The Home Office report (pdf) into the response to the July 7 2005 bombings is a reasonably candid admission of how far some victims were let down by shortcomings in the preparations for an attack. Clearly, the government hopes that the report will help dampen down the continuing calls from some victims for a full public inquiry.
Survivors such as Rachel North, who has been campaigning for an inquiry, have not been persuaded that an inquiry would be a "distraction", as the report argues. Ms North said earlier this week: "There has been a series of meetings held and documents produced, none of which can be seen as a single public collation of all matters ... the public were attacked and are still at risk."
Today the Metropolitan police force defended its response to the London bombings. The assistant commissioner, Tarique Ghaffur, said: "I believe it is important that we do not lose sight of the truly magnificent response that we delivered on that terrible morning last July."
David Davis, the Tory home affairs spokesman, said the report highlighted the "weaknesses in government planning and coordination". He called for a "single, independent inquiry into the July bombings so we can truly learn the lessons of this attack and improve our preparedness".
