We've been sold a lie.

There is no Al Quaida.

I mean, if there was a big, scary, SPECTRE-like, terrorist organisation lurking in the shadows waiting to get us, it would have managed another hit against the US mainland in the years since 9/11.

There are terrorists, sure- but they're not centrally organised or well-armed or particularly smart. They're capable of one-off attacks on soft targets- as in Madrid and London.

Consider that last- aborted- attack on the London underground. One of the guys- the one the Italians are holding- has said the bombs were never meant to go off. I don't know whether he's lying or telling the truth, but either way his gang were a Mickey Mouse outfit.

I don't want to down-play the danger. There have been bombs and there will be more bombs, but this isn't World War III. We're not up against a Big Enemy, we're up against a scattered bunch of stupid, idealistic young men, all fired up by the same stupid, fascistic ideology.

It's one for the police, not the military.

But the lie about Al Quaida, complicated by further lies about WMDs and the politics of the Middle East, has landed us in an illegal and unwinnable war that is simply stengthening the stupid, fascistic ideology that inspires the stupid, idealistic young men.

Now we're being told that the Brazilian man the police shot in Stockwell wasn't wearing a puffa jacket and didn't vault over the ticket barrier to escape.

This is the problem with our rolling 24 hour news services: reporters are so hungry for product they'll accept and process anything that comes their way- conjecture, rumour, misinformation, lies- and the obligation to speak to camera every fifteen minutes means that they don't have time to go check their "facts". More news means worse news.

You punch above your weight in international affairs- as Britain is proud of doing- and you get punched back. There may not be a direct causal link between Mr Blair's Iraq adventure and the London bombs, but there's clearly a connection. Britain has been dropping bombs all over the Islamic world recently and sooner or later someone was bound to want to retaliate.

This latest failed attack is puzzling. I can think of scenarios that might explain it- the bomb-maker was incompetent- he deliberately sabotaged the mission- but they're all a bit wild. Four dud bombs in a batch of four is verging on the surreal.

The good thing is the police now have four half-exploded bombs to submit to forensic examination. They also- pretty soon- are likely to have four live bombers to interrogate.

My greatest fear is that yesterday's atrocity will change us. That we'll become cowed, suspicious, fearful, chauvinistic, nasty. That, as a direct result, we'll be more ready to allow government to herd us and spy on us and take away our liberties. If these things happen it'll be a victory for the bombers.

The chortling comminique that went up on the net yesterday, purportedly from the bombers, proclaimed (in that curious Arabian Nights lingo these people use) "Behold Britain now, ablaze with fear and terror, horrified from its north to its south, from its east to its west." This isn't my perception of how the people of Britain have reacted. What I feel in myself is rather the opposite, not a quickening, but a slowing down of the pulse, a sadness and a heaviness, a weary resignation. "Oh, not again."

Before this lot there was the IRA and before the IRA there was the Luftwaffe and before the Luftwaffe there were the Anarchist and Bolshevik and Fenian cells that put the wind up the Edwardians and late Victorians. We've been living with bombers for almost as long as there've been modern cities. Read Conrad's Secret Agent, published in 1907 (which fictionalises a real life incident where an half-arsed attempt was made to blow up the Royal Observatory at Greenwich) and it's all there- right down to the loony with explosives strapped to his chest and a switch in his pocket. The ideology changes but the methods and the mindset remain the same.

Two days ago London was on a high because of the Olympics. Last weekend London's Hyde Park was the central venue for the international festival of good will and hard rocking that was Live 8. It looked like it was going to be a good year. And now, suddenly, we've been knocked sideways. Well, a period of mourning is appropriate, but after that we need to recover our groove, our vibe, our mojo. It's not right that a tiny gang of godbothering psychos should dictate the mood of the nation.