a hint of scepticism that anything will come out of this. Friends and relatives of some of those arrested have fiercely protested their innocence. We will just have to wait and see what comes out of it.
If no charges are brought and this turns out to be another Forest Gate, then, alas, I fear the media will not return with the same force and damage to the reputation of the area would have been done.
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